# Are you for the death penalty or not?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-for-the-death-penalty-or-not/506686>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 17, 2009, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-for-the-death-penalty-or-not/506686 "2009-08-17T02:47:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 199

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**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-for-the-death-penalty-or-not/506686/199 "2009-08-20T03:16:10Z")

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> [@bri1600bv](#):
>
> It is if it results in greater good being done I think. If 100,000 murderers are killed and that saves/improves the lives of 50,000 people (both by freeing resources and improving the quality of life of the citizenry and preventing them from being killed) but unfortunately 5 innocent people are killed…then SOME might say it was worth it.

Namely, well off white people. The people who know they are not the ones in danger of being killed. And probably not the cops, who’ll have to worry about getting dragged out of their cars and killed if they patrol minority neighborhoods after.

Not by gang members, but by enraged mobs of average citizens. Because another flaw in your psychopathic plan is that it ignores the fact that not everyone is going to agree with you that those people deserved to die, or were even guilty.

> [@Proposal: The Anti-Legislature](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-the-anti-legislature/506731/25):
>
> Society makes determinations like that all the time. They give vacines that kill a small percentage of people taking them. Those are innocent people sacrificed to the greater good, so to speak. What’s the difference?

Two that come to mind is there’s no other way of solving the problem of many diseases, that it actually works ( unlike mass executions ), and that bigotry isn’t involved.

> [@Proposal: The Anti-Legislature](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proposal-the-anti-legislature/506731/25):
>
> If you can free up billions by killing a few hundred thousand predators, then how many people can be saved via “free health care”?

A society that does as you suggest would probably “solve” the problem of sickness among the uninsured by killing them. A murderous society is going to solve it’s problems in a murderous way. And no, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think that a society that acts like Nazi Germany in one way will act like Nazi Germany in another.

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