# Do liberals want Dylann Roof executed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986 "2015-06-20T01:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/61 "2015-06-20T12:02:38Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > We could show Black Americans that they are fully accepted by improving their schools, ending economic exploitation; degrading and hypocritical attitudes in the workplace and out in public; and heavy-handed policing. > > Or we could kill one crazy white punk who took that attitude to its logical extreme. Then those negroes should have nothing to complain about. Amirite? (Ho ho, see how I used their colorful patois to comic effect?) The logical extreme of improving life for black Americans is shooting them? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/62 "2015-06-20T12:02:56Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > I seem to have missed the part of the 1990s when Joe Biden possessed dictatorial powers that allowed him to “single-handedly” pass laws. If you are referring to what is commonly called the Biden Law of 1994 then you should note that is was passed by bipartisan support in Congress and yes, largely written by Joe Biden. But at the same time it was adamantly opposed by death penalty opponents and civil libertarians and still is today. > > But hey, nice try. Nonetheless, Mr. Biden did author that act, which doubled the death penalty to approx 90 offences, and he **is** a prominent and sincere liberal; so the point stands that liberals can support the death penalty bigtime. For those they deem worthy. The fact that some other liberals objected to him has no bearing, since no-one thinks all liberals think in lock-step. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/63 "2015-06-20T12:27:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Strong liberal. Strongly in favor of executing Roof. He’s forfeited his right to live and society gains nothing by keeping him alive. There’s absolutely no question of his guilt or his motives. Rights, however best beloved by both leftists and palinesque strict-constitutionalist rightists, do not exist, they are pleasant fictions necessary to society’s running. Yet even for those who believe in natural rights the State does not have the right to determine people’s existence, and can’t terminate people by withdrawing their ‘right-to-live’. Not even in Stalin’s Russia. One is not out on licence, permitted to continue until further notice, so one can’t ‘forfeit’ anything. The private actor of the State can commission other private actors, judges, executioners, police, loonies etc. to carry out certain acts on it’s behalf for breaking the State’s laws however. [And, of course, living is not subject either to one’s value to society, when you say: ‘_society gains nothing by keeping him alive_.’ One exists prior and apart.] If you mean a moral right-to-live, then we stray into the province of theology, which is as personal and wacky as any individual political allegiance. Morals are always dodgy. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/64 "2015-06-20T12:44:46Z")
Still against the death penalty ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/65 "2015-06-20T12:48:48Z")
Well, the ONLY instances where I support the Death Penalty are mass murders where the individual is very clearly established as being guilty (beyond normal standards of guilt). Since that would appear to apply in this case, then yes, I support executing this man. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/66 "2015-06-20T13:06:03Z")
What, exactly, would killing him accomplish? Would some future racist potential mass-murderer be deterred by the fact that we killed Roof for this? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/67 "2015-06-20T13:17:04Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > What, exactly, would killing him accomplish? > > Would some future racist potential mass-murderer be deterred by the fact that we killed Roof for this? Possibly, if the execution eventually contributes to a society-wide, culture-shifting message that such acts are intolerably evil. Not-executing him–while any other convict is executed for any other crime–might send a converse message. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/68 "2015-06-20T13:50:10Z")
What’s so different about this guy that would convince anyone philosophically opposed to capital punishment to make an exception? It isn’t about him. He doesn’t matter, any more or less than any other murderer. But \*we \*matter. Capital punishment is about \*us \*and \*our \*choices, not about who it’s applied to. Does that help? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/69 "2015-06-20T13:53:47Z")
No. I’m against the death penalty – it’s not a deterrent, except for those it’s used against. Ted Bundy was executed, but that didn’t stop others from becoming serial killers. On moral grounds, I’m more ambivalent. I’m more or less a pacifist, though not to the extent that I’m a sort of conscientious objector, but I just don’t see where it does any good in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/70 "2015-06-20T14:13:18Z")
Social Democrat. Fuck that guy, but I don’t want him dead. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/71 "2015-06-20T14:36:46Z")
My views on things are mostly liberal. When it comes to the death penalty, it is suppose to be a deterrent so people won’t kill others. It is obviously not working. It is something that might work in a rational society, we are far from that. Lock him up, throw away the key. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/72 "2015-06-20T15:08:50Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Manson is/was insane. He should not even be in prison, he should be in a secure facility that is designed to manage his corroded mind. Ridgeway might be another example for whom treatment or whatever is a better idea than punishment. Manson is a highly manipulative sociopath who was in the wrong place at the right time. But nobody has ever said he was legally insane. > [@Smapti](#): > > Strong liberal. Strongly in favor of executing Roof. He’s forfeited his right to live and society gains nothing by keeping him alive. There’s absolutely no question of his guilt or his motives. Exactly. Can all the people against the death penalty guarantee that he will never escape from prison. Has any killer ever escaped from prison and stay outside? Well… ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/73 "2015-06-20T15:11:52Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > I’ve never noticed any reluctance by liberals, in whatever circumstances they are defined as such, to have those they hate executed. > > The Whig Supremacy in Britain during the 18th century added around 200 capital offences ( admittedly mostly for the poor ); the liberals in 19th century Latin America killed as enthusiastically as their foes of various stripes; and in your country, as I never tire of mentioning, Mr. Biden, the current vice-president and a prominent liberal, single-handedly doubled the number of capital offences during the 1990s. Howzabout if we make the circumstances “the 21st century,” then? [Now do you see a reluctance by liberals to have those they hate executed?](http://www.examiner.com/article/a-secular-argument-against-the-death-penalty) The USA, which is not a liberal country, is one of the last democracies in the world to have the death penalty (where it’s state by state, of course). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/74 "2015-06-20T15:20:56Z")
> [@diggerwam](#): > > I’m not for the death penalty but this kid just looks like someone who won’t survive his time in prison. He’ll get multiple life sentences but in reality he won’t be there for long. My understanding (based on documentaries like HBO’s OZ) is that there are white supremacist gangs in prisons. So the Aryan Nation chapter (or equivalent) at whichever prison he ends up in is going to welcome him with open arms. As for the question in the OP, no I don’t think he should get the death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/75 "2015-06-20T15:21:24Z")
My opposition to the death penalty comes from the degree of proof that convicted the defendant. I’ve seen too many “condemned” persons later exonerated for the crime they supposedly committed. However, my opposition shifts to a “I don’t give a shit” when there’s a certainty of guilt, and intention, as in the Boston Marathon bomber case. In those cases, I just don’t care in the least what happens to the defendant. I think Roof fits into this category. I.E, I won’t lose any sleep if he gets death, but as a juror, I’d probably vote life without sunlight ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/76 "2015-06-20T15:23:41Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > My understanding (based on documentaries like HBO’s OZ) is that there are white supremacist gangs in prisons. So the Aryan Nation chapter (or equivalent) at whichever prison he ends up in is going to welcome him with open arms. > > … And the other side of the coin, the black prison gangs probably won’t welcome him with anything more than a knife in the ribs. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/77 "2015-06-20T15:26:43Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Nonetheless, Mr. Biden did author that act, which doubled the death penalty to approx 90 offences, and he **is** a prominent and sincere liberal; so the point stands that liberals can support the death penalty bigtime. For those they deem worthy. Liberals, just like conservatives and centrists have many issues where they disagree with one another. I never disagreed with the idea that liberals _can_ support the death penalty and I never said Biden didn’t author that law, but that isn’t what you claimed. You said Biden > [@Claverhouse](#): > > single-handedly doubled the number of capital offences during the 1990s. That was what I was calling into question but now I understand, you were saying something that was not true. Got it. > [@Claverhouse](#): > > The fact that some other liberals objected to him has no bearing, since no-one thinks all liberals think in lock-step. Liberals may not think in lock-step but you did imply just that: > [@Claverhouse](#): > > I’ve never noticed any reluctance by liberals, in whatever circumstances they are defined as such, to have those they hate executed. If liberals disagree on the death penalty, which you agree is true, how is your statement above true? Oh, I see; it isn’t. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/78 "2015-06-20T15:54:45Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > We could show Black Americans that they are fully accepted by improving their schools, ending economic exploitation; degrading and hypocritical attitudes in the workplace and out in public; and heavy-handed policing. > > Or we could kill one crazy white punk who took that attitude to its logical extreme. Then those negroes should have nothing to complain about. Amirite? (Ho ho, see how I used their colorful patois to comic effect?) > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > The logical extreme of improving life for black Americans is shooting them? Emphasis added. I know you’re rarely fully serious, but just in case this time… ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/79 "2015-06-20T16:06:57Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Possibly, if the execution eventually contributes to a society-wide, culture-shifting message that such acts are intolerably evil. I’m pretty sure we can all agree that what he did was evil and intolerable. Nobody’s going to just smack him on the hand and say, “Bad Racist!”. There’s very little chance that he won’t spend the rest of his life in prison. > [@Peremensoe](#): > > Not-executing him–while any other convict is executed for any other crime–might send a converse message. I seriously doubt that. By definition, anyone who is willing to do this sort of thing is a sociopath (or some other kind of -path, I ain’t no psychologist). _They already think they’re going to get away with it_, so the severity of the punishment doesn’t matter to them. And, personally, life in prison sounds hell of a lot worse than lethal injection. ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986/80 "2015-06-20T16:10:07Z")
I’ll preface this with my opinion that the labels “convervative” and “liberal” have become relatively meaningless in America today. But I don’t consider myself “right wing” in the way that is commonly understood. Like many things in a complex society, I don’t hold a simple Yes/No Right/Wrong attitude about the death penalty. My view is that the death penalty does not serve well as “punishment”, simply because it removes that person from the realm of life. They are not enduring anything at that point. So, for punitive purposes, I prefer extended imprisonment, including life imprisonment. However, there are some acts that are so outside the norms of a society, that, by general agreement, that person is no longer considered fit to participate in that society. I view capital punishment in that circumstance as a societal remedy, not a punishment. For example, those guys in Jasper, Texas who dragged a man behind their truck until he literally came apart. I feel unreservedly they deserved to be removed from society. I’m not interested in their “punishment”, just their removal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-liberals-want-dylann-roof-executed/722986.md?page=5)