Televised Executions: Yes or No?

I understand what you’re saying. I was replying to the concept that those that are pro-DP should HAVE to watch it happen.

Executions should be done quietly, on an operating table, where the condemned can be efficiently disassembled and the organs/tissues donated to law-abiding people of medical need.

Would you promote disclosure regarding the source of the organs?

No doctor, even a fervently pro-DP one, would do such a thing.

It also creates an incentive for executions. That cannot be allowed.

Executions, like war, should be viewed by the people who support them. The state shouldn’t get to do your dirty work while you pretend its something else. No one should be allowed to think these things are glamorous or clean.

Acutally, executions would be probably be boring TV anyway. Some guy, (or in RARE cases a woman) lies on the table, gets an iv, the monitor goes beep, beep, beeeeeeeep…kids have seen harsher stuff on ER, or House. Hell, that’s mild compared to CSI or The Shield.

The only way I could support it is if;

a) It were only available online as a stream that you needed to have a credit card to see.
b) The proceeds went directly to the convicts victims’ family or decendants, or a victims group.
c) It was a creative thing. Like the pedophile pen, where likeminded sickos were stuffed into a kennel or pen, just wandering around until the giant crane (just like the game at the movies) came and snatched them up, dropped them onto the catapult of doom ™ and flung them headlong into a series of different targets, like brick walls, giant spikes etc. OR even a bullseye, and you could wager on it.

Otherwise, no.

Hey leave us out of it. We don’t have the death penalty here. Build your own death rings.

But is that not the benefit of a society such as ours? If we followed your logic all the way through, the only people who would eat meat are those who could kill and butcher their own cows.

We pay serious money for the privilege of having people do the things we haven’t the stomach, or in some cases ability to do, yet still need done.

That’s funny.

I’m against the death penalty, but where it is legal, I’m in favour of broadcasting it. Justice needs to be seen to be done.

And then we end up with Niven’s future, where every crime is a capital crime, right down to running a red light, so we can steal your organs. I do not want laws passed that make me more valuable disassembled than intact.

As an aside, I also oppose many property forfeiture laws and especially prison labor, for just that reason. I do not approve of legalized thievery, or state run slave facilities. Yes, yes, only the guilty have their property taken, only the guilty are forced to work; nobody has their car taken because the police chief wants it, nobody is imprisoned because the local prison needs more labor, and undercutting the wages of non-criminals has nothing to do with it. Sure.

A A lot of people pretend it is a clean thing. The Gas executions are supposidly humane. That is why they went to it. Many who watch are traumatized. . Maybe we all should be.

Where is this sentiment coming from that people would/should/will be somehow forced to watch public executions if (in fact) they were televised?!?

Based on this line of reasoning, then anyone living in a state in which Capital Punishment is practiced should be forced to watch every execution.

Wow, paranoid much?

Wow, I completely agree with you here.

Hmm. Instead of ‘Wheel of Fortune’ there would be ‘Wheel of Catherine’.
The Emcee reads a list of the condemned one’s crimes to the studio audience, who could then vote for the method of execution.
Alright Mr. Gacy, it’s time to see how you’ll check out…Ding You’re going to be drawn and quartered! Wild applause! :wink:

No, cynical.

OK, then, Canada. :wink:

The point stands, of course. The difference between us and the Romans is high technology, a slightly different form of government, and a couple of thousand years of perspective. Some days I’m not sure which one is most significant.

But that’s always been the argument for the death penalty: it deterred crime. Death penalty advocates made this point again and again.

No. If they did televise executions, I wouldn’t watch them.

I wouldn’t televise executions on the terms in the OP. I would, however, allow them on PPV, with proceeds going to victim compensation. I think the first couple would probably draw pretty well, until word gets out how boring the proceedings are. After that, you’re going to need a gimmick to draw money. Either a big name prisoner, or a raffle for the right to throw the switch, something like that.