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We should never celebrate the taking of another human life.

The execution of Troy Davis and subsequent reaction, the cheering for all the executions in Texas, hell even the people that yelled “YEAH” during the Tea Party debate when the question about letting an uninsured man die has got me thinking about the over all state of our society.

We have historically been bloodthirsty as a species, we are merely clever apes after all, history is full of wars, murders, public executions, sacrifices, and bloodsport. We design devices specifically for killing other people.

But shouldn’t we be better than this? Why revel in the death of another? Aside from the debate over capital punishment, shouldn’t it be a solemn event when taking the life of another, what ever the reason?

Part of what I feel separates humanity from other animals is the ability to objectify our thoughts. The ability to ask our self about the motivations behind our actions.

Like I stated in “How to be a Free Thinker”, you should always be questioning yourself, this includes the motivations behind your actions and the rationality of such motivations.

While we, as a species,have a long history of bloodlust, shouldn’t we strive to be better than our past?

Doesn’t this make us just as detestable as the the cheering mobs at public executions in the past, the people who pit fellow humans against each other in bloodsport, or the people who celebrate in the streets over the deaths of those who’s ideologies are different than theirs?

We should be horrified over this type of behavior. Shouldn’t there should be more respect, more sanctity of human life than this?

I feel we can’t move forward as a society if we continue to tolerate the celebration of taking another human life. 

Republicans like Rick Perry are skeptical of everything the government does—except when it executes people.

By Dahlia Lithwick

Either you believe in government or you don’t.

The current field of Republican contenders for president are hard at work to prove they don’t. The best government, they insist, will leave you alone to repair your own ruptured kidney while your neighbors bring you casseroles and cigarettes. In recent weeks, leading Republicans have made plain they don’t believe in government-run health care (lo, even unto death). They don’t believe in inoculating children again HPV (lo, even unto death). They don’t believe in government-run disaster relief (ditto, re death), the minimum wage, Social Security, or the Federal Reserve. There is nothing, it seems—from protecting civil rights to safeguarding the environment—that big government bureaucracies can’t foul up.

But there is one exception: killing people. These same Republicans who are dubious of government’s ability to do anything right have an apparently bottomless faith in the capital-justice system. Everything is broken in America, they claim—except the machinery of death.

[FULL STORY]

A petition you should sign

ceasesilence:

caffeinatedbunny:

I’ve been following Troy Davis’s case for several years now, and there is almost NO evidence to suggest he is guilty of the murder for which he has been convicted. All of the witnesses have recanted their statements.

Tell Georgia RIGHT NOW that they absolutely cannot execute an innocent man.

It only takes a minute to add your name to the petition.

Save Troy Davis Now

Signed.

(Source: caffeinatedfeminist, via lesshumansmorecats)

Replies too good to keep in the notes…

…regarding what I just wrote about capital punishment.

sageoflogic

I don’t consider the Death Penalty a punishment, I consider it protecting society from those so heinous they should never be allowed to associate with it ever again.

Keeping them in maximum security lock down keeps them out of society, and they have to suffer for a while before they meet their end. But I can completely understand your mode of thinking.

blogvader

My bigger problem with it is the fact that more than forty people have been exonerated by new evidence analysis techniques over the past fifteen years, and the thought that we might have executed forty innocent people makes my blood run cold.

This is an extremely valid point that I didn’t even think of just now, and I feel exactly the same way. It’s chilling to think how many people have been executed in modern times who were completely innocent.

I’m not a big fan of the death penalty…

…or killing people in general, even if their crimes are heinous, even if they are horrible, vile, people.

They only way I could see death as an option is if it was in self defense.

Why?

There is no afterlife. There’s no eternal hell waiting for them. Sorry, there isn’t, it’s all fairy tales. When someone dies, they’re done. What kind of punishment is that? They no longer exist, they no longer think or perceive, I like to use the phrase “death is too good for them.”

If someone has committed a crime worthy of capital punishment, let them live in agony. Life in prison is one of the worst punishments I can think of, that, or even worse life in solitary confinement.