The reason I despise death penalty opponents....

....is because they insult death penalty proponents like me without giving it a second's thought.

An Oscar nominee for directing the movie, Mr. Robbins wrote the play at Sister Helen's urging. And, at her suggestion, he's made it available only to student productions – principally, at Jesuit schools such as the one in Dallas.

"The important thing is that they are immersed in it," said the actor, who was raised Catholic and opposes capital punishment. "The problem right now is that most people who support the death penalty do it without really thinking about it."

I've got your "haven't thought about it" right here, Tim.

Here's why I favor the death penalty and what I think of some of the arguments that are made against it.

1) The death penalty is not a deterrent.
Well doh! It's called capital punishment bozo. It's not designed to be a deterrent. It's punishment for a crime already committed.

2) It lowers the state to the level of murderers.
Right! The state spends millions of dollars providing for the defense of the murderer, provides for their care while they are incarcerated, grants them almost unlimited appeals before finally carrying out their well-deserved sentences and puts them to death in the most humane way possible. The murderer, on the other hand, took the lives of his victims without the slightest thought of fairness, without consideration of the victim's "guilt" and without any remorse. If you call that moral equivalence, then you're incapable of rational thought.

3) It costs the state more to put someone to death than it does to incarcerate them for life.
Should justice be based upon cost? If so, lets forgo the trials and endless appeals and shoot them in the head when we capture them. That will cost less, won't it?

4) The death penalty system is flawed. We might execute an innocent man.
No, the legal system is flawed. Would you prefer we simply incarcerate innocent people for life rather than execute them? I would prefer we fix the system. No innocent person should be convicted of a crime, much less put to death.

5) The death penalty is about revenge. We're more civilised than that.
No, it's not. It's about punishment for the worst crime you can commit — the taking of an innocent life. If it was about revenge, we would allow the victims' families to pull the lever.

Facetious arguments are still facetious no matter how fancy the clothing.

Here's why I support capital punishment.

1) Some people are simply beyond redemption and have proven so in no uncertain terms. The poster boy for this argument is Kenneth Allen McDuff. Society is safer when they are permanently removed from our midst.

2) If the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment, then what is subjecting prison inmates to the constant threat of a murderer in their midst? Is society better off by exposing inmates to this threat? I don't think so. I think we devalue other prison inmates when we expose them to asocial murderers.

3) Murderers who are put to death will never kill again — in prison or out of prison. In that sense, capital punishment is a deterrent.

Society benefits from removing the worst elements forever. This country is inundated with the stories of criminals who received light punishments, were paroled and re-offended — the Willie Horton's if you will. This should never be the case with murderers who have committed heinous crimes.

I have a fantasy. Ardent death penalty opponents should have their hand tied to the lever that drops the pills into the acid. Then their heads should be encased in a virtual reality device, and they should have to watch a virtual recreation of the crimes the convict committed — complete with color, sound and 3-D vision. They should be subjected to every scream, every cry for help, every begging, sobbing, choking word of the victims as their life ebbs away. If at any time they want the recreation to stop all they have to do is pull the lever. I suspect, exposed to the reality of the crimes these beasts commit, many so-called opponents would quickly seek relief.

It's easy to be opposed to the death penalty. All you have to do is not care at all about the victims of crime. I am constantly struck by the opponents who say, "If it was a member of my family, I would want to kill the guy myself. That's why the law should separate us from the passion."

Has it ever occurred to them that the desire to rid the world of a murderer is normal? That the desire to save their life is abnormal?