Illinois drops death penalty

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Fair&Balanced

The thinking that a state executing even one innocent person is immoral. And, you and I both know it has happened.

That does not satisfy. It is instead a dodge: are you going to resist evildoing to the fullest measure or are you going to wimp out, confining resistance to evil to some lesser level? Wimping out does not demonstrate moral development: it demonstrates a misplaced fearfulness. Cowardice, I say, and you have made no cogent rebuttal to that.

Statism? I doubt that, Griff. The coercive -- law-enforcement -- apparatus of the state is used to eliminate insofar as possible a vengeful or feudative aspect to the damage-control effort that a death penalty is -- since nobody thinks blood feuding between the relatives of the decedent and of the murderer would be conducive to civil society, and we do like having that around.

The requiring that someone who has killed wrongfully should atone for it by relinquishing their life is not an example of a society's villainousness, but of the degree of its regard for innocent life. This point is usually lost on the death-penalty opposition, which is drawn from that portion of the population that generally does miss vital points.

I am, Griff, a libertarian whether you want me to be or not. If you do want, excellent. If you don't, then fuck you in a highly libertarian manner. Be damned to any stumbler who thinks I'm a statist. I'm just not an anarchist, and do not trust anarcho-libertarian ideas very much.

(I have no idea what "fucking in a highly libertarian manner" would look like either. Am I curious, eh?)

Pithijinx's cites are all of the manner the United States does its executions. What does one AK bullet cost Red China? A nickel? It isn't like they pay the triggerman any special emolument. And what they use for execution sites is grassy open fields. Seems executing a death penalty is not inherently expensive.

We spend the money we do to be careful about how we do it. For those who say death is no deterrent, I reply "Then why do the condemned use, well, every appeal avenue open to them between sentencing and a date with the executioner?" And is it not remarkable how few of the condemned waive any of their appeals process and hasten to their deaths? Should it happen, it is material for headlines, is it not?

It's a point of fact that far more bad guys get killed by private parties than by the state. The private parties, often being criminals themselves, are as often pretty unsavory... but effective, in illustrating J.R.R. Tolkien's adage Oft evil will evil mar, if nothing else; getting shot while doing something wrongful definitely adds up to a marring.