this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I wouldn't. It's far more punishing and even that is far too little to throw them in a cell and lose the key. Let them sit there for endless years until they die. Done.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I say sentence them to death but don’t tell them when the execution will occur. Even better than that: set the stage for the execution every single day, and then most days don’t throw the switch, take the black hood off them, and march them back to their cells. Do it all again tomorrow and every day. Even better than that: make the method of execution especially brutal, like being slowly lowered feet first into boiling oil.

By week 2 they will be begging for death.

By week 3 they will be dead from cardiac arrest.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why are we paying for them to stay alive? Lol.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Life imprisonment is cheaper (in the US) for the taxpayer than execution. Morally, I think the death penalty does not have a leg to stand on. Even in the most egregious cases, who truly has the right to end a life? Can any justice system be 100% accurate? If there is even a slim chance that an innocent could be murdered by the state, the state should not murder. It's valid to have a visceral reaction to horrific crimes like this, but to advocate for murdering even of a guilty party just doesn't mesh with at least my ethics

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

who truly has the right to end a life?

Many who live deserve death. Some who die deserve life: can you give it to them?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why do we kill people to show that killing people is wrong? -"Foolish Notion" Holly Near

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So, it's not wrong to lock people in a cage?

Lol. The 'logic' of the anti-death penalty crowd never ceases to astound me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Locking people in a cage as a consequence of their misdeeds is different than the state killing to prove killing people is wrong and immoral.

Take a minute to actually educate yourself about how incredibly badly we handle the death penalty. I have met too many men who were 100% innocent if their crime who got put on death row because of incompetence by investigators or prosecution to support it.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol. You don't understand.

You're trying to say that "killing people is bad, therefore we shouldn't kill as a punishment."

I'm trying to say that "locking people up is bad, therefore we shouldn't lock people up as a punishment."

Stop moving the goalposts. Stop saying one punishment is 'better than another' while trying to say hurting someone is bad.

If you, as an free person lock someone up, you're in the wrong. Just as if you, as free person kill someone, it is bad.

Stop. You're not fooling anyone but yourself and who wants to be fooled. Some people need to die.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one moved the goalposts before this. You provided a false equivalence and are now attempting to move the goalposts.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait, what? Did you even read what I said?

Please say something of substance, I beg of you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did read what you wrote and that is why I wrote what I did.

Locking people up is a false equivalence with execution.

You are now attempting to move the goalposts now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That visceral reaction is exactly why victims or their families can't have input. Of course you'd want them to be punished, of course you'd want it to be cruel and unusual.

While I agree the State shouldn't kill, if someone decided not to spend those millions of dollars and instead took these bastards behind the jail and put a $0.15 bullet in each of their skulls I wouldn't be angry.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You say that now, but what about death penalties in Sudan? Iran? China? Are western executions more moral? What is the purpose? Revenge? Deterrence? The death penalty in the real world disproportionally affects minority and disadvantaged populations. It is not a deterrent to crime, and there is truly no humane way to end a person's life. What of the executioner's psyche? What of the innocent family of the condemned? There are so many terrible consequences.

As tired and trite as it is, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" applies and is true. The death penalty only continues the cycle of violence.

edit: I missed your point 😅 I still can't condone violence in any capacity

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This would be so much easier if someone could write their names in a notebook, and somehow kill them of a heart attack as a result of it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Add a dude eating chips, another dude eating a cupcake, pad it out with 11 hours of nothing at all happening and you've got a hit on your hands somehow

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

To be fair, he ate chips with a neat soundtrack and flashy cuts. Whooooah.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know, in political theory the entire conceptual basis of the state is that the state is the has the sole monopoly on violence. That’s it, that’s what the state is. It is the sole purveyor of social norms and order by using violence as a tool of enforcement.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You know, in political theory the entire conceptual basis of the state is that the state is the has the sole monopoly on violence.

No it isn't. What fucking theory are you reading to come up with this bullshit?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

It doesn't need to be more expensive to execute someone than to house them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Looks like we're punishing ourselves, lol.

Every dollar wasted on keeping them locked up could be better just about anywhere else in society.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It isn't clear to me if execution is actually cheaper or not. And the 8th amendment effectively bans the simple methods of killing. It needs to be sterile and mostly painless for most people.

Would I like to make an exception for pedophiles, where we castrate them, physically and chemically? Yes. But we've agreed as a society that we won't dole out cruel punishments as a cost for ensuring our government stays in check. I generally prefer lifetime imprisonment without parole for two reasons.

  1. There were a lot of executions where, when we went back to look at them with newer technology for DNA evidence, we realized the accused was actually innocent, and the criminal got away. You can imagine there was a racial component as well which meant death sentences were assigned more often to non white people than white people. It would be hubris for us to think that our systems are perfect now. Another technological development in the future could exonerate people we think are definitely guilty. I don't want any more innocent people to die where we realize their innocence too late.

  2. Being locked up for life sounds like a fate worse than depth, especially if it's solitary confinement. Let them rot and go and insane.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If life-imprisonment is a fate worse than death (most prisoners disagree, that's why it's common to plea a death sentence down to a life-sentence), then doesn't this mean that it is preferable to erroneously execute innocent people rather than give them life-imprisonment?

Your second point really severely undermines your first argument.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, because life imprisonment has the possibility of exoneration and freedom.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Only if additional evidence emerges. Innocent people are still going to face life imprisonment, and the argument is that it's better to execute people than life imprisonment.

Even then this is extremely subjective, many people who have never been imprisoned or faced imminent death think that they would prefer execution, and somehow generalise this feeling to all people when in reality very few people choose execution when given the option.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I prefer a 3m steel cube, welded shut, with a poop hole, a human-sized gerbil spout for water, and a hole for gruel to be pumped in twice a day. No clothes, bedding, or even a bowl for the gruel.