8 in 10 Americans oppose live-streaming execution
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
They push out one outrageous diversion after another, and you fall for it.
They're pretending it's just a game and they're in control - they're really not.
And occasionally people are exonerated, and it's better to set them free rather than shrugging at their graves.
We are moving anyway towards Escape from NY/LA world. Let's at least take the good parts from it.
I'd rather we got rid of the death penalty pretty much everywhere but the military, but I don't see how watching an execution really benefits anyone. Watching another human getting shot isn't going to benefit your soul or whatever you want to call it.
> The poll was conducted online Oct. 9-13 among 2,545 U.S. adults nationwide reached through the Ipsos KnowledgePanel
Apparently Trump called off the livestream on October 15: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crx23qlnj27qo.
So this article is last week's news.
A government willing to participate in, and especially revel in, violence sets a precedent for the common people. It desensitizes them to the act and gives them an excuse that "if the government does it, I should be allowed to".
The government is supposed to reflect the moral and character of the society it operates. But it works both ways, and people (I imagine especially children) start to adopt the moral and character of the government - or an anarchic rejection thereof. So when you have Nazis, you get Hitlers Youth.
We should not be proud of executions. They are a dirty deed that "must" be done (though many would argue shouldn't - which I'm inclined to agree with after so many exonerations), so we should be ashamed and do it quietly, with shame for us and dignity for the victim.
- Executing people in a way that makes us not have to think about it as a society, or only think about it in passing
- Executing people in our faces, so we have to think about it
Personally I find the first option gross. "Out of sight, out of mind"--you know what I mean?
Perhaps we could then rally behind getting rid of death penalty. Or at the very least, ensure we aren’t botching every other one.
It serves no purpose in preventing future crimes. First, because you've already caught the criminal, the proposed alternate sentence of life imprisonment without chance for parole already handles preventing that individual from committing further offenses. And second, it's been proven repeatedly that ratcheting up punishment as some sort of deterrent doesn't work because most people committing crimes either believe they're going to get away with it or aren't in a frame of mind to care about any penalties (e.g., crimes of passion).
It also fails to be an efficient way of dealing with a caught criminal. The combination of incarceration time, resources spent on appeals, and the cost of the actual execution methods makes death row inmates more expensive than lifers. We actually pay more to put people to death than we would jailing them for the rest of their lives.
Instead, people fight so hard to keep capital punishment around because it scratches the itch for vengeance.
Just FYI, Philip is a "he" name.
Who proved that? Have you lived in a high trust society that punishes crimes, or do you not think they exist?
Your point seems to be that people don't believe they will be punished. Everywhere I've been people did know they would be punished, severely. Organized theft in Singapore if you're a male younger than 50 could get you caned. Perhaps you're arguing that public punishment would help raise their awareness?
I think that there is likely _enough_ visibility in the case of the classic execution, which is only done after the fifth amendment has been thoroughly exercised and appeals process fully depleted, and (ironically) not nearly enough visibility in the exercise of state power done by drone strikes and such, and so I take his point and appreciate it for what it is, which predominately is that I hadn't thought about it in that way before -- I still oppose the idea, but perhaps less strongly than before now that I know that bloodlust isn't the only viable interest (tho still a tremendous worry to me)
If this were livestreamed you'd have just insanely grotesque stuff like livestream commentators narrating and reacting to the footage while polymarket ads play over it, making memes and remixes of it like what happened with the Charlie Kirk assassination clips. It's all sick IMO.
I’ve worked on a slaughter floor before, and while it’s certainly not an enjoyable experience I can say with all honesty that a great deal is done to minimize suffering.
My philosophy is that I only eat meat I would personally be able to kill, which means chicken, ducks and fishes (probably game too). I still avoid battery chicken though.
2. Do you actually believe in the implied principle of "if you support [x] you must watch every [x]", or are you just using it a cudgel against people you hate? Would it be fair game for anti-abortion groups to demand "if you support abortion you must watch every abortion"?
The “safe” dose of midazolam used for anesthesia is orders of magnitude smaller than the dose commonly used in lethal injection.
> Would it be fair game for anti-abortion groups to demand "if you support abortion you must watch every abortion"?
This was actually a tactic used by anti-abortion groups back when Roe was settled law.
Even if, I don't see how seeing one of the perpetrators getting killed many years later would give relief.
I also believe eternal prison is a bigger punishment than execution.
He spent his life in prison, now he would be executed live, everyone would see how he's going to die, and for him at least, it's very disrespecting.
In this case, organized rape was effectively unpoliced for some time to avoid "community tensions" with police saying the children involved "were slags". The message should be sent that organized crime will now be prosecuted.
The ethnicity of the more recent perpetrators just provided another excuse. It wasn't the root cause of the inaction.
Yes, it really is that simple. I can leave my laptop unattended in an unlocked coworking space in Singapore because people know they'll be punished if they rob me. It's marvellous.
I haven't heard of a similar case of organized mass rape in the UK before this, so it's surprising to read you comment, but if you have sources add them here. Like many of the UKs (and Europes) problems, the issue isn't ethnicity, but rather Islam, which explicitly permits sexual slavery.
That said…
If you’re going to do this, it absolutely should be a public event. If This is what a society does, the society have to own that imho. Anyone supporting it should be required to watch one first.
How can it be ok to do it but only secretly in a dark corner and not let anyone see?
From Daisaku Ikeda: The Courage of Nonviolence [1]
quote
Violence vs. Nonviolence: The Struggle of the Twenty-first Century
I am also reminded of a moving episode that Leo Tolstoy related in a letter written two months before his death. The letter, dated September 7, 1910, was addressed to Mahatma Gandhi.
The episode went something like this. There was a test on the subject of religion in a certain girls' school in Moscow. A bishop had come to the school and was quizzing the girls one by one about the Ten Commandments. When he came to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," the bishop asked: "Does God forbid us to kill under all circumstances?"
The girls each answered as they had been taught. "No," they said, "not under all circumstances. We may kill in war or as legal punishment."
"Yes, that's right! You've answered correctly!" said the bishop.
Then one of the girls, her face flushed with indignation, spoke up: "Killing is wrong under all circumstances!"
The bishop was flustered and marshaled all his rhetorical skills to convince the girl that there were exceptions to the commandment against killing, but to no avail.
"No," she declared. "Killing is a sin under all circumstances. It says so in the Old Testament. Moreover, Jesus not only forbade killing but taught that we must do no harm to our neighbors."
In the face of truth in the girl's assertion, the bishop's authority and verbal skills were of no use whatsoever. In the end, he could only fall silent. The young girl, Tolstoy wrote with evident satisfaction, had proven victorious.
Let us amplify the words of that young girl--"It is wrong to kill, even in war!" And let us broadcast them to the world!
The twentieth century was a century of war, a century in which hundreds of millions of people died violent deaths. Have we learned anything from those horrific tragedies? In the new era of the twenty-first century, humanity must be guided by the overriding principle that killing is never acceptable or justified--under any circumstance. Unless we realize this, unless we widely promote and deeply implant the understanding that violence can never be used to advocate one's beliefs, we will have learned nothing from the bitter lessons of the twentieth century.
The real struggle of the twenty-first century will not be between civilizations, nor between religions. It will be between violence and nonviolence. It will be between barbarity and civilization in the truest sense of the word.
end quote
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50060304#50060591
[1] https://www.daisakuikeda.org/sub/resources/works/essays/peac...