Sylver Dragon's Journal: Death Penalty

Tonight I find myself stuck late at work waiting and hoping for a SQL server upgrade to go smoothly, so I browse on over to Fark and start reading the thread on the impending execution of Tookie Williams.
As can be expected both sides of the argument are very heated. Personally, I just can't get that passionate about the whole thing, as I do not have that strong of stance on it. However, I do find one thing odd, and it's struck me as odd every time I run across it:
The claim that the death penalty is "barbaric".
To me this claim involves two things, both of which seem highly subjective.

1. What do you mean by "barbaric". Obviously the direct definition would be to act like barbarians. Then, I challenge someone to define what that is, and why it is bad?
2. Why is the death penalty "barbaric", for your definition?

Honestly I don't see it. I realize in an emotionally charged argument it is pretty normal to throw around terms like "enlightened" "civilized" etc. Honestly, I don't think these terms really have a place in rational discussion. I don't think that any such statement can be backed up by a logical argument. It will either fall back on an appeal to authority or and appeal to concensus. The former being an outright fallacy, the latter being downright stupid along with being a fallacy.
And, please, for <insert diety of choice here>'s sake don't quote me the Ghandi line. Yes, Ghandi was a good man, he was also not some font of perfect truth. Moreover, that is nothing more that an appeal to authority, which we've already covered.

By way of honesty, I'll state up front that I currently support the death penalty (assuming a certain quality of court system. The bit in Illinois (I think it was) where they found massive problems, needs to be stopped). However, I'm not above being swayed by a good argument. One point to keep in mind, I'm of the opinion that justice is based on retribution, not rehabilitation. If you want to try to break that belief, go for it.

whoa whoa whoa...

[ellem]

slow down there sparky. the idea of Justice has nothing to do with rehabilitaion or revenge. it has to do with Justice. meting out the law fairly and if necessary applying the correct punishment for a crime.

depsite over 600 people being on Death row in California this useless skin flap will be only the 12th person killed by the state since 1976. And before anyone gets all racial he's the 2nd black man.

he needs to die.

Would we even be having this discussion if he were a member of the KKK who "turned his

Retribution?

[SolemnDragon]

Would we even be having this discussion if he were a member of the KKK who "turned his life around" found God and wrote kids books?

Yes, we would.

I'm not advocating spring him immediately, i don't know about that. And i won't quote the ghandi line.

But... you can't convince me that in an age where we CAN offer other options, we should resort to killing in cold blood.

Don't get me wrong, there are a LOT of situations in which i'd fight to kill. But this- when the guy's already in custody, and we can prevent him

Re:Retribution?

[ellem]

See he lost his right to be "willing" to do anything when he killed 4 people based on their race. And lest we forget, that's only 4 people he killed we KNOW of because we convicted him of it.

Re:Retribution?

[SolemnDragon]

And he should spend his life behind bars. But killing him doesn't bring them back, and we might get use out of him alive. Deterrents don't work on the larger scale, and i'm not inclined to say that it deters him, either, from anything he'd be able to go out and do now that he's behind bars.

Re:Retribution?

[ellem]

This is a concept I don't think you can really understand. And in a lot of ways I hope you are never able to understand it. Really. The knowledge that some people need to be put down for their actions is (as it is for me) based in some personal tragedy.

Re:whoa whoa whoa...

[Sylver Dragon]

the idea of Justice has nothing to do with rehabilitaion or revenge.it has to do with Justice. meting out the law fairly and if necessary applying the correct punishment for a crime.

How exactly is that different than retribution? It's simply been legitimized by social agreement. Certainly, we wouldn't want people running around commiting acts of retribution willy-nilly, hence the codifing of laws and if-then type punishments. However, it is still, at its heart a system of retribution.