darkangyl
That is why it is the death pen. It is designed to be final. No more cost to the tax payer and no more problems of them reoffending. It ammazes me that the lifers always seem to find god and reform if means a shortened sentance. If you right for lifers are so serious about human rights then ho about finding a real cause to fight for. Oh say the rights of little fluffy puppies. Jokers, come to the real world. If it wasent for you do gooders then socity would not be in the state it is in now. If you dont like the country then leave. Go back to fagsville but dont bring your soft touchy feely ways here this is how terrosim is born.

darkangyl, I have learnt my lesson there are none so blind as those who will not see. They have been presented rational, resonable arguement, but fail to comprehend. This will be my last post on this thread, as the ignorance from the barbarians is sad. In a country like Australia used to be, to still find this amount of ignorance is really disappointing, I can see now what Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson says is true, that there are a lot of the population, unable to comprehend issues. These people are still living in the darkages, with their primative thoughts. I am a progressive, not a regressive, so I have had enough of their blinkered beliefs, all I can say is that I hope they are not so regressive in all aspects of their lives, and hope that a day may arrive when they will see the errors of their ways, in the meantime darkangyl, welcome to the progressive thinkers we can surely use your comments here.

Col Rouge, I think I am qualified to state that I have experience. I'm an early childhood school teacher, maybe I'll even teach someone you know one day. Teaching is probably the most important job there is. Do you know of anyone who has never had a teacher? I see kids as they are, young and untainted, innocent and not a bad bone in their little bodies. Something throughout their lives happens that makes them into good or bad people. Intelligent and caring people try to find answers to life's problems. Noone deserves to be put to death no matter who they are.

Civilisation is an advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. Some how I dont think that the "death penalty" comes under this definition.
Terrorism is a complex issue that cannot be solved with the use of the death penalty. The death penalty makes matyrs of terrorists encouraging others to emulate them. Terrrorism should be seen in the light of those that commit it as a very cheap (one life) weapon of war that kills many whilst only killing one "soldier".
Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.
William Ellery Channing- its just unfortunate that some people have such deadly views.

Tubley “I'm an early childhood school teacher, “

I would point out, People in prison and on death row are a little older than the “mob” you teach.

“Teaching is probably the most important job there is.”

Lessons on “Modesty” not being on the syllabus?

“I see kids as they are, young and untainted, innocent and not a bad bone in their little bodies. Something throughout their lives happens that makes them into good or bad people.” –

That works only if you expect all “badness” to be the result of some “socially acquired deficiency” – I would suggest such a view is extremely naïve. Plenty of people are not the recipients of any bad environment, they are “bad” themselves. Likewise, people do overcome the worst adversity of circumstance to have productive and criminal-free lives. Criminals (or the criminally minded) look for the easy options in life – and the first option is to find someone or something to “blame” for those “bad traits”.

By the time they “mature” your “kids” will have lost that first blooms of innocence and potential.

“Intelligent and caring people try to find answers to life's problems.”

And “really intelligent” people know how and when to make the “hard decisions” upon realising some of “life’s problems” have no answer – beyond everyone accepting responsibility and the consequences for their own actions.

Which comes to prisoners in general, drug dealers and killers in particular. The only group of prisoners who regularly accept responsibility for their actions tend to be culpable drivers – the vast majority of the rest accept no responsibility – they blame everyone and everything else and then only because they got caught.

“No one deserves to be put to death no matter who they are.”

Tell me that when one of your family is “just another victim”

Mr Rouge,

Until you have spent a day teaching in a classroom, please don't tell me about MY job.

To say that I am not being 'modest' because I promote my profession as being extremely important is wrong. After all, I was not promoting myself, only the importance of my job. I was also undermining your suggestion that I have no 'experience'.

To say that people are innately 'bad' is one of the most rediculous things I have ever heard. Why then is there such variation among nations in their crime rates? In some nations we have extremely low crime rates and on the other extreme you have the likes of the USA. If people were innately 'bad' then surely the crime rates would be more even accross society. Right?

I do have sympathy for victims, a hell of a lot more than I do for the killers on death row. I, too would like a safer society so in that regard we have the same veiw. But the difference between you and me is that I believe that there is more effective, more civilised way to deal with crime than capital punishment.

I'm not the only one. Countries all over the world are gradually abolishing the death penalty.

When talking about Australia in particular I am not suggesting a weaker, less strict system. In fact I believe that many crimes should warrent harsher prison senteces. The sexual abuse laws, domestic violence, animal cruelty and reckless driving laws in this country are pathetically weak.

I do believe laws in general should be stricter. But I do not believe in capital punishment.

In general, certainty is a lot more effective than severity (sorry to draw that from my teaching 'experience'). But I think it's obvious - a drug dealer would surely risk a 'possible' 20 year sentence before they risked a 'definate' ten year sentence.