Reply #209: Lovely. The old "If you support/oppose something, then you must do X to avoid being a hypocrite"

[Tommy_Carcetti]

It's so tiresome and so flawed. Sadly, both the left and the right have been guilty of using it.

Taxes are paid to support prisons to incarcerate individuals for a wide variety of crimes--white collar crimes, drug offenses, non-violent felonies, violent felonies, and yes, murderers. Now I can say I've never been to prison and don't plan on ever going, but everything I've heard about it is that nothing in prison is in the least bit pleasurable or preferrential to life on the outside. Even moreso for those convicted of violent felonies and seperated from the general population. Having my money going to feed those individuals the bare minimum of nutrients or giving those individuals the bare minimum of medical attention necessary--I'm okay with that. You do the crime, you do the time. No one's arguing that prisoners should have CEO style health plans or dine on filet mignon daily. The State should spend as little money as it needs to spend on those prisoners to provide them with the very bare minimum of human dignity (food, shelter, imminent medical attention), and nothing more. And that's typically what it does.

So if you are uncomfortable with your tax money going to to provide prisoners the bare minimum of human dignity, that's it. You are uncomfortable. I'll see your slight discomfort and/or disgust and raise you serious ethical concerns as to the State wishing to play God by using the death penaltly. And I'll guaran-damn-tee you that genuine ethical concerns trumps discomfort or mere disgust any day.

And no, I don't need to volunteer my time as a prison time to justify my ethical concerns against the death penalty. Was everyone who opposed the Iraq War required to go to Iraq to provide medical assistance to injured Iraqis or rebuild their houses? No, of course not. It's a dumb, dumb, dumb, proposition and I think you know it.