Death penalty should remain

Off the bat, I will concede that the death penalty doesn't deter and costs more than life without parole That aside, we should punish people with what they deserve, regardless of cost. Justice should not be up for sale to the lowest bidder. Right now, I am going to respond to 7 typical anti-death penalty arguments: 1. Some say that the death penalty is wrong, and life in prison is worse anyway. I'm sorry but you can't argue on one hand that the death penalty is wrong and then argue that life in prison is worse but appropriate. How on earth is "appropriate" worse than "wrong"? Is the death penalty wrong or is life in prison worse? One can't have it both ways. 2. How can we say killing is wrong if we kill? I'm sorry but that is absurd. Carrying out a sentence has no comparison to committing a crime against another person. The death penalty does not translate to "It's okay to murder." If it does, then putting someone in jail says "it's okay to hold people against their will" or imposing fines says "it's okay to steal" or requiring community service says, "it's okay to have slaves." You see my point. It is a punishment due to something that the criminal did. It is completely consistent AND understood that it is punishment; it is not an example of what's okay. How's this for a change: what kind of a message are we sending if we are telling society that, you can commit things like mass murder, torturing someone to death, child murder, etc… and still live? 3. As a follow-up to that, some may argue that in the states that don't have it, the murder rate is lower, and the same is true in some countries that don't have it. Those who say that are confusing cause and effect. Put simply, they have no death penalty because they have a lower murder rate, NOT the other way around 4. That brings me to another argument. Some argue that we're on par with countries like Iran because they have the death penalty while countries like Canada and Britain don't. That's a 2-dimensional way of looking at it. First the obvious, countries like Iran apply it arbitrarily, we apply it justly under the law. Second, countries in Europe have to abolish it to be a part of the European Union. Lastly, a lot of those countries' citizens still support the death penalty, it's just their elitist governments that don't. All in all, to compare us to Iran in this case is apples and oranges. We apply the death penalty justly under the law; they apply it arbitrarily. We impose it after the person has been convicted and appeals have been exhausted, they impose it on the spot. 5. Some may say that the death penalty is racist. The majority of those executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 have been white, while blacks have committed the majority of murders. If it's racist in that sense, it's racist against whites. Some may then say that doing something to a white person is more likely to you the death penalty, than doing that exact same thing to a black person. While there is truth to that, isn't that a symptom of a bigger problem? That bigger problem is inconsistency and racism in our judicial system. Abolishing the death penalty is not going to solve that. We need to take steps to ensure consistency in sentences, that's not in question. Even if the problem of racism is just with the death penalty, we should fix that and not abolish the death penalty entirely. Put simply, if your water system needs repairing, would you instead decide to move houses entirely? 6. Some may also argue that there is the possibility of innocence. Once again, isn't that just a symptom of a bigger problem? That bigger problem is mistakes in the judicial system. Again, abolishing the death penalty does nothing to solve that. We should have plenty of safeguards in place; all people convicted deserve every opportunity to challenge it. In fact, if we are to abolish the death penalty because of the possibility of innocence, we are further fostering mistakes made by the judicial system. Since life in prison is subject to way less safeguards, won't more innocent people be wrongly sentenced? Also, won't the jury be less careful if someone's life is not on the line? Don't get me wrong, it is true that there are people who have been wrongly convicted and then sentenced to death. How about we implement ways to further ensure that the person we are executing is guilty instead of abolishing the death penalty entirely? 7. Another argument is that it violates the 8th amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Well it is definitely not unusual, and in fact, it's more unusual not to have the death penalty. Second, The founding fathers wrote the constitution and they had no problem with the death penalty. The final blow to that argument is the 5th Amendment says "nor shall anyone be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." It's saying that with due process of law, you can be deprived of life, and you're either alive or dead, there are no shades of gray. Putting people in jail deprives them of liberty, not life. So, with the combination of that part of the 5th Amendment and the 8th Amendment, it can be said that the constitution requires it to be carried out in the most humane way. All in all, if the death penalty was supposed to be banned by the constitution as cruel and unusual, that clear contradiction in the Fifth Amendment would not be there. The death penalty is a matter of justice. For the sake of this, let's assume that prison does not have TV's, or any of that fun stuff. Let's even go as far as life in solitary confinement with no visitors. The argument to have the death penalty instead of that is the criminal should not end up better off than the victim, and if he does, it sends the message that the criminal's life is more valuable than the victim's. The fact that the person is still able to see the sunrise and sunset, remember the good times he's had, and live to be even just one more year old when their victim will stay one age forever is saying that the criminal's life is more valuable than their victim's. That aside, people get used to things. Think of it as a glass of water, if you change the amount of water in there, it will rock back and forth for a while, but eventually, it all levels out. Conditions in life are the same way. While someone in solitary confinement goes crazy, if he doesn't despise it, it's not a reasonable punishment for murder. We can't control the criminal's attitude. We can't ensure he has a bad time. They get used to it, and then they still get to live. That's no punishment a crime like murder!