I despise the death penalty but not because I treasure human life.

“An eye for an eye leaves the world blind” -some Indian guy probably

Ergo, life for a life… but I don’t think that’s appropriate enough. Death is a very touchy subject for a lot of people but I’d like to cover one thing that universal in everyone, we don’t really know what happens to us (the subconscious, the soul, whatever you call it) after we die. There’s theory and faith but at the end of the day, whether you believe in heaven, he’ll, or reincarnation, you can’t absolutely without any reasonable doubt provide enough evidence that what you believe it’s actually true, hence the reason faith is such a strong backbone for religion. I have faith that one day my dad will come home from the cigarette store but until he does I have full reasonable doubt of that ever happening.

But let’s take a step further, atheists and those likeminded, reliant purely on scientific research and studies might say nothing happens. When you die you stop existing and there’s absolute nothingness. Neat theory but I’m still inclined to believe that maybe something truly does happen after death, perhaps we cannot perceive this nothingness because something that grand cannot fathom to our simple 3dimensional existence, or whatever other fringe idea you may have. Let’s be honest, despite the science there seems to be a new flavor of math every year, you can’t convince me otherwise that afterlife couldn’t even have a slim chance of being possible.

Now let’s circle back, death penalty; should we keep it?
I don’t think so. Death might as well be an embracing new adventure full of pleasure and joy just as much as it could be a torturous prison of dread, or of the later absolute nothingness. In my honest to god and science opinion, death is just as much a privilege as life. To take life prematurely, though don’t take this as callous as it may sound, is sad. It’s sad for the community, its sad for close friends, and it’s especially sad for the family but what that victim is doing now is so far beyond our comprehension that we do nothing but fight and argue over each other’s bitter opinions. Like an exclusive VIP section of an already very exclusive club, you didn’t know what life was until you experienced it and you won’t know what death is until the time comes. I digress

Death penalty emits a feeling of easy punishment, or at least a chance of easy punishment.

I can’t argue and play devils advocate on this either because of one major reason, I don’t have any better options. Life in prison w/o release really hits it as close as I can imagine before my suggestions start sounding like holocaust atrocities (which for the record I don’t support, I draw a very hard line over traditional life imprisonment with all the proper human rights).

I could argue that completely eliminating death penalties will cause great financial stains on the prison system but also last time I check California is so slow about executions that maybe some kind of unnoticed experiment is already proving promising results in my favor.

Confinement to four walls, no general population mixing I mean one step shy of solitary. A life taken too early is a life wasted, a life spent in a cell alone is a life wasted. An eye for an eye.