#penalty

The primitive idea of justice is partly legalized revenge and partly expiation by sacrifice. It works out from both sides in the notion that two blacks make a white, and that when a wrong has been done, it should be paid for by an equivalent suffering. It seems to the Philistine majority a matter of course that this compensating suffering should be inflicted on the wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent effect on other would-be wrongdoers; but a moment's reflection will shew that this utilitarian application corrupts the whole transaction. For example, the shedding of blood cannot be balanced by the shedding of guilty blood. Sacrificing a criminal to propitiate God for the murder of one of his righteous servants is like sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with the rinderpest: it calls down divine wrath instead of appeasing it. In doing it we offer God as a sacrifice the gratification of our own revenge and the protection of our own lives without cost to ourselves; and cost to ourselves is the essence of sacrifice and expiation. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#death-penalty #justice #punishment #wrongdoing #death

Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons. ↗

— Alan Parker

#am #death #death penalty #i #i am

Crucial to understanding federalism in modern day America is the concept of mobility, or 'the ability to vote with your feet.' If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol - don't come to Texas. If you don't like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don't move to California. ↗

— Rick Perry

#america #california #citizens #come #concept

Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty. ↗

— Eliot Spitzer

#against #argument #best #compelling #criminal

McVeigh's lawyer got him the death penalty, which, quite frankly, I could have done. ↗

— Jon Stewart

#death #death penalty #done #frankly #got

That's the penalty we have to pay for our acts of foolishness, someone else always suffers for them. ↗

— Alfred Sutro

#always #else #foolishness #our #pay

Kids. They're not easy. But there has to be some penalty for sex. ↗

— Bill Maher

#kids #penalty #sex #some

is it always in the interest of the public safety to seek the prosecutor's traditional solution - the harshest penalty possible? Or is the public best served by finding ways to change a kid's lot in life for the better, even if that means opening the prison door? ↗

— Edward Humes

#penalty #prison #public-safety #change

He's a two-faced, cutthroat, dirt-dumb, chicken shit, slimy, little bastard with a bright future in politics. ↗

— John Grisham

#death

In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#government #death