Capital Punishment

I absolutely do not support your attempt to classify people's lives into categories of importance. First of all, it is a slippery slope that should NEVER be approached, because it encourages racism, sexism, and every other "ism" you could possibly make up. You would send human rights back a century by proposing reasoning like this, and wouldn't be any more just than saying that slaves are only worth 3/5's of a person. Second of all, even if there was a system like this, your arbitrary opinion of who is more important than others is not valid. Maybe I think that scientist's lives are more valuable, for perpetuating our technology that is the foundation of all of our lives, or maybe important politicians lives are more valuable, for controlling the most important decisions in the country. Do you see how ignorant this whole notion is? Do you see how much damage someone could do, if they could misuse this reasoning? The notion of "this person is more inherently valuable, in the most essential of ways, than that person", is preposterous. I cannot stress how much I utterly disagree with you on this essential point, and everything else in this discourse pales in importance to the point I am making in this paragraph. With that said, I will address the rest of your points. You are indeed putting yourself up on a pedestal, breaker, by saying that "I have the right to decide that this person's life is more valuable than this other person's life". Pride means "an overestimation of one's own abilities", and is considered by many to be the absolute cardinal sin, or motivation, that can affect one's own character. It is the sin that all other sins grow from. How you would defend that you are not judging someone by sentencing them to death is interesting, to say the least. While our courts do reserve the judgement of guilty or not guilty, the judgement of "right to life" and "no right to life", to a person, should be reserved to God. It isn't only that our justice system is imperfect, and would inevitably kill an innocent person, or maybe a person who is not innocent but still not deserving of death. My point has more to do with the very value of a person's life to begin with, and how you would cheapen the value of all of our lives by giving the gov't the deeds to our souls. Again, it is a slippery slope, and we should avoid setting this dangerous precedent at all costs. Eye for an eye: Well, since you are going to make me spell it out, I will spell it out. So I kill your brother, you must kill my sister, I will have to kill your father, you must kill me, and then my friend will kill you, your son, and his neighbor. Then, why don't your neighbor's friends come and kill my dog and cat, and maybe my Grandma. My Grandfather can come kill your mother's neices cousin, twice seperated.... So you are honestly saying that if someone does something despicable to you, then you must do the same despicable thing back to them? Outrageous! The whole notion of our justice system is meant to intercept these occurences, and level them out without the need for retaliatory action. Being fined or imprisoned is not "eye for an eye" because while the punishment fits the crime, it is not IDENTICAL to the crime. Eye for an eye means that the punishment be identical to the crime, and offers no relief from the infinite perpetuation of the crime. I really didn't think that there was anyone out there who even thought this logic held up at all, I always thought that the general notion of "eye for an eye" was an automatic way to show how bad someone's argument is, just like "the ends justify the means". Crowded prisons are a problem, but not enough to justify your argument. Your argument about "no pain" is not very compelling either. Embryos are not people, so I argue that no murder has been commited. I don't think that when a man impregnates a woman, that before she can light up a cigarette, there is ALREADY 3 people in the room. This is ridiculous, and I believe it is only perpetuated by superstitious reasoning. I use God as a rhetorical device in my debates, but I don't count on the existence of God to justify my points. I think that an embryo is too early to grant personhood rights, and that birth is too late. That is my personal opinion, and I think that it offers a very good way to appease both radical pro-lifers, who believe in instant personhood, and radical pro-choicers, who believe in late-term abortions. My belief system in this matter offers a middle-ground to work with, which I think is a good start.