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Is anyone here anti-death penalty but pro-abortion? If so, how do you justify it? Clearly you don't believe that life is an inalienable right.

Abortion, to me, is simply a matter of personal sovereignty, not a question of whether or not a fetus is a life (it is), or whether the practice is tantamount to murder (it is). The question is whether or not a woman has a right to murder someone who resides within her body. Sorry, but if we don't extend to her that right, for whatever reason, we've more or less reduced her to being a breeder cow.

The death penalty, on the other hand, is not the same kind of issue. This is a question of how many of your rights the state has the authority to take away from you when you break the law. Personally, I don't really care too much about the rights of child molesters or serial killers. I don't too much care about the rights of someone who kills someone else while trying to steal their HDTV either. If someone gets caught stealing out of desperation and kills someone, however, I would probably come down on the anti-death penalty side.

I don't think either issue is a matter of whether or not life is an inalienable right. If we all believed that life was 100% inalienable, we'd have to criminalize killing in self-defense.

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As for the death penalty itself, I am for it. There are three basic philosophies as to the function of law: prevention, punishment, and rehabilition. I fully reject the notion of rehabilition. I believe that the law's primary purpose should be punishment, with prevention achieved as a byproduct. That is to say, the punishment experience whether it be prison or the death penalty, should be so horrible it that prevents you from ever committing that crime again. If the prison experience in and of itself doesn't motivate you to better yourself, then the punishment should have been harsher.

Those are pretty broad brush strokes. I would agree with you on the subject of rehabilitation to some degree. For instance, it looks like the data we have show that child molesters can't really be rehabilitated. I wouldn't say the same about someone who figures out early on that you can make a hell of a lot more money peddling dope than you can flipping burgers. These people can, and sometimes do end up making something of themselved. Just as often, though, they end up back in prison because it's still more profitable to sell drugs than to go out and look for a job for which you'll always be the least likely to be hired. Regardless of your qualifications, a non-felon with comparable skills is going to be hired over you.

I think the private sector could be used to turn some criminals around. Maybe the government could give them some more financial incentives to hire ex-cons, provided the ex-cons have shown they're ready and willing to work and obey the law.

But should we bother? I don't know, but if we're not going to at least try to rehabilitate criminals, then we'd might as well just kill them. If we just turn them loose again without having tried to help them make something of themselves, they'll just end up back in prison again. If that's what we want to do, why bother giving them a second chance at all?

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The term is pro-choice.

Fuck that. We don't call it "partial-birth choice", or refer to them as "choice bans." Conservatives don't call it the "exception to the right to life penalty."

The debate is over abortion. You're either for it, or against it. Pro, or anti.

When someone decides to substitute "pro-life" for "anti-abortion" we have to have the whole stupid "well then, how can you be for the death penatly" debate. And "pro-choice" is just dishonest in the extreme. Most "pro-choice" people know tend to be politically liberal, and liberals are some of the most anti-choice people walking the planet.