First of all, you really need to work on your formatting skills.
Here, use this link to study up:
http://theologyonline.com/misc.php?do=bbcode
Now, onto your post.
Not like it's a secret:
The 10 countries that execute the most people:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-countries-that-execute-the-most-people-2016-4
Just what I told you. Do you really think I'd say it if I couldn't back it up?
You say a lot of things without being able to back them up.
Barbarian observes:
Let's see what reality says:
About half of all the executions in 2018 took place in Texas, which carried out 13 death sentences. Tennessee was second with three. Alabama, Florida and Georgia each had two
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/executions-remain-at-near-record-lows-in-2018
All of those have an above-average homicide rate.
And how long did it take for them to actually execute the criminals after sentencing? Was it within 24-48 hours? or was it several years after the fact?
My premise, Barbarian, is that a SWIFT punishment is a sufficient deterrent against crime.
Executing criminals years after the fact is not swift.
As I showed you, the lengthy appeals process saved over 20 innocent people in Texas alone,
At the cost of how many lives, Barb?
How many people were killed by the ones who were let go because of the system that is biased towards saving the innocent over punishing the guilty?
My guess is that it's more than 20.
because they lived long enough for someone to prove they were innocent.
You're ignoring the premise of my position, that if we had a properly implemented justice system, the load on the justice system wouldn't be so high, and investigators could do a much better job of investigating, leading to fewer innocent people being convicted.
As it stands now, the current system cannot handle the load of all the crime that goes on, and so innocent people are put through it where otherwise they wouldn't be likely to even be suspected.
Again, when you have a properly implemented justice system, then as a rule of thumb, the innocent are protected, and the criminals are punished, and that serves as a deterrent to those who would commit crime.
You still haven't told me how many of those innocent people you'd be willing to have killed in order to make sure we kill murderers promptly.
I don't answer that question, Barb, because it assumes the truth of your position.
God says it is equally wicked to kill an innocent person as it is to let a guilty person live.
BOTH profane God. BOTH should be avoided equally.
Your system tries to protect the innocent more than it punishes the guilty, and so it fails at BOTH.
"Well, we aren't as bad as the Chinese government" seems like setting the bar way too low to me.
This coming from someone who advocates a system that tries to protect the innocent more than punishing the guilty, in direct opposition to what God says, which is that BOTH are equally important.
Would you please post the link to where you found that image?
I'm not too knowledgable on how WordPress urls work, so me trying to modify the link to get to the source page probably won't work.
And besides, just looking at the link makes me wonder if it's not just a page for promoting a book...
Here's a much more reliable site:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAQegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3TWNIQ20p8aATmPE0V9G6S
(sorry, it links to a pdf, so that's the best link I can find...)
See Page 6 (page number is 38 at the bottom left corner), which shows the murder rate since 1900.
As you see, the homicide rates today are much less than the average for the early 1900s.
See the above link.
You can always cherry-pick a year to "prove" whatever you like, but the trends are obvious.
The "trend" since 1900 is still "up," and the death penalty was still enforced then.
As you see, homicide rates went down as execution rates fell. Which seems to be completely incompatible with your belief that more executions would cut the murder rate.
That's because most of the criminals were locked up.
If there's no criminals on the streets, there's no crime.
But eventually, those criminals are released, or they escape, or they teach other criminals while in prison how to do the things they did.
The data show just the opposite.
Rather, it is perfectly in line with my position for the above reason.
Yes, as population grows, one expects more homicides, if the tendency to commit homicide remains constant. However, the rate of homicides has dropped markedly as the number of executions has fallen. So that's important to keep in mind.
Again the reason that the homicide rate has fallen is that we're locking up all the criminals, or they don't become repeat offenders because they kill themselves.
Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation.
And have little foresight about consequences, which probably accounts for a lot of the data showing that the death penalty is an ineffective deterrent.
Which is something my position predicts, but you have to try to explain.
As the Bible says, the Law is the great teacher. It teaches people how to behave in society.
When you have bad laws (and that includes the punishments that go with them), or too many of them, the people either ignore them, or are not taught them.
When you have GOOD laws, on the other hand, that are few in number, and easy to understand, it is far less likely that a criminal won't know the law he's breaking.
So there's a trade-off. How many of those innocent people would it be O.K. to kill in order to kill more murderers?
A percentage or an absolute number would be find.
Again, your question assumes the truth of your position, which is why I won't answer it.
God says that killing the innocent and protecting the guilty are EQUALLY evil.
Your position inherently favors protecting the innocent, and neglects killing those deserving of death.
As you have seen, crime rates have dropped markedly in the last three decades.
That was never in question.
What's in question is the "why".
So you're saying it doesn't matter how many innocent people we kill, so long as we make sure we kill as many murderers as possible?
No, that's not what I'm saying.
But your proposal would have killed at least 20 innocent people in Texas alone.
Only if you assume the truth of your own position.
Rather, those 20 people would never have been at risk of being punished, because the crimes they were convicted of wouldn't have happened in the first place.
...the state will kill scores of innocent people who would have been saved under the law today.
No, Barb, that's false.
Your position assumes that people are just mindless drones that can't react to their environment.
If would-be criminals see that other criminals are being caught and, within 48 hours, punished appropriately, the state would only have to execute two or three criminals before the crime rate drops to near zero. And yes, I mean ALL crime.
How is executing a murderer for murder justice?
You claim to be a Christian, but you don't know the answer to that?
Because God says "life for life" is just.
It has nothing to do with what I believe, Barb. It's what the Bible says.
Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. - Ecclesiastes 8:11
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes8:11&version=NKJV
But the data show just the opposite result.
So you're calling God a liar?
Killing more people, is nicely correlated with higher murder rates.
Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation.
No "might" about it. Under your proposal, all of those innocent people would have been put to death by the state.
Rather, the crime they were convicted of would have never occurred, and thus they wouldn't have ever been convicted. See how that works?
The death penalty is justified only if we are absolutely sure we have the right person.
This is in direct contradiction to what God says, which is that two or three witnesses shall establish a matter.
As you see, the present standard falls far short of that.
The present standard is far short of the best, sure, but not for the reasons you think.
And yes, those 20 are only the lucky ones who played the system long enough to be cleared of guilt. We don't know how many others were innocent and failed to be cleared.
And this is an appeal to emotion.
God says to punish those convicted of committing a crime swiftly and painfully. Doing so deters criminals from committing more crime.
One American Marxist excused executions in the Soviet Union by saying "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs." I have to disagree.
And... How is that relevant? Or are you attempting to compare my position with that of a Marxist?
So you're saying it doesn't matter how many innocent people we kill, so long as we execute murderers quickly?
No, I'm saying that by putting murderers to death swiftly, you deter other would-be murderers from committing murder, preventing the innocent from being harmed, either by being murdered, or by being convicted in place of the real murderer.
You seem very reluctant to face that issue.
Allow me to say the same about you in regards to facing the fact that GOD is the one who said to execute those convicted of capital crimes, which means that it's not me that you're disagreeing with, but rather God.
