On 2012-10-04, at 3:29 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> ...the principle of not taking a life. If applied
> unconditionally, it would require that one not only would have to take
> an anti-abortion stance - which I oppose - but it would lead to absurd
> consequences of contributing to more loss of life under certain
> circumstances (the quintessential war on the Nazis.) ...if we deny the state the power to
> execute people who pose a threat to society, how can we defend the
> power of the state to launch a defensive action against confirmed
> threat (like the Nazis) or for that matter take away (nationalize)
> their property on the same principle.
You're engaging in what debaters call "squirreling", redefining the scope of an issue differently than it is intended to be defined, obsfucating. Capital punishment has nothing in common with either abortion or armed resistance to Nazism.
The death penalty should be opposed for all of the various reasons which have been mentioned on this thread - in particular, because it is never a deterrent, is disproportionately aimed at the poor and powerless, oppressed minorities, and dissidents, and claims too many innocent victims.
That an embryo or fetus is a human being and that abortion therefore constitutes the "taking of life" is a belief common to religious zealots and others opposed to women's rights. I'm surprised to see you drawing on the parallel.
Nor are violent attacks against Nazi combatants, or any army of occupation, on par with the state-sanctioned murder of civilians. They're legitimate acts of self-defence. I distinguish these, however, from terrorist acts against civilian populations by states or political movements, including the calculated use of "red terror" in civil wars, which do resemble capital punishment, in this case on a mass scale, and are equally indefensible and ineffective.