the US should support the death penalty.

According to the bill of human rights, set up by the United Nations, article 3 states "people have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of security". However, does a person deserve these rights if they will not acknowledge the rights of others? The answer is no. The fact is that society can only be "humane" in punishment to those who have been humane in their actions. I am arguing the negative side to the resolution: A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment. The key terms in the resolution are "just society" and "death penalty". Just society is an association or company of persons united together by mutual consent in order to deliberate, determine, and act jointly for some common purpose, while in keeping with truth or fact. Death penalty is supreme penalty exacted for murder or other capital crimes. The value I am basing my negative argument on is retribution. Retribution in criminal law, in Black's Law Dictionary, is defined as punishment based on the fact that every crime demands payment in the form of punishment. My value criterion is the thought of "an eye for an eye", which is also known as Roman law. Therefore, my two contentions will be as follows: my first is that all societies follow a basic law, which is commonly referred to as "the Golden rule" and this rule encourages the punishment to equal the crime, and my second contention is when a person kills then they do so in blatant disregard of the victim's rights and thus are civilly dead. I will begin by arguing my first contention. No matter what society in the world we live in, we all have a basic belief to "do onto others as we would have others do onto us". This has been labeled as the "Golden Rule" in western societies. The fact is it is really just a rephrased version of an eye for an eye. For example, let us look at a person taking another person's life. In a society that follows the Roman law, the punisher would take the criminal's life for punishment equal to crime. However, what would be the punishment in a society that follows the "Golden Rule"? They would first look at what the criminal should have done, which is that obviously he shouldn't have murdered the victim on purpose in the first place. So what would be equal punishment for the crime? You can't ask for payment because how can it be judged how much the life is worth when there are so many contributions that that person could have made, people that could have been affected by that victim, and general good they could have provided for society? The truth is that the only fair punishment would be to end the life of the murderer. If a person were bold enough to kill another human being then they should be put to death themselves, so that the punishment can equal the crime. The fact is that a life, just like a lost limb, a foul relationship, or an act of treason, can not be compensated for through money or relinquishing possessions. Furthermore, taking a life isn't equal to the punishment of living the rest of your life in a prison cell. The fact is that while living the rest of your life in a prison cell you are given all the luxuries of living in a free world. The only thing infringed upon would be the criminal's freedoms, not their right to life. I would like to now bring up my second contention which is when a person kills then they do so in blatant disregard of the victim's rights and thus are civilly dead. Civilly dead is defined as a person having no rights. In this case the murderer will have lost their human rights because they killed another person, which violates the victim's own rights. So, because the murderer has already lost their rights then it would be futile for the other side to debate that killing the murderer would go against their human rights. Going on the definition of society, the only way for it to function is for the individuals in the society to work to a common good. The society protects the individuals for working towards a common good and if the individuals don't work towards that then the society falls apart. Therefore it is imperative for the individuals to have a structured form of justice in order to keep social order. If a single individual goes against the most basic of laws in the society then they would automatically be separating themselves from the society for not going with the rest of the group towards the common good. This leads to them being civilly dead. It can probably be agreed upon that "thou shalt not kill" has been one of those basic laws since the time when civilizations were first being formed.