Death is death, be it murder or natural causes, someone is dead so why do people try to quantify it?
In a recent thread about the death penalty some spoke of using on those that killed children, or during rape/murder crimes, etc. Why, if a person murders a 5 year old, a 15 year old, a 50 year old, the victim is still dead? Why do people want think that murdering a 5 year old is any worse than murdering a 50 year old, at the end of the day, there is a dead body? Are people putting value on life (more than they already are), where certain lives have more value than others? Are the families of the murdered older folk going to say they have less to cry about because grandpa got smoked in a robbery; they have it better than the child killed because the kidnapper got scared?
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The murder of a child also kills the dreams of their families.
You’re right, dead is dead and ultimately it doesn’t matter the age, although what @ filmfan says is also true.
What matters is that murder is not a natural death. Otherwise nature doesn’t discriminate by age. Disease, accidents, genetic defects can happen to anyone of any age at any time.
Either “Death is death, be it murder or natural causes.”
Or: “Why do people try to quantify murder by the victim’s age?”
The first implies that we do not need laws.
The second implies that the law takes a murder victim’s age into account.
Neither is supportable by facts.
Your question is a good one and makes one more argument that the death penalty should be abolished.
The very presence of a death penalty makes possible the sort of ridiculous “dog-chasing-its-tail” discussion that you mentioned.
A corruptible, incompetent, capricious and fallible institution like the political state should not be given the power to make a totally irreversible decision.
Yeah a death is a death, but, I mean, the 50 year old has already had the opportunity to get a lot out of life. The 5 year old was just starting.
A 5 year old is innocent, while the 50 year old has had time to gain a reputation.
@dxs True and the 50 yr. old is also more ready for eternal rest. lol
There is no reason. Personal bias is what drives the opinion that one life is worth more than another.
Just like funeral service itself, justice is there for the survivors.
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