His rationale, which he came to after talking with some dude at a Waffle House earlier this year, is that 90% of people would want to die in their sleep, and why would we want to give a convicted death row criminal something that he wants, right? Like a peaceful early death at the hands of the state. Let’s make it a horrifyingly gruesome early death at the hands of the state, like it was in the good ol’ days.
So we should bring back firing squads and ol’ sparky so that criminals have to think about their execution “every morning,” says this guy. Also, while being interviewed about this proposed legislation, he mentioned something about not “putting our pants on the right way,” but I think he may have just been speaking about himself cuz my pants are on correct every single day.
Fuck yeah! Now we’re talking! And they wouldn’t even need to set a fire underneath, just set it outside in August and the guy’ll be dead before they can lock the door.
Mine would involve several hundred Swedish Women’s Volleyball Team members slowly descending on … well, I won’t tell you out of fear of someone putting it into place in a cruel (in a kind sort of way) assassination attempt.
Of course, if you want to try and figure it out, feel free to send wave after wave of hopefuls.
Please.
I prefer the idea letting them stew in their own guilt for as long as it takes for them to feel remorse and want to atone for what they did. Maybe they’ll get to a point where they beg for the opportunity and means to commit suicide – which will be denied, of course. And if guilt doesn’t take, soul-crushing boredom will be a fine second choice.
Hey, just because I know that capital punishment is wrong (always and everywhere) doesn’t make me immune from an impulse to a little vindictiveness.
I support the death penalty, but absolutely NOT for the purpose of revenge, as it seems the person mentioned in the OP does. I support it because, in short, I believe that justice is supposed to establish a balance and that there is no punishment that balances against taking the life of another person. And it is precisely with that same logic that an execution doesn’t need to be gruesome or painful, because the death itself is the ultimate punishment. By doing anything above and beyond what we need to do, we then further create an imbalance in effectively torturing a condemned man. All making a more gruesome death does is provide some sort of visceral satisfaction that we’re making him suffer more which I don’t think can be attributed to anything but revenge.
And, really, I don’t see how anyone who actually thinks about it for more than a minute or two even thinks it accomplishes anything. If one believes in hell, then anything we do on Earth doesn’t compare to sending them to eternal torment that much sooner. If one believes in some sort of reincarnation or whatever, those last moments of pain will mostly be forgotten and they’ll have their whole next life to pay for their crime. If one is an atheist or believe in annihilation or no afterlife or whatever, the pain is pointless as they’re going to oblivion and won’t be able to have any sort of experience of it after they die. Pretty much no matter what you believe, any brief suffering in one’s last moments are utterly pointless as far as making the punishment worse.
Either way, the guy is exactly the sort of loud and obnoxious idiot that makes debates about the death penalty that much more difficult and furthers it as a bane on our society rather than as an extremely unfortunate but necessary component of establishing a culture of justice.