Should murderers and other brutal criminals be executed?
Depends. What sort of community do you want to have, what sort of message are you trying to project?
Nah, those aren't the real questions, the real question is /"Why?"/ - As in, why would you wish it, and what would it achieve?
Saving money by executing them? That doesn't sound to me as if it should be a paramount consideration when delivering justice, and due to how strict it must all be, isn't taking care of people whom you wish to execute more expensive than dealing with life-sentence inmates?
Is it because you wish to keep them away from society, so they will not be able to do harm? That's what "life-sentence" is for, and I think if the crime is indeed so "brutal", we can trust they won't be released early.
Is this in order to "deter" people? You mean that life sentence won't deter them but the death-sentence would? That's ridiculous. And if those people wish for their names to be remembered, then the death sentence will only increase that, along with the added coverage its cases provide, and being known as someone who had been executed.
Now, let's get to what is often at the core of it - "payback" or "vengeance" - terms that are often called "Childish", or, well, "Brutal". So if we send people to their death for brutal reasons, should we then also send those who had sent them to their death, to /their/ death? That seems only right, after all.
Now, I suspect this will piss people off, but are you familiar with The Milgram Experiments? First, we have people who ordered someone else to die here, then we have someone whose job is to effectively "pull the switch", electrical chair or otherwise. These people are killing other people, by our command. People who pose no immediate threat. And well, "they're just obeying orders". That's the sort of social structure you're constructing here. To equate this to what we think of when people call "Nazis!" isn't out of place.
Nah, those aren't the real questions, the real question is /"Why?"/ - As in, why would you wish it, and what would it achieve?
Saving money by executing them? That doesn't sound to me as if it should be a paramount consideration when delivering justice, and due to how strict it must all be, isn't taking care of people whom you wish to execute more expensive than dealing with life-sentence inmates?
Is it because you wish to keep them away from society, so they will not be able to do harm? That's what "life-sentence" is for, and I think if the crime is indeed so "brutal", we can trust they won't be released early.
Is this in order to "deter" people? You mean that life sentence won't deter them but the death-sentence would? That's ridiculous. And if those people wish for their names to be remembered, then the death sentence will only increase that, along with the added coverage its cases provide, and being known as someone who had been executed.
Now, let's get to what is often at the core of it - "payback" or "vengeance" - terms that are often called "Childish", or, well, "Brutal". So if we send people to their death for brutal reasons, should we then also send those who had sent them to their death, to /their/ death? That seems only right, after all.
Now, I suspect this will piss people off, but are you familiar with The Milgram Experiments? First, we have people who ordered someone else to die here, then we have someone whose job is to effectively "pull the switch", electrical chair or otherwise. These people are killing other people, by our command. People who pose no immediate threat. And well, "they're just obeying orders". That's the sort of social structure you're constructing here. To equate this to what we think of when people call "Nazis!" isn't out of place.
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Arjuna Chatrathi