For those against the Death Penalty

[*michaelsean*]

(07-03-2018, 01:48 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Lately, my reading and research have been evolving my thoughts on a lot of things. They haven't really changed my views, but given me different ways to think about them. This is one of those instances. To me, every law we have in this country, every action our government takes, should be guided by the Constitution. This seems obvious, but when we look at the preamble it helps to give us a template.


Forming a perfect union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing those blessings. What our governments, local, state, and federal do should fall into those categories. Now I have made bold the categories which someone could argue the death penalty would fall under.

The death penalty is not just as it is not implemented evenly and without error. It does not insure domestic tranquility because it fails as a deterrent. If the death penalty fails in these two things, then its existence means that we are not securing the blessings of liberty and our posterity.

That is my current position on the death penalty. It runs counter to what we, as a nation, said we stood for 230 years ago. I may say that we need a new Constitution, and I still maintain that, but those values that exist in the preamble are values that we should continue to strive for as a country.

If the death penalty doesn't do those things, then neither does life in prison. 

Were the people who wrote the Constitution against the death penalty?  If they weren't, then it's hard to say the death penalty runs counter to what we stood for 230 years ago.