There has been a push by Indiana legislators to rework and add alternative methods to the carrying out of executions in Indiana. House Bill 1119, authored by Rep. Jim Lucas,
Not OP but thought I’d chime in. I became convinced in the past few years to never be on board with the death penalty, but the past year has me on the fence about very rarely applying it. I think that a public execution could serve as a deterrent, reserved only for those who are very plainly guilty of the very worst atrocities. I mean worse than mass shooters. I’m talking decades of willful societal damage. Mussolini level of horrible. If we could’ve gotten to Hitler before he could kill himself, imagine the public, tortured, slow execution, and really ask yourself how many people would dare to wave a Nazi flag or sieg heil after that.
Maybe a few of these in the entire world over a century would be enough to prevent every genocide. I’m open to trying. Life in prison allows people to forget, but recorded gruesome executions are seared into memories.
If the death penalty serves as some kind of deterrent, why is murder more prevalent in States where it is performed?
States that execute people for murder and the highest murder rate per capita by State are almost the same list.
I think there are other, more significant factors that should be addressed first before we allow the government to kill people (a very, very good many of whom were actually innocent).
I’m not on board with the way that it’s currently applied, to be clear. I was just saying that that could be a reasonable thought for an argument for it, and that I thought that it could be valid if rarely and very publicly used for the most extreme couple of cases in a century.
I’m not here to defend the death penalty. But I’m also not gonna try too hard to protect a Hitler from that in order to get him a life sentence which could just be pardoned/commuted by his biggest fans. You’re right that we should be very careful about giving a government the right to murder a person, and that several death sentences have been carried out against people found to have been innocent, but that’s also why I bring up only using it for plainly, obviously guilty monsters like Mussolini or Hitler, and making sure that it’s inhumanely awful for them, and making it as widely visible as possible so that nobody can be unaware of what a miserable consequence you’ll suffer for doing that terrible shit.
But I also understand the hypocrisy of “it’s wrong to kill people, so we’ve decided to kill you, and that’s totally different because we decided that we have the power to legitimately decide that.” I don’t know the right answer, but it’s clear to me that there are too many monsters among us, so I’m spitballing whether there’s something that could’ve been done differently to have prevented this.
You’ve acknowledged that a reactionary government can get into power and pardon people.
You must also see that the same reactionary government can more easily execute its critics if we allow the institution of capital punishment. And for what? A “deterrent” that seems to have inverse effectiveness?
Fair point. Maybe only through international means then? Abolish the death penalty except through the ICC? Maximum once per decade, but not always used. Like a Nobel prize for war crimes.
Not OP but thought I’d chime in. I became convinced in the past few years to never be on board with the death penalty, but the past year has me on the fence about very rarely applying it. I think that a public execution could serve as a deterrent, reserved only for those who are very plainly guilty of the very worst atrocities. I mean worse than mass shooters. I’m talking decades of willful societal damage. Mussolini level of horrible. If we could’ve gotten to Hitler before he could kill himself, imagine the public, tortured, slow execution, and really ask yourself how many people would dare to wave a Nazi flag or sieg heil after that.
Maybe a few of these in the entire world over a century would be enough to prevent every genocide. I’m open to trying. Life in prison allows people to forget, but recorded gruesome executions are seared into memories.
If the death penalty serves as some kind of deterrent, why is murder more prevalent in States where it is performed?
States that execute people for murder and the highest murder rate per capita by State are almost the same list.
I think there are other, more significant factors that should be addressed first before we allow the government to kill people (a very, very good many of whom were actually innocent).
I’m not on board with the way that it’s currently applied, to be clear. I was just saying that that could be a reasonable thought for an argument for it, and that I thought that it could be valid if rarely and very publicly used for the most extreme couple of cases in a century.
I’m not here to defend the death penalty. But I’m also not gonna try too hard to protect a Hitler from that in order to get him a life sentence which could just be pardoned/commuted by his biggest fans. You’re right that we should be very careful about giving a government the right to murder a person, and that several death sentences have been carried out against people found to have been innocent, but that’s also why I bring up only using it for plainly, obviously guilty monsters like Mussolini or Hitler, and making sure that it’s inhumanely awful for them, and making it as widely visible as possible so that nobody can be unaware of what a miserable consequence you’ll suffer for doing that terrible shit.
But I also understand the hypocrisy of “it’s wrong to kill people, so we’ve decided to kill you, and that’s totally different because we decided that we have the power to legitimately decide that.” I don’t know the right answer, but it’s clear to me that there are too many monsters among us, so I’m spitballing whether there’s something that could’ve been done differently to have prevented this.
You’ve acknowledged that a reactionary government can get into power and pardon people.
You must also see that the same reactionary government can more easily execute its critics if we allow the institution of capital punishment. And for what? A “deterrent” that seems to have inverse effectiveness?
Fair point. Maybe only through international means then? Abolish the death penalty except through the ICC? Maximum once per decade, but not always used. Like a Nobel prize for war crimes.