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Kenneth Smith ‘struggled for life’ for 22 minutes in Alabama nitrogen gas execution: Updates
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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The state tells you murder is illegal. Except when the state does it. You can't expect people to follow, "do what I say, not what I do."
It's cruel, it's a reflection of our morals. The death penalty is not a deterrent for murder. The death penalty is hypocrisy. The death penalty is for an unserious society.
But the death penalty is just a symptom of a greater chronic illness we suffer from. We'll just continue to kill ourselves until we find a cure for the disease.
Edit: I see many do not like my wording for state sanctioned murder. If you are reading this and don't understand, imagine if listening to George Bush (can't remember which) tell the tv America doesn't negotiate with terrorists. He's drawing a moral line in the sand with terrorism. That's my point. We need to figure out where our moral line in the sand is with the death penalty, because right now it's all over the place. Do I think outlawing the death penalty will solve our societal woes? No, I do not. The people will demand it until it is reinstated. For me I ask what is the purpose of the death penalty? Does it serve a greater good for a society? Obviously it does not. Americans are murdered all the time, so it serves no purpose.
The cure is education. Unfortunately they are killing that, too.
Good education is so underrated, yet so difficult to actually get, especially with these silly book bans and stuff which only serve to narrow students' perspectives
I want to preface this by saying I am against the death penalty.
The argument
really falls apart when you consider all the other things the state is allowed to do that would be otherwise illegal. The simplest comparison is imprisonment but there are dozens of others.
Exactly, the government has a monopoly on a lot of things, among them violence and as an extent of that monopoly also incarceration.
I can see how some people have a hard time grasping that. I mean most of us would like to have no violence at all, so allowing some that power can seem strange. But how about traffic laws?
You can't get in your car and go 200km/h down the road, which I sometimes would like to, but I hope we all can see how everyone doing 200, where 80 is more appropriate, would be a problem. So we're ok with police/fire/rescue being the only ones allowed to break the speed limits and running red lights, right? It's the same thing.
We've got specially trained people, who have been given strict guidelines for doing stuff ordinary citizens can't do, because the society need something done that can't be done without these powers ... and who have oversight (hopefully), so these powers aren't abused.
How'd you make your comment in bold font?
Does your text box not have a little "B" above it? If not **text** will make it bold. Surrounding the text with a single * will make it italics.
thank you*
I think you are onto something. The cure will be found when nobody is left. /S
Only situation I'd accept a death sentence is if a person indisputably poses a credible threat to other peoples lives, even while imprisoned.
Essentially, anybody previously convicted of murder who then proceeds to (beyond any doubt) attempt murder again. At that point it's not about punishment, it's about protecting human life.
I will also preface this by saying I am 100% against the death penalty. The fact that we could put an innocent person to death for what I see as zero gain makes it very hard to convince me otherwise.
However:
Murder is by definition the illegal killing of someone. Unless I'm mistaken, every state has some law on the book that allows you to kill someone, at least in the case of self defense or the defense of another when it's reasonable to believe there is imminent danger to one's life. And the defense of the DP is that it's "defending" society against these criminals. It's BS, but your point is also incorrect.
This is kind of a silly argument. The state is not a person. When they fine you money, it is not identical to someone stealing from you.
Ah, so it is okay for institutions to murder people. Gotcha.