Do you agree or disagree with the death penalty?

This is another issue that I've flopped on over the years. I used to be a "hell yeah, I'll flip the switch" kind of guy. Then I learned (thanks to appeals and the higher cost of housing people on death row) it actually costs more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life, so I decided it wasn't economically advantageous.

Then my dad pointed out that "depriving someone of their life is the most severe thing that can be done to them, and it can never be undone". Combine this with the fact that the death penalty attempts to rationalize the use of the very thing it is often invoked to condemn--depriving a person of their life--and it is morally incoherent for a society to employ the death penalty as a punishment for any reason.

The last straw came when I learned about how often people are exonerated after having been executed by the state. Yeah, as long as there's a non-zero chance of us inadvertently murdering the wrong party in the name of v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶a̶n̶c̶e̶, p̶o̶p̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶r̶e̶v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶, justice, capital punishment will remain a categorically indefensible method of punishment. Even if we could know with 100% certainty that we were punishing the proper party, the use of state-sanctioned murder is at its best morally specious and hypocritical, and at its worst even worse than the conduct it is used to punish. *hands mic to floor*

Well said and I agree. After my child has hit someone it doesn't make sense to me to turn around and hit him on the bottom. Basically the death penalty is since you took someone's life against their will we're going to take your life against your will. Also like you said, there is no %100 guarantee you're killing the right person. I think of the heartbreaking case of George Stinney Jr. Convicted in only a few minutes, brutally murdered in the electric chair and exonerated 70 years later.

The worst part about ending a criminal's life is all hope of them ever changing and repenting is gone.

The decision to end anyone's life should not be up to any person.

"The decision to end anyone's life should not be up to any person."

Yes, I'm against suicide.

In principle I can respect that, though it would be difficult for me to condemn certain cases of assisted-suicide. And in war most bets are off. (Another Gandhi quote is "Morality is contraband in war.") Cyanide tablets to evade capture and interrogation, suicide attacks to defend/protect your people/land, even intentionally overdosing on morphine when mortally wounded in the absence of immediate care--I could see giving all of those a pass. Then again, I'm not what I would describe as a "moral authority".

Exactly

"After my child has hit someone it doesn't make sense to me to turn around and hit him on the bottom"
-If anything, that makes perfect sense to me. punishes the kid *and* shows them firsthand why hitting your classmates isn't seen as a positive thing. Lessons were learned, kid won't hit anyone again. if he does, well, what goes around comes around. The death penalty is similar- If you deprive enough people of their right to live, your own right is forfeit. makes perfect sense to me.

"there is no %100 guarantee you're killing the right person."
such is law. We could strengthen the requirements before a death penalty is possible, but at the end of the day some poor innocent person gets caught- this is true with the death penalty, true with life imprisonment, and is true with any other punishment in existence or to have ever existed. That doesn't mean we should *tear down* every type of punishment for *possibly* hitting someone innocent in the crossfire, and if anything the fact that the death penalty is exclusively targeted when innocent people are rotting away in life imprisonments as we speak is even worse.

"The worst part about ending a criminal's life is all hope of them ever changing and repenting is gone."
Sometimes, people are beyond redeeming. I recognize that this is a controversial statement, but I have a feeling few people would have wanted Hitler, for example, to live past ww2. Other offenses are difficult to forgive even if the person makes efforts to change- No matter how much a pedo or rapist may try, or usually not, to change, they're still going to be on a watchlist for life even if they somehow walk free.

I suppose if you're cool with modeling abusive behavior and setting the examples that hypocrisy is situationally permissible and crime is a function of circumstance rather than act, then sure.

Live by the sword, die by the sword...he who sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed...what goes around comes around...it all leads to varying shades of the Hatfields and McCoys or the fxcking middle east. Rise above or sink with the rest of the filth.

"t actually costs more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life, so I decided it wasn't economically advantageous."
tbh I don't see why this is a point anyways? Capital punishment is the highest, most severe form of punishment within the bounds of law, so of course it's expensive- matches the rarity it should be applied, at the very least.
"depriving someone of their life is the most severe thing that can be done to them, and it can never be undone""
that's... the point? once again, it's a punishment made for the worst criminals, the ones believed to be beyond saying- In the eyes of the law and oftentimes the people their right to life is forfeit.

"learned about how often people are exonerated after having been executed by the state. Yeah, as long as there's a non-zero chance of us inadvertently murdering the wrong party in the name of v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶a̶n̶c̶e̶, p̶o̶p̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶r̶e̶v̶e̶n̶g̶e̶, justice,"
That's why the restrictions before the death penalty should be increased, but the punishment not removed entirely.
"capital punishment will remain a categorically indefensible method of punishment. Even if we could know with 100% certainty that we were punishing the proper party, the use of state-sanctioned murder is at its best morally specious and hypocritical, and at its worst even worse than the conduct it is used to punish. *hands mic to floor*"
I don't see it as hypocrisy- by this very same logic, without applying even the slightest amount of mental gymnastics, imprisoning kidnappers is hypocritical. Justice transcends hypocrisy, because in order for a system of justice to work it must commit wrongdoings to those who have committed wrongdoings on others.

I hope I written my points well.

Your points are well made sir, and I thank you for presenting them in a cogent and civil fashion. I myself tend to backslide into polemic rather than polite discourse. I own it, it's a known issue that I'm trying to resolve but old habits die hard, even when you try your darndest to execute them.

My issue with the death penalty--and to be clear, this is just my opinion--is that it seems incompatible with the ethical standpoint that killing is wrong. If you don't care about ethics, or are willing to set them aside for the sake of vindiction, then fine, our governance isn't wholly ethical. My biggest quibble is that it's irreversible, so to write off the non-zero percent of people put to death for sh¡t they didn't even do, you abdicate the moral high ground. The stuationally rationalization of murder invites arguments that such n such act of murder was justifiable, casting doubt on the need to punish it in the first place.

Letting someone rot in jail for 30 years before exonerating them won't give them back their lost years, but some manner of restitution is possible. Irreversible punishments like castration, lobotomization, amputation and straight up killing someone...I would like to think that at our highest level, we are above that. Maybe I'm naive. Pretty tall feat for a career cynic.

In any case, I personally don't give af about people murdering each other in the streets purge style. People are vermin. I just hold our institutions to a higher ideal.

"If you don't care about ethics, or are willing to set them aside for the sake of vindication, then fine, "
I suppose that is my argument- I argue that ethics needs to be thrown aside for justice to be served. whenever putting a man to death, trapping them within a cell for years against their will, or forcing them into labor, justice requires doing "wrong" actions to a person, rationalized by the wrongdoing they first committed.

"Letting someone rot in jail for 30 years before exonerating them won't give them back their lost years, but some manner of restitution is possible. Irreversible punishments like castration, lobotomization, amputation and straight up killing someone...I would like to think that at our highest level, we are above that. Maybe I'm naive. Pretty tall feat for a career cynic."

Well-made argument! and there is a good reason why castration, lobotomization, and amputation are all, in the United States, banned. The difference between those three and execution is that the former are all examples of maiming, but do not necessarily equate killing. they prolong the suffering of the condemned possibly through their entire life. I would argue that they are, in that manner, even worse then execution.

In any case, I personally don't give af about people murdering each other in the streets purge style. People are vermin. I just hold our institutions to a higher ideal."
So if people decide to run around murdering people for the fun of it, that's fine? I consider that a prime example of when the death penalty should be applied, because no way should a person who considers the act of murdering another person to be "fun", and actively partake in such murdering. continue to exist in a world with people within it.

I applaud your realization that there are fates worse than death. That acknowledgment alone bumps a person up the moral spectrum a notch or two. (I delight in conceptualizing elaborate tortures that would make a person scream for death. I won't give examples, but consider that no matter how imaginative a torture scenario, there are ALWAYS ways to make it worse. Beyond a certain point the nervous system goes on tilt, but still.) Ahem, moving on...

I feel like Crime and Punishment would have been a relevant book to cite, if I'd read it.

I left the Hammurabi, eye for an eye bs behind in grammar school, because it seems childish. But then humanity as a whole is a tottering child, so it stands to reason tit-for-tat remain the law of the land. I can't argue with your last point, apart from pondering what difference it would make to the equation if the motivation for killing was something other than fun. I will say this: if I were ever to receive the death penalty, I would demand it, post haste. I would insist that the mandatory appeals be waived, and that the sentence be carried out as soon as humanly possible. None of this dying of old age waiting on death row bullshit. And I believe the condemned should be presented with a list of standard options from which to select the method of their execution. There is no justifiable reason for denying the condemned this choice, apart from pettiness and sadism. At that point, I'd rather see the entire governing body tortured to death. Seems only fitting.

Granted, not without overwelling evidence.

What if the murder victim was a rapist?

No. Some vigilante with ambiguous motives, but who specifically targets known rapists.

Or the rapist was a murder victim...oh wait.

A zombie wiener with an insatiable hunger for brain?

Maybe a boner was savagely murdered, then 3 days later rose from the dead and came again.🤔

😝

Even with evidence there is no 100% certitude that you have the right person. Would you support it only for serial rapists and murderers or after just one offense? What sets those crimes apart that they would deserve the death penalty more than say a government traitor, an arsonist or robber?

Eh, doubt ≤2% is negligible for purposes of legal certainty. Sort of like FDA standards for rat hairs in your peanut butter or moth legs in your oatmeal.

…to be sure we got the right person.

In this particular case, while it checks the "most heinous" box, I might have a hard time with imposing it on a stupid kid, so I'm not going to judge the juror(s) who voted against.

A lot of kids are now going to be kids forever and ever thanks to that stupid kid who at least will still have a chance to grow old. More of a chance than his victims had anyhow.

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."

That's why I stick to garrotting people. No blood.

Well, if you punish the shooter in the mass shooting equation too severely then it takes away from the argument that "the gun did it".

Ethically I support the death penalty in some cases. Legally I am against it due to the fact that so many people on death row have been found innocent.

Makes sense. Are ethics and law separate?

And how is your sleazy self doing these days? Always nice to see you.

Lol, I'm still here...

Yes, ethics is “what is wrong/right” law is. “what is banned/permitted/mandated” there are many things that are wrong but not illegal, and many things that are illegal but not wrong

Hello
Can I have moderator in the all memes matter stream
U don't have give if U don't want to

Please link the stream and I'll see if own it. If i don't you'd have to ask the current owner

Thank you

strongly agree

Your display of support for that brand of justice absolutely kills it.

thank you I thought it was hilarious

Under what circumstances?

premeditated murder, possibly first degree sexual assault (definitely if it's a repeated issue)
I don't think it should be used for stuff like stealing or doing drugs

Also, they need to not leave people on death row for two decades (I think that's around the average time). If you're that unsure whether or not they need to be executed, probably don't do it. It's a huge drain on resources and partially eliminates the purpose of the death penalty.

I would support the death penalty for rapists, pedophiles and serial killers/mass murderers, but I think letting a government kill it's own citizens in this way is gives too much power to it

Vengeance only leaves one feeling empty.
Cruelty for cruelty's sake however...that's a powerful drug.

Sorry I can't reply, a mod not connected to this stream deleted my comment!

And did the same for another comment on another meme on this stream a few days prior, so basically I'm banned from it.