The real reason to end the death penalty • Hacker News Board

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#201

Post by ectopod » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

Pet_Ant wrote: post #184

jcims wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Framing the death penalty debate around "innocent people get killed" will not change the partisan/class perceptions. I don't agree. All of these moral castigations about it being 'inhumane' or 'barbaric' don't strike me as rational or compelling in the least. I think the idea is humane in the context of those impacted by the crimes in question and I don't see how putting a person in a box for the remainder of their…

> In other words I absolutely believe there are just executions I think that is the GP,s point: the real problem is to convince you otherwise.

Why? If he (or she) believes or can be convinced that the death penalty should be abolished, why do you care if they also believe that some of the executions that already happened were just?

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#202

Post by alexashka » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

kelp wrote: post #188

I'm glad this is being shared widely, because I agree with it. That said, I have to snark a little about it, because I was in high school, in the 90s, when I came to the same realization about why the death penalty is wrong. So this seems pretty obvious to me. Our justice system is not reliable enough to have the death penalty.

Our roads and speed limits are not reliable enough to have cars.

Pretty obvious we should abolish cars. Duh.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#203

Post by raldi » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #199

raldi wrote: post #147

If this had been written by anyone but pg, the headline would've been changed to "A Reason to End the Death Penalty" :D

If we did that, commenters would complain "yet again, the HN moderators completely change the meaning of a title with their invasive and random editing. It's infuriating." And in this case they'd be right, because in this case the definite article and the word "real" are essential—the article's argument doesn't really exist without them.

I know you can't please everyone. Hope you didn't mind the ribbing. ;)

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#204

Post by slibhb » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #185

slibhb wrote: post #180

The best objection to the death penalty is indeed that we can't be trusted to administer it. I disagree with a lot of comments in this thread. The death penalty is in fact the appropriate punishment for murderers. This is not true in order to deter crime or so that we can create a better society or any other similar rationalization. Justice, by which I mean reciprocity, is an end in itself. A crime should be punished…

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. If you start with "morally clueless" and end with Eichmann, god help us, that's pretty much guaranteed. We're trying for a very different sort of conversation here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

I edited the post but frankly I don't see how "morally clueless" is more conducive to a flamewar than "barbaric" which appears all over this thread.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#205

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #193

wideareanetwork wrote: post #2

I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”. Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law. Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death…

> I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”. Thing is, most of the time, people who are subject to the death penalty are there because they did “inhuman and barbaric” acts. It is kind of like the paradox of tolerance. For society to prosper, you need to punish inhuman and barbaric acts, or at least isolate people who do that from society. However, such punishme…

[deleted]

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#206

Post by snakeboy » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

tstrimple wrote: post #195

snakeboy wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called a compromise, right? Reducing the pain involved and increasing the burden of proof required are both concrete, positive reforms, even if it doesn't completely resolve the issue.

Let's just kill fewer innocent people and it's fine right? Why won't you compromise with us?!

You can laugh all you want, but killing fewer innocent people is in fact a good thing. If you can't see the value in that, then politics is not for you :)

I think we should celebrate that kind of incremental progress so long as it's not progress towards some kind of inescapable local minimum. And even in that case, it just becomes more complicated, not obviously wrong either.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#207

Post by UncleOxidant » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

tompccs wrote: post #6

wideareanetwork wrote: post #2

I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”. Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law. Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death…

I don't mean to pick on you specifically, but this sort of remark is why the left and intellectuals more widely fail at winning politically. Rather than use arguments that are amenable even to people who disagree on the fundamentals, you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms, thereby failing to actually influence policy (in this case a matter of life and death). If the de…

> you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms

Everyone has a moral high-ground that isn't debatable.

The right does this as well for it's issues such as abortion.

Left or Right, everyone thinks there is some moral high ground that's not debatable. Everyone has some line that they don't think should be crossed.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#208

Post by dane-pgp » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #161

Here's a simple question: "would you trust a random politician with the life of your loved one if said loved one's life stood between the politician and greater political ambitions?" If your answer is yes, then by all means, support the death penalty. If you don't trust ambitious politicians, then you can't trust the process for selecting who is to be put to death by the state either, because DAs and AGs are politici…

I heard another interesting thought experiment on this topic recently. It said there should be a referendum about whether to keep (or adopt) the death penalty, but the names of everyone who voted for allowing the death penalty would be recorded in a list.

Then, whenever someone sentenced to death was later found to be innocent (or pardoned), a random name on the list of "Yes" voters would be picked to be killed in place of the innocent convict.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#209

Post by asperous » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

I believe the “real reason” to end the death penalty is that it’s so much more expensive the alternative [1]. If it doesn’t deter crime, and doesn’t save money, there’s really no point.

[1] https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/costs

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#210

Post by alexgmcm » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

kelp wrote: post #188

I'm glad this is being shared widely, because I agree with it. That said, I have to snark a little about it, because I was in high school, in the 90s, when I came to the same realization about why the death penalty is wrong. So this seems pretty obvious to me. Our justice system is not reliable enough to have the death penalty.

I don't support the death penalty because as has been mentioned the justice system is unreliable.

But I can understand why some people do when we see so many violent offenders released only to reoffend.

If people are going to have faith in the justice system then a whole life tariff needs to be a reasonable possibility - the USA actually isn't so bad for this but over here in Europe we have far shorter sentences.