Justified Murder

The United States of America holds the number one spot in quite an embarrassing statistic famously known to the rest of the world. As of July 2018, the United States is the country with the most incarcerated prisoners per capita. On top of that, the United States is one of the countries that allow the practice of capital punishment against its prisoners. Capital punishment, or punishment by death for serious crimes, is used in 54 other countries that execute their prisoners by hanging, using firing squads, or gas chambers. Gas chambers and lethal injections are the methods the United States use for its executions. This cruel method of punishment has not only drained the United States of tens of billions of dollars, but has become our way of justifying murder.

Aside from the normal high expenses it takes to keep just one prisoner behind bars, we must understand how much the United States is actually spending solely to kill our inmates. In Texas, a death penalty case can cost up to $2.3 million in taxpayer dollars, which is triple the amount spent to keep a prisoner in their cell for 40+ years. California death penalty costs can even go up to $4 billion given all the due processes. A death penalty case may also take very long periods time to complete in full, with some inmates having to wait decades for their turn on death row. With the great amounts of time and money we spend trying to kill our inmates, we clearly show that we value the act of murder over important and productive things like providing proper education and health care for our citizens. With that being said, capital punishment is just another factor preventing us from properly excelling as a country.

Comment on a Colleague's Work. (Right to Vote)

The right to vote is one of the many things that make our country special. Without voting, not everyone would have a fair say on what laws get passed and who gets elected. With that being said, I very much agree with Gabriela in her post defending everyone’s right to vote. However, Gabriela states that “People who have unpaid court fines and fees need to be required to vote because they have the right according our constitution.”. I do not agree with the idea that people who have disobeyed the law should still hold their right to vote. Gabriela thoughtfully expresses in her post how voting is a privilege granted to us by the Constitution. Like voting, the right to own a gun or private residence are also privileges, which can and should be taken away if you commit crimes against the Constitution. The government has the right to strip you of certain privileges if you chose to not abide by its laws.

Another point Gabriela brought up was how the right to vote along with other Constitutional rights are stripped from those who are considered poor. According to Gabriela, “our constitution says the government cannot deny poor people basic rights.”. Which is correct, the government has no right to deny the poor of their basic rights, and never has. If you are a citizen of the United States, poor or rich, you are granted the same rights as everyone else. You are only denied of your rights if you are charged for a crime. The government is simply not responsible for one’s financial stances.

All in all, I do agree with Gabriela that voting should be an unalienable right to all citizens of the United States. But I believe that we can all agree that people who do not abide by our nation’s laws should have certain rights stripped from them.