I am going to piss someone off with this

I know going in to this, that what i am going to say is going to really piss some people off Some of you will think i am off of my rocker. But hopefully i will state my claim clear enough to convey my reasons for coming to this conclusion.

Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled against the state laws that say that Convicted Pedofiles can be given the death penalty and executed. The main for the ruling is that it is forbidden by the Constitution due to cruel and unusual punishment based on the crime. I agree with this ruling.

One of the reasons i agree is this. Punishment should be given as a way to make people accountable for their actions, however it should also be used as a way to deter other people from committing such crimes (why did Ancient Romans punish people by making them ward off lions and tigers in the arena for people to watch? Why did people 500 years ago have public hangings for murderers? To punish and deter, making a punishment a public spectacle detered others from committing the same acts).

So the death penalty should be a punishment reflective of the crime committed. If a life was taken in the crime, a life should be taken as the punishment (this could be taken as a slippery slope, so i will clarify, this is not for crimes involving the unintentional taking of life, only for crimes where the person intended to take a persons life) . I will take this a little further and say that the death penalty should be taken for any crime dealing with the premeditated taking of another life. I also believe that the process should be a short one, not one where the convict sits in prison for 10 years or more until the punishment is enacted.

Punishment in this country is currently a big joke. There is no deterent for people thinking of committing the crimes. But the punishment must fit the crime. For example, a proven convicted murderer should not be let off on probation, or a person stealing a head of lettuce from the local grocery store should not be given the death penalty for their crime.

So Convicted Pedophiles should be punished, severely. I believe it is truely a reprehensible crime that needs to be addressed, severely. However i think putting them to death is not the answer to the problem. Just as the death penalty is not a deterent for homicidal crime, it also will not deter these crimes. We need to address the reasons for the crimes, and punish based upon that. If it means a punishment such as public castration (if that were deemed Constitutional) to deter these crimes, that would be what needed to happen.

I believe that public humiliation is probably the best deterrent to any crime. Face it, we as humans literally hate to be humiliated for any reason. So if people know going into to commit a crime, that public humiliation will be the punishment, the amount of crime will substantially drop.

So i praise the Supreme Court for their decision. Because even convicted citizens are protected under the same constitution as the non convicted citizens.

Viva Liberty!