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Originally Posted by James
Well what about people with no family, no friends, hermits and loners?
This is getting more philosophical than political - but I suppose what this comes down to is the perception of 'value' and what we both hold to be important. I don't think emotional fulfillment is necessarily all that important in this world, except case to case and even then it's a personal thing. If we're talking about value to society in an extremely basic, stripped down sense then Bundy is physically fit and has a dick that works. If you remove everything that's really what's important.
You can't discuss the death penalty without morals coming into play, it is simply the most important aspect in that debate. If you try to look at it from a practical standpoint then the lines become too blurred - because on one hand hey smother him with a pillow then he won't use any of our resources and we'll protect our flock. If those rules apply to him, then we'd be killing people left right and centre. As said before, innocents are going to slip through the cracks. That's always going to be inexcusable in my eyes.
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Of course a person's worth to society is a blurry issue, but the point is that a non-sociopath, no matter how anti-social, can be of mutual, reciprocated emotional worth to another human being in a positive sense. Not only is a sociopath incapable of that, but by their very nature they exploit this ability in others. I'm not saying we should purge sociopaths, as that would have the same kind of negative effect on a society's moral fabric that any genocide would, but in this case, I don't feel that the victims' loss would necessarily be a tragedy besides the effect the violence would have on the rest of us.