# No, nothing barbaric about this (death penalty rant) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 30, 2014, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347 "2014-04-30T10:29:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/41 "2014-04-30T14:25:44Z")
Yes, I think he’s saying that he would like to see all executives exercising their constitutional authority to commute sentenced. It’s clearly a hope or wish or aspiration. It might be unlikely at this point, but it’s not crazy. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/42 "2014-04-30T14:26:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Executive action? How would that be constitutional? I guess the prez could commute all death penalties for federal crimes, but could he do so for state sentences? Or, are you thinking all 50 governors would follow suit? Executive action doesn’t necessarily imply the president. Governors are also executives. Governor’s order is what suspended execution here in Illinois. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/43 "2014-04-30T14:31:28Z")
I can only quote Robert Heinlein on this: “All I knew was that he wouldn’t kill any more little girls. That suited me. I went to sleep.” People die in hospitals exactly like this every day - bad reaction to treatment, cardiac arrest, flatline. Bad? Sure. But so is being gutshot and buried alive. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/44 "2014-04-30T14:33:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, agreed. As those terms are used in the Eighth Amendment, the death penalty is not cruel or unusual. Nitpick - it could be either cruel \*\*or \*\*unusual, but not both. I’m not a fan of the DP (though I was before), but if we’re going to do it, I’m not sure why we don’t use a firing squad or hanging. There’s not much controversy about the intended results there, and they should rarely be botched so badly. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/45 "2014-04-30T14:38:40Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > When have I ever advocated murder? I assumed you were pro-death penalty. If that’s not the case, my apologies. I can’t understand why people advocate for the death penalty when there are innocent people on death row. That should be a full stop for anyone. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/46 "2014-04-30T14:43:23Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I can only quote Robert Heinlein on this: “All I knew was that he wouldn’t kill any more little girls. That suited me. I went to sleep.” > > People die in hospitals exactly like this every day - bad reaction to treatment, cardiac arrest, flatline. Bad? Sure. But so is being gutshot and buried alive. For the millionth time. Life imprisonment can protect the same number of “little girls”. And when you find you were goddamn diddly dong wrong on the matter, you can at least set the person free. As far as whether it’s equivalent to a medical procedure: It’s not. Medical procedures are supposed to do the exact opposite of what this does. As to whether it’s better than what the criminal did: That’s besides the point. The aim is to not devolve down to a criminal’s state. Preferably, we’ll be as far away from that as possible. And Oklahoma: Fuck you, you stupid fucking bible whores. If you had two brain cells to rub together, you’d realize that every time a Texan hears their state insulted and doesn’t want a fight, they point to Oklahoma. Not one goddamn person sticks up for you, not even Oklahomans. What a shithole. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/47 "2014-04-30T14:48:58Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Nitpick - it could be either cruel \*\*or \*\*unusual, but not both. > > I’m not a fan of the DP (though I was before), but if we’re going to do it, I’m not sure why we don’t use a firing squad or hanging. There’s not much controversy about the intended results there, and they should\*\* rarely be botched so badly\*\*. Bolding mine. You’re joking, right? Hangings can and did go wrong all the time. Slowly strangling someone rather than break their neck. Rope breaks. Rope is too long and the drop **snaps the guy’s head clean off!** Yeah, those would be fine to watch. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/48 "2014-04-30T14:52:23Z")
Wait, does the OP view the death penalty as barbaric on fundamental principles, or just because a couple guys had unpleasant experiences when dying? If it’s all cool if the guy doesn’t feel anything you can’t be too against it. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/49 "2014-04-30T14:54:46Z")
And as long as I’m dreaming up methods to humanely kill people (again, we should not be doing this as a matter of “justice”), why don’t we just go with what hospice care sometimes does? Dope them up on opiates and withhold food and water. I mean, you’re still getting the satisfaction of killing them, and I can vouch for the fact that you don’t give a shit about anything on sufficient amounts of opiates. So, for everyone other than the people who are going to have to watch them die or would rather they live, it’s win/win, right? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/50 "2014-04-30T14:56:02Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Bolding mine. You’re joking, right? > > Hangings can and did go wrong all the time. Slowly strangling someone rather than break their neck. Rope breaks. Rope is too long and the drop **snaps the guy’s head clean off!** Yeah, those would be fine to watch. The point is, rope and scaffolding are easy to come by. The calculations of what’s required to proceed are known quantities. I would expect we’d be able to do it with enough rigor so that we don’t have people dangling on the end of a rope for 40 minutes. Harder to mess up a hanging, as opposed to the magic drug cocktail that no one wants to supply. If I had to pick a method, firing squad it would be. I’m opposed to the DP at all though. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/51 "2014-04-30T15:12:29Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The death penalty is a barbaric exercise of state power. And the ugliness of what happened here showcases the barbarity. +1 Never thought I’d agree with \*\*Bricker \*\*about anything! ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/52 "2014-04-30T15:20:08Z")
One often hears the average loon, when rightly excoriating war, saying that if they want wars then the leaders of a country should be the ones to charge, fight and die in battle, instead of the poor ‘innocent’ little people. This is kinda crap, if only since that would merely produce a series of leaders in quick succession, and as the anarchists — and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band — used to say, ‘_No Matter Who You Vote For,The Government Always Gets In_’. However seeing that there are comparatively few executions, and they wouldn’t have to make it a full-time pastime as did Commander Blokhin, whom I have before referenced, I think it would make them more mindful if the state governors had to perform the office personally after signing off; whether by pistol, gas or injection etc… And yes, I could do it, _if_ I had agreed to an execution. Shuffling it off on the hangman is a time-honoured dodge, but at the last we should encourage people to be responsible for their actions ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/53 "2014-04-30T15:26:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The constitution explicitly lists the death penalty as an acceptable punishment, so one would expect to need an amendment explicitly outlawing it to make it unconstitutional. I wasn’t referring to the DP in general, just this method. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/54 "2014-04-30T15:41:08Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > I have yet to understand why there is such a fooraw over lethal injection. Why don’t we simply fire a single round into the base of the skull, right where the spine comes in? It would be totally painless; it would turn them off like a light switch. And I do believe that a .38 cartridge is a LOT cheaper than a batch of drugs. Because it looks and sounds horrible, and generally speaking people who support the death penalty don’t want their hands to be metaphorically dirty. The guillotine is quite painless as well, but isn’t used because it looks really horrible. It’s always interesting to me how often the response to a post like Bricker’s is “Yeah, but this guy’s a filthy bastard. He deserved it.” Well, of course he deserved it. Many of the people on death row are filthy bastards who deserve to die. That isn’t a good reason to empower the state to kill human beings in cold blood. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/55 "2014-04-30T15:49:45Z")
If we have to do this - and we _don’t_, we emphatically don’t, it’s remarkably stupid and pointless and vacantly evil - but if we do, it is deranged that we can’t do it cleanly and painlessly. I had my appendix out last year. Within five seconds I was entirely unconscious. They could have killed me thirty six different ways in the next ninety minutes and I’d never have known or felt a thing. If anesthesiologists won’t do it - because they’re decent human beings - then find a couple of psychopaths like **Smapti** and train and license them as executioners. And then hold them accountable, legally, criminally, for anything that goes wrong. No one wants that job? Then no executions. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/56 "2014-04-30T16:28:00Z")
I’m a little surprised at this. Bricker, I was under the impression that you were _only opposed to the death penalty as practiced in the US_ due to racial and socioeconomic sentencing disparity. Are you now saying you’re opposed to it in principle also? Or have you always been, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/57 "2014-04-30T16:49:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, agreed. As those terms are used in the Eighth Amendment, the death penalty is not cruel or unusual. Yeah, but in these cases, where we’re experimenting with cocktails of drugs on live human test subjects, with horrible results? Smacks of Mengele to me. > [@](#): > > But it’s barbaric. Thus the title of my OP, and the final two sentences thereof. > > I am arguing that it should be stopped not by judicial decree, but by legislative or executive action, because it’s fucking barbaric. And because we, the people, are the ultimate source of sovereign power in this country, the shame of such barbarism done in our names, with our sovereign power, lies on our heads. Hear, hear. Locking them up for life is cheaper anyway. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/58 "2014-04-30T16:58:07Z")
> [@jimbuff314](#): > > Can we at least acknowledge that this guy raped and murdered someone? Actually, not. This man was no rapist. That would be, well, . . . , evil. No, [this guy just shot a teenager (with a shotgun, mind you) and then chuckled as he and his pals buried her alive](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/clayton-lockett-execution-shocking-crime-3478725) (evidently he wasn’t a good shot). Sorry to be so terse, but I must run - time to weep for all the suffering he must have endured. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/59 "2014-04-30T17:12:43Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m a little surprised at this. Bricker, I was under the impression that you were _only opposed to the death penalty as practiced in the US_ due to racial and socioeconomic sentencing disparity. Are you now saying you’re opposed to it in principle also? Or have you always been, perhaps? I have always been opposed to it in principle. But my principles are not any kind of reason for the rest of the country to adopt policy – until my coronation day, in any event. I do make room for a moral death penalty in a society that doesn’t have the infrastructure or ability to meaningfully confine heinous criminals – so in a sense, yes, I’m opposed to the death penalty in the United States today but not necessarily to all instances of the death penalty anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347/60 "2014-04-30T17:15:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I have always been opposed to it in principle. But my principles are not any kind of reason for the rest of the country to adopt policy – until my coronation day, in any event. What is this principle and what is it based on, if I may ask? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-nothing-barbaric-about-this-death-penalty-rant/687347.md?page=4)