And I dont want others executing a fellow human in my name. It is a terrible and awesome task – the executioner and all of us share responsibility.

As are those of many of us. One of the things that determine a person to take one action, as opposed to another,( assuming the person is not insane or blinded by overwhelming passion) is a weighing in the mind of the possible consequences of the one, versus the other. It is that which causes us to not touch the hot stove that second time, or to quickly bend down to pet a strange dog, etc. We remember either what happened to us last time, or what we saw happen to someone else who did the same thing.

As a criminal weighs the consequences of committing an act that has the death penalty associated with it, the “nerve”, or lack of, that society has previously demonstrated in carrying out death sentences on others, thus comes into play. Now if our criminal, in this case, is contemplating an heinous act against a loved one of mine, I think I want him envisioning sure and swift punishment. It just might tip the scales. I want every possible inhibitor, in play.

Thinking about the death penalty in this way, shifts attention away from the compassion-related speculations regarding the effects on the person being executed, and towards the deterrence value that protects victims-yet-to-be. Imagine those victims-yet-to-be, to be your loved ones, and how to feel about the death penalty becomes a little clearer. Of course, the deterrence factor is lost, if you allow 20 years of appeals. Those who argue that the death penalty does not deter, do so in the current endless litigous climate.

“I would reprint the entire article here because it is quite interesting, but I about went blind typing the last one on diet, and the execution one is even longer.”

Things have changed quite a bit in the technical sphere as well since the 18th century! Today we have something called OCR (optical character recognition) – which will save your eyesight … and a whole lot of typing. I use the Adobe Acrobat software which will not only convert a scanned document into a easily emailable pdf tile (small file size) but while it is doing so it will recognise the text so that you can cut and paste it at will. Magic! – now that’s what I call progress!!

Interestingly transportation while sounding terrible, was quite often the best thing that could have happened to many petty criminals, particularly if they has some skills useful in the ‘new world’ – which as the previous poster suggests was likely to have been your country or later mine (Australia). Many convicts went on to successful careers and considerable wealth and influence with the new opportunities that transportation offered.

Cheers,

Malcolm

I quite agree with you on that score.

Interestingly enough, criminals were transported to the U.S. before the Independence and after that, Australia.