Heck, you’ve got people who’ve been on death row since the fuckin’ eighties. Either get your shit together or admit that you can’t.
That might be a little closer to my position but your prior comment is just off-the-wall horseshit.
I prefer to see laws written and enforced with clarity of intent and purpose. I despise subversion and undermining of legal precedent and law that boil down to complaining about what color ink they’re printed in.
If you’re anti-DP, anti-abortion, anti-gun, anti-Mickey Mouse - or pro- any of those things, there are solid arguments with legal precedent and Constitutional validity on which to base your stand. Being frustrated because high-court rulings have found otherwise and using gritware tactics to effectively block implementation of laws you don’t like - but are unable to muster enough support and valid arguments to overturn - is legal chickenshittery.
Yes, I believe in majority rule implemented as sensible legislation validated by the courts… but that’s not really what we have. We have a majority viewpoint implemented through legislation that is then “gritted” to a halt by utterly trivial points implemented by the opposing side that cannot get majority or court support for their opinion.
I guess if that makes things go your way, it’s a good thing. I say it’s a bad thing across the board, and regardless of which side is using which tactic.
But the problem is, the below is exactly why we have limited government and separation of powers. What you advocate below is majoritarian, legislative tyranny. I am grateful for the gritwire tactics that keep the US from devolving into such a monster.
Oddly, I know a bit about this, and it’s a bit complicated. If these details have been provided in the links, pardon me.
The drugs used in the death cocktail were specified by law; they were older drugs, and available as generics.
Generics are generally made by companies working on very tight profit margins; if the specific factory at which the drug is manufactured is getting older, it may not be cost effective for a company to refurbish the facility, or to transfer the production to another facility.
If I remember correctly, the last facility in the U.S. that made one of the drugs in the cocktail shut down. The only other source of the drug was a company in Germany.
German drug companies are oddly sensitive about selling chemicals specifically for killing people. Funny, huh? One state prison system obtained some of the drug through channels one might called “shady”. The drugs were eventually returned, and that source of drugs is not longer available.
(They purchased drugs intended for a clinical trial in Africa from a broker in Italy, I believe. When the company found out, they demanded the drugs be returned; the state wouldn’t give the drugs back. Customs, I think, wouldn’t do anything about it. The company finally demanded the FDA confiscate the drugs as they were being used for “off-label” use. I don’t know what the FDA, Customs, or for all I know the NSA did, but the drugs were returned after that.)
Some states turned to compounding pharmacies for drugs. However, shortly after the German purchase debacle, the fungal meningitis outbreak occurred; compounding pharmacies, some of which were effectively bootleg pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities operating without following regulated Good Manufacturing Practices, were immediately cracked down on by the FDA, in part because Congress held hearings excoriating the FDA for not enforcing laws that Congress had refused to confirm applied to the compounders.
It’s been really entertaining to watch this story develop.
I see a loophole. Humans are animals!
You are obviously too logical to deal with regulatory issues.
Oh, please. What you are advocating bears no resemblance to the way our system works, in theory or in practice. You are promoting the kind of obstructionist tactics that have brought government to a motionless snarl over the last decade - a complete denial of a balanced democratic process that says one opposing vote negates a majority; that if there is opposition it means the proposition is flawed and the majority is an oppressive, majoritarian tyrant.
Don’t buy it and it has nothing to do with this debate.
The wiki page says that pets are almost always euthanized by pentobarbital sodium thiopental; states used to use one and currently use the other. Sodium thiopental is one of the three drugs used in the “cocktail” that was used until a European boycott made it scarce around 2011, and pentobarbital is currently used as a single drug method, often made to order by compounding pharmacies instead of imported.
No shortage of electricity or poison gas. Bring those back please.
If we accept that some pain and suffering does not violate “cruel and unusual” we have endless options. However, it’s been a pillar of the anti-DP crowd - and human ethics - that the threshold of pain and suffering must be minimal. The ethical stance is difficult to argue, but it’s been pushed too far as a “grit in the gears” barrier to effective execution techniques.
The whole issue of capital punishment is exactly akin to eating meat - a vast number of people are unwilling to give up their steaks and chops but they don’t want to know where they came from, and prefer to dimly believe that animals quietly lay down and transform into butcher’s packs.
My position on capital punishment is that we need to have a public and honest position on it. My derision for “gritware” arguments AND the above kind of “no-see-um” evasion comes from them avoiding everything that is public and honest.
If we’re going to execute criminals - only murderers, in my preference - then while we should not torture them, we can raise the bar of final pain and suffering much higher. (I wouldn’t vote against a law that says it can be made proportional to the pain and suffering of their victims. Quick shot to the head; they get a quick shot to the heat. Rape, torture, beating and abuse… and maybe a slower and more agonizing death is appropriate. Too extreme? Okay, I wouldn’t argue. But saying they can’t experience as much discomfort as someone having an appendectomy is just BS.) That’s what has to be on the table for public discussion and vote.
If an insufficient number of people can stand execution with some degree of pain and suffering involved, then the practice goes down and we can all move on. If a sufficient number of people can tolerate a reasonable execution policy and process, then it’s on the table and “grit” arguments can be dismissed as obstacles.
Choose one. I don’t really care which as long as it’s based on an honest national debate, shorn of religious trappings, self-delusion, micro-arguments and wishful thinking either way. In other words, we may as well just move on and accept 50 more years of bullshit over every case.
I’m willing to accept great suffering for these people. All you have to do is read the details of their crimes and if you don’t think they need extreme punishment something is wrong with your brain.
Ah, the devastating “people who disagree with me are mentally deficient”-argument. Thread over!
There is no justification for “extreme punishment” - death is death.
OTOH, there’s no justification for “as gentle as Mommy’s kiss,” either - murder is murder.
You want it to because you think by mocking my reply makes you seem intelligent.
I don’t know what all this means. I’m more straight to the point. I read your other replies and I agree with you. It needs to be streamlined and severe or not exist at all. And when it doesn’t exist they should be released into the loving homes of those who feel they can be rehabilitated.
Well, I expressed a couple of different viewpoints, so consider that. My comment should make sense; while I can’t come up with any but the most barbarous reasons for making an execution painful or drawn out, I think the judgment bar for dying discomfort is set far, far too low. “Yeah, this is gonna sting, Knuckles… but only for a minnit.”
That sentence makes no sense, even to someone with my self proclaimed great intelligence.
So you think the punishment should be more painful? Btw quotes from characters people aren’t familiar with don’t make you seem smart.
It actually does if you apply common sense. A lot of internet geniuses lack that.
I think we could tolerate more pain and suffering for someone being executed for murder than seems to be the present standard of nearly-zero. People having routine surgeries experience more pain, suffering and discomfort than most convicts executed with lethal injection; I think we could ethically go to methods that inflict some pain and discomfort for the short duration between onset and death.
You might want to lurk more to get the hang of how we communicate here before you post. We are not always completely literal and you seem to be expecting courtroom precision here.