Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Lets talk about how fucked up and shitty the Death Penalty is

tin can made man: Apr 13, 2005; why don't you ask him
about his penis

hakimashou posted:

I don't know that it is impossible, I think it might just be very difficult.

It doesnt have to be perfect in order to prove someone is guilty of murder.

I'm not sure that you and I could hash out how to make a system that only gave the death penalty to people who were actually guilty, but I think if enough time and effort and brainpower was put into it, it wouldn't be impossible.

And when guilty people were given the death penalty for committing murder, it wouldn't be morally wrong.

So in the same breath you admit the justice system is incapable of reaching a level of confidence in guilt to administer the death penalty, but re-assert your belief in (and, judging by the tenor of your other posts in this thread, the sense of sheer obligation towards) the utter extermination of a murderer. In that case, who's going to end the lives of murderers? The justice system is clearly untrustworthy, so it'd have to be you to pull the trigger, wouldn't it?

My assumption is that you'd have no compunctions whatsoever with ending the life of a human being deemed unfit to live due to a moral and legal violation. What if you did so while in the jurisdiction of a state that abolished capital punishment; in a word, one that holds the communal belief that it is a moral and legal violation to end a life for a moral and legal violation. You would go to prison, but would you prefer they execute you?

What about people who murder because they believe they're doing justice? A husband who murders his wife for infringing on his ability to provide? Or someone methodically premeditating and executing a murder of someone whom they perceive as an imminent threat to the safety of their family? Where does your sense of justice begin and the "criminal" sense of justice end?

These are dizzying and hyperbolic hypotheticals, but maybe such thorny moral quandaries would be more easily avoided if we could collectively evolve to the understanding that there is no justifiable consensus on the acceptability of murder, and so in lieu of that we should not tolerate murder in any form. Especially when every other method of reprisal (no matter how heinous they are) is infinitely more revocable and open to the possibility of reparation

tin can made man fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Mar 3, 2017

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 06:21

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:05

tin can made man: Apr 13, 2005; why don't you ask him
about his penis

hakimashou posted:

My only response is that the US should probably get rid of the death penalty, but not because it is morally wrong to execute murderers.

Is it morally wrong to punitively rape sexual predators? Should private citizens be able to lobby to volunteer to be a state-sanctioned Rapist in the way they can for Executioner?

If you litter or speed, is it the obligation of the state to enter your home and start throwing garbage around or move around your house in ways that could potentially be hazardous for you and its inhabitants? Why do all other crimes receive an abstracted punishment but murder receives a literal, reactive one?

And I'm genuinely curious about a question I asked that you didn't address: should an executioner who has ended life in a state with permissive capital punishment be deported to a state with abolished capital punishment and be executed?

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Mar 3, 2017 15:15

tin can made man: Apr 13, 2005; why don't you ask him
about his penis

hakimashou posted:

There is no accurate measure of human suffering, and we can't truly see inside anyone else's head anyway, so its complicated and difficult, and perhaps even impossible, to assign exactly equal suffering to a perpetrator as to his victim.

But in the special case of murder, this becomes moot, since the victim is dead, and executing the perpetrator will make him exactly equally dead. Its one instance where its very easy to tailor the punishment to fit the crime with absolute certain equivalence and perfect symmetry.

Lots of crimes other than murder leave behind a dead victim. Is Involuntary manslaughter also a capital offense? What about negligent homicide? How does this apply if a killer is coerced, misled, or mentally incompetent? How far removed from the corpse can a person be for execution to apply - should every wartime US commander in chief be executed?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 02:06

tin can made man: Apr 13, 2005; why don't you ask him
about his penis

But the victims in those other crimes are equally as dead as the victims in a murder case. By your own logic, a life for a life is the only symmetrical and just punishment in the case of a dead victim. Why is it that some corpses deserve symmetrical justice but other corpses don't? Or, rather, how is it possibly just to attribute a "corpse for a corpse" policy to some corpses, but not others? They're all as exactly dead as the other due to the actions of another party.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 02:17

tin can made man: Apr 13, 2005; why don't you ask him
about his penis

hakimashou posted:

When a perpetrator chooses to commit a murder for a reason, especially to obtain some benefit for himself, or do some other malicious harm, those are the clear cut cases of moral guilt.

So all murders done in the name of political change, wartime progress, or self-preservation should also be punishable by death?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 02:35

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