So should women who breed so much misery, and rape the souls of their children, with abuse and neglect. mankind would be better off than them, and they are not better than a pedophile.

Yep.

Why does this occur? Could it be that, since either from the Evolution or ID standpoint, mankind was engineered to succeed? I mean here male's overbearing sex drives. If it doesn't find outlet in a wiling woman, what happens to it? Women have always been resistant to sex to some large degree, probably partially to choose the right mate, but also to keep the rate of population increase low. And we are all superficial creatures, so some go unloved. Is it good to kill people? How will we solve this problem? Loki, in general are you *for* the death penalty? What I'm looking for here is balance. God in the OT told the Jews to all be properly married, likely so that these sorts of problems would not arise. Also told people to not covet each other's wives. To discourage polygamy, and other sexual aspects. But I don't think killing these people will end the problem. Often times this is a cycle of abuse, just as serial killers might start out killing small animals to (perversely) feel empowered, often because some adult horribly abused them.

So what I'm saying is that men have always outpaced women in sexual desire, or sheer potency, and that is a competetive advantage. But when people get abused and marginalized, it only continues such behaviors. It's better for people to stay out of each other's sexual business and find some societal means of keeping such things from happening.

A good point to question is whether this has much to do with rejection of the individual by the opposite sex. Now, this is mostly (but not wholly) a male issue, though there are female pedophiles, who we often find abusing kids in school settings.

What I'm saying is... society needs to be far less superficial, and it would be better if long-term relationships prevailed. But really I feel that at bottom this is all a problem of greed, this excessive taxation and control by government practically makes it impossible for marriages to survive in this day and age without being broken up over financial concerns.
Can't even have a modest house to live in and have a small family without being taxed to death.

I find it difficult to marry my own conflicting feelings on two different forms of compassion for the human species.

On the one hand, every human life is precious, as is the life of any lion, any monkey, any cow...that's not to say that we shouldn't eat beef, as I understand the human species as omnivorous, and killing for the purpose of food (or survival should we be cornered by a lion on the plains of Africa) is instinctual to all animals (carnivorous and herbivorous alike).

On the other hand, optimum survival of a species is based on the gradual betterment and evolutionary advancement of the genetic line(s). Providing life-sustaining resources like food, water, shelter (and medication, in our particular case) for "genetically inferior" people, or those otherwise terminally ill or helplessly elderly (or those who kill or rape the innocent, in your examples) are counter-productive to the betterment of the species as a whole; such resources are put to better use, on an evolutionary standpoint, when given to healthy, intelligent, fertile, and otherwise successful specimens.

Whenever I express this conflict I always fear a backlash of, "Oh, so we should just leave sick children, old people, and the terminally ill to DIE, with no mercy for their feelings or the people who care about them and want them to LIVE?” No, see, I’d be saying that if I wasn’t conflicted over it, but I have difficulty picking sides here.

While there are still those who will insist on compassion, unconditional love, and the preservation of ALL human life, pedophiles and compulsive murderers are an easier example for many people to go, “Yeah, let them die for the betterment of the species,” because they don’t entice sympathy like the very elderly, the genetically disabled, and the terminally ill. But it’s really the same idea. There are people who argue over the death penalty with half saying that all human life is precious, no one deserves to die, we shouldn’t play got, etc.; the other half saying we’re allowing criminals, rapists, murderers and the like to drain us of valuable resources like electricity, food, water, man hours and taxpayer money by keeping them alive in prison, while it could be going to people who HAVEN’T done such horrible things.

I always worry about sounding like Hitler to say something like this, but a lot of the time I think I lean toward the betterment of the species by risking the individuals. And that’s not just because I’m genetically superior – depending on how far-reaching the genetic cleansing would go, I’d be wiped out with the rest (I’ve had my gall bladder out because horrible gall stones run in my family, as well as alcoholism, both my feet are flat and my left foot has a fallen arch, I was asthmatic as a child, I suffered with depression for a few years, I have an addictive personality, heck I even carry the male-pattern-baldness gene, etc.). Besides, when it all comes down to it, I think people’s lives, who are lucky enough to live in “civilized” countries (you know, all the conveniences of running water, grocery stores and Starbucks) live a little *too* comfortably. Some people could afford some more real pain in their lives – nothing puts you’re boring, dead-end job with a cold-hearted boss into perspective like losing a loved one.

“Death comes to us all.”

Well, I don't believe in execution, or rather I see it as murder. They should certainly be segregated from everyone else - incarcerated or sent to an asteroid mine. Yes, I know we don't HAVE asteroid mines.

What if human life *weren't* sacred?

Let's pretend.

What if human life were just one among many strange conditions in a universe with no inherent meaning of its own? *Then* would it be OK to skip the expensive paperwork and shoot convicted pedos / compulsive murderers in the head with a cheap gun?

That's a bit harsh.

Maybe you can have Dear Leader talk real purdy to them like he dun wid dat Ruskie what dun promised to dump a third of their n-n-n-n-nukes - - while giving the naive ingenue no way to check up on them,.

They agreed to agree that they agreed. Then the sent the little child from America home with a pocket full of hope.

I believe human beings will always be conflicted about having to kill another, even another that is the human equivalent to a rabid dog.

For instance, I work in a place where I care for the smallest percentage of retarded people with psychosis, violent behaviors, sexual obsessiveness... to the point where they can never be in a group home or any normal environment. I can clearly see that there are people who aren't retarded with the same problems. I don't know if it is deliberately chosen "evil", or if extreme obsessions, mania, or a lack of impulse control residing in some people's brains....it's open enough to speculation that I don't see execution as a punishment or form of revenge on "evil" as being justifiable.

However, I personally can see execution, rather, as an act of mercy on people that are terminally ill... and hurting continually from an inability to relate with society in a way that doesn't endanger it. A life in prison working a factory in virtual slavery in Texas, in danger from inmates morally outraged at your crime, isolation for your own protection from inmates (many inmates are drug offenders but may have been victims of sexual abuse), Others are just so compulsively violent and dangerous to inmates they need to be in 23 hour supermax lock up... but then starve for the same needs for social interaction that everyone has. Beneath the anger, the compulsions, before and after the imprisonment there is great pain within the various perpetrators with which they find the wellspring to bring pain to so many others whose lives they shatter.

But it isn't an act of mercy if it isn't without consent.

So I favor a new penalty that is neither life in prison, or execution... but rather life in prison until death at the time of the inmate's choosing.

My idea is to have prison cells with thick Plexiglas instead of bars and in the cell a discreet button. Upon the inmate pushing the button the cell seals itself and first a gas is pumped automatically into the cell to anesthetize the inmate into unconsciousness, then a second lethal gas is pumped in to kill them as the second stage of an automatic sequence. The guards get informed which cell the inmate chose suicide, they inform the next of kin, and call the undertaker to take the body away.

The guards themselves are saved from any moral conflict they may have if they had to participate in an execution, enough of a problem that they sometimes get three guards to throw three switches in conventional executions that none are sure if they pulled the one switch which ended the inmate's life

One should note though when it comes to pedophiles I've had so many female and male friends that have experienced trusted adults, sometimes parents, sometimes other family members, occasionally older siblings, even teachers and active members of clergy committing sexual behavior on them as minors... I would not be surprised if the sum total of all pedophiles (known and unknown) were executed there would probably be a good tenth of all adults dead. There seem to be plenty of them among legislators and judges or else the laws against such behaviors would probably be protecting society better. However, the due process I would not want to see eliminated, does ensure that a crime which in many cases is hard to prove and where most evidence is circumstantial and debatable goes unpunished in more cases than not. There are documented cases of overzealous and well meaning people actually coaching children into naming people and having false memories of what was done to them, not unlike perhaps what some adults did with some girls in Salem. If sentences are made harsher, then the importance of interpreting due process in the stricter sense increases. Given the number of people on death row or life imprisonment for crimes they didn't do... but cleared later (sometimes too late) we need to safeguard people under allegation in the chance they may be innocent.