Working Daze by John Zakour and Scott Roberts for March 17, 2015

Jay Jay Jay – all life is equal??? You have never been in a court room at your age? Those who have the money – have the rights. It is not equal and never has been. There is a class system out there. People are born – people die and the poor just get shoveled under. The rich get a fancy stone. In between the ones with the most toys and money win.

This is why I stay out of McDonald’s or Burger King for lunch arguments.

This is why the machines will decide that humans are not capable of self-rule and become the absolute overlords of the Earth.You cannot equate two emotional arguments unless you make the two emotions equal. The emotional content of executing dangerous criminals will never be equal to that of executing unborn children. We need to find a way to make the unborn children into cold-blooded killers to make it equal.

If anti abortion and pro capitol punishment are a contradiction, then pro abortion and anti capitol punishment is a contradiction too.

No comments so far have ever mentioned what to do about avoiding abortions in the first place. If the pregnancy doesn’t occur, the argument is moot. Besides, all laws written only affect the woman and the doctor, not the guy who got her pregnant in the first place. I wonder why? that’s right. Because the laws were written by guys. The old “Double standard”. Sex education DOES work. The “M” word is NOT a sin. You don’t change human behavior by passing laws.

It’s conversations like this that make office life interesting. As all the different personalities much mix and mesh.

Time to put this cartoon on the editorial page — too bad, it used to be funny.

To quote Abraham Lincoln, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Many commentators are removing doubt today.

Tell that to those who support partial birth abortions.

That is why I like Jay . I am glad he has a girlfriend who understands him. No matter what his type are always winners in my eyes

Interesting debate, this. I’m a practicing Catholic and I was in the congregation when our pastor (in California … we’re in Arizona now) admitted he was having a moral epiphany vis-a-vis the death penalty. That is, he was rethinking his opinion that capital punishment was wrong, not so much because it took the life of a worthy criminal, but because of the increasing number of exonerations due to DNA results.

His point was if we can’t be absolutely, positively, 100% sure of the guilt of condemned, then we have no right to take his or her life. He then extended that thought to ask the somewhat rhetorical question: do we humans have the right to take ANY life, whether it’s a fetus or a murderer or is that domain solely God’s? He’s staunchly anti-abortion, so it’s not like he’s on the fence about the concept in general.

Food for thought … (now waiting for the ad hominem attacks just because the priest is in “liberal” California and accusations that he espouses a liberal theology).

No, the contradictory and illogical argument is to be Pro-Choice (but in reality the choice has to e Abortion) yet anti-death penalty. The death penalty is for someone who has demonstrated that they should not be part of society which justifies taking their life. Abortion is used against an innocent life that has committed no crime against society.

I agree. If this strip continues down this path of pushing a political view I’ll simply stop reading. I can get this crap anywhere, I don’t expect it in this strip and won’t read it any more.

Just curious if Mr Sherman has ever heard of paternity laws. Most states can require the guy to pay through the nose until the child reaches the age of 19. The use of capital punishment is just that. Punishment. What did the child do to deserve punishment? You are talking about dismembering or sucking out the brains or scalding the child’s skin with saline to kill the innocent. But an adult who has killed another human in violation of the law gets a needle in the arm with a drug to put them to sleep before they cease to breathe? If you do not see the difference your parents probably did not discipline you for fear of harming your widdle self image.

By the way comicsssfan , we as Christians are called upon to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. And we try with such programs as Samaritan’s Purse and other philanthropic efforts. Could do a lot more if this government was not determined to engage in stealing money from its own people and calling it taxation to cover FDR and LBJ’s failed welfare programs. Even the pagan Roman Empire did not tax it’s citizens till almost ready to fall. No civilization has ever taxed itself into prosperity

Keep up the good work, gents! WD is one of the best comics out there and definitely one of my faves. :-)

Ok, I get it. Killing babies in the womb is the same as executing murderers.

I would advise that those who are against any death penalty consider what will happen if/when marshal law is instituted. They normally say law-breakers will (at that time) be dealt with quickly and harshly. I’m not telling you to leave the country before then, but be prepared for the death penalty to become the standard during that time.

As for the whole pro-life/pro-choice thingy – Do you prefer a fence at the top of the cliff or an ambulance at the bottom? I for one, prefer prevention over cure and am mostly disgusted with those who had every chance to choose prevention and instead opted for cure. Those who who did not have the option for prevention, well that’s a different thing entirely.

Rita is an intellectually lazy dogmatist, but Jay, in this instance, is wrong. There is nothing inherently contradictory in believing that all people should be endowed with certain rights either from birth or from conception and in believing that those same rights ought to be forfeit as a consequence of certain actions. If the two beliefs were inherently contradictory, then it would also be illogical to believe that adult criminals should be dealt with in any manner that would be inappropriate for infants.

To Mr. Roberts and Mr. Zakour: Thank you for this interlude into a serious issue. I know this has disturbed and irritated a number of readers and by your own stateents will end today. Sometimes we do need to see and share about the disturbing issues. How about addressing one possible issue I notice, the lack of a national “dream” (like when we went to the moon).

Mr Sherman and I CAN agree on something.

I don’t think it hurts to touch on serious issues now and then.

Your pastor’s argument doesn’t hold, those are exonerations of crimes committed before today’s excellent DNA testing, and so today’s sensitive tests proved them innocent. But now that we the amazing tests, we can nail the guilty without doubt and get rid of them

Careful Jay. The same arguement works against Pro-Choice and Anti-Death Penalty.

With the multitude of ways available to prevent a pregnancy from occurring in the first place, there is no good excuse for anyone to have an abortion of “convenience.”The only good reasons for a woman to have an abortion are if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if it somehow endangers the life of the mother.As for the death penalty… it should be reserved for the most heinous of crimes where there is no doubt as to who committed them.I don’t know about any of you, but I feel that the world is a better place with such individuals as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy no longer among the living.

Plenty of nuance to this discussion, so I’ll add my own. While a one-sentence summary would place me on Rita’s “side,” I would never associate myself with her level of reasoning (and my full explanation would probably make her head explode).

Personally, I feel that the power to produce a living being is sacred and that life begins with a viable embryo. The more we value life, the more we should seek means to avoid having to end it abruptly, or better yet, prevent it from beginning under unwanted circumstances. But condescending, authoritarian means that dictate what to do in all circumstances are not the answer, especially since they place nearly all of the burden on the women who gestate those lives. The ultimate choice belongs to them. Even when a woman does decide to abort, whether the decision was a sin depends entirely on her motives, which only she can truly know. In this matter, I’m pro-life, choice-tolerant, and anti-judgment.

As for the death penalty, I also believe in prevention first. Valuing life also means having concern for everyone at every stage of their life. As long as people suffer due to malice or neglect and we fail to address that suffering, each one of us carries a sliver of guilt for the harm that they inflict on others. If everyone were nurtured, educated (and wanted!) from birth, “death row” would cease to exist. Of course, some people are born with severe mental aberrations, but even with them we would have far more resources available for early intervention. There may be a handful of truly “evil” minds whose outright culling would benefit society. While I don’t have a problem with the idea of killing rightfully convicted criminals when their actions are sufficiently heinous, the current system makes it less expensive to simply detain them indefinitely. So… pro-death penalty, anti-need for it.

The unborn babies didn’t rape and murder anyone Jay.