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gotta step up our game fr (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
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[–] 1 point 5 months ago (19 children)

Why draw the line at execution?

Seems like that same logic could be applied to imprisonment, or any punishment in general. "It can never be 100% accurate, so prison should not be allowed at all".

Under your proposed system, innocent people willl rot in prison for life.

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  • [–] 22 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    You can't bring somebody back to life after killing them. If it turns out they were innocent after all, there's no releasing or recompensating a corpse.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (8 children)

    Agreed that some innocent people will be set free, but again this is not 100% perfect, so it is certain that innocent people will rot in prison until they die.

    Why draw the moral line at executing innocent people, but not at imprisoning innocent people for life ?

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    So youre saying being wrongly imprisoned is just as bad as being murdered? No, I dont agree with that

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    No, that's not my argument at all. I agree with the utilitarian argument that imprisonment is better than the death penalty.

    What I'm saying is that every moral argument against the death penalty can also be applied to life imprisonment. If you justify your anti-death penalty stance on the moral argument ("innocent people will die", as the first person I replied to said), then it is a slippery slope to a prison abolitionist position.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    What I’m saying is that every moral argument against the death penalty can also be applied to life imprisonment.

    So you ARE equating living life in confinement with literal death. This is where we disagree. Death and imprisonment are not at all the same or equal.

    Imprisonment sucks, yes, but thats part of a crime and punishment system. Death does not need to be part of that system. How hard is that to accept?

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    It's not about acceptance, it's about the underlying logic. You can assert your position all day, I'm asking why.

    Why don't you say "Punishment sucks, yes, but that's part of a crime prevention system. Imprisonment does not need to be a part of that system. How hard is that to accept"?

    Or why don't you say "death sucks, yes, but that's part of a crime and punishment system. How hard is that to accept"?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Because we do not need to execute people, but we do need to imprison some.

    Why is it that when I say 'we shouldnt kill people' you say 'then why even lock them up?'

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Because every moral argument that can be applied to the death penalty can also be applied to imprisonment. I think we're going in a circle here.

    The system you support imprisons thousands of innocent people, many of them for life. How do you morally justify this? Is it just a trolley problem for you, and the innocent people rotting to death in prison are just the unfortunate ones tied to the tracks, and they must die for the good of the system?

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago

    Because every moral argument that can be applied to the death penalty can also be applied to imprisonment.

    No I disagree. The goal is simple and specific: stop wrongful executions.

    You can say "well also other stuff is bad" sure, thats not the point here. the point is that we make ONE change and save lives. Stop executions. No other changes are required. The system, the facilities, the employees, everything else already exists to facilitate this.

    So while there are MANY other improvements that can be made to the justice system this is ONE SINGLE SIMPLE change that WOULD ABSOLUTELY save lives.

    Why havent we done it?

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    Because you can review a case under new evidence or for any numbers of reasons, and figure you got the wrong person.

    Ooops can't un-execute that innocent. My bad.

    And the whole rehabilitation thing. But I am guessing your argument is you can't rehabilitate a billionaire or something. You are wrong btw if you think that.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

    You're right to say that life imprisonment is an improvement over execution because some innocent people will be set free. But under the imprisonment system, it is still guaranteed that innocent people will rot in prison until they die.

    You can't un-execute the innocent, but you also can't un-rot the innocent who die in prison.

    Why is one morally acceptable and the other is not?

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Both arent good, sure, but how can you say death is the same as life in prison?

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    That really depends on living conditions in prison. There are fates that are worse than death.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    And yet there are ways to deal with that yourself if you choose that exit, the govt should not be able to make that choice for you. The key here is taking away the govts right to murder its people just because it made an oopsie

    Keep the perspective here: You are arguing that 'prison can really suck so the govt should be allowed to execute people it says are guilty'

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    That's not my argument at all, and I'm confused where you got that idea.

    If you want to embellish my argument, it should sound something like "the prison system imprisons innocent people for life, which is the same result as the death penalty, so anyone who argues against the death penalty should also argue for full prison abolition"

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Thats a slippery slope that is common in these discussions. Im saying the death penalty shouldnt exist, prison is still important for society. We just cannot trust the government or any legal system to hand out executions. The ONLY way to be sure innocent people are not executed by the death penalty is to not have one at all.

    Its pretty simple.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Most of the people who oppose the death penalty also want to improve prison conditions and minimise the amount of people sent to prison in the first place.

    "Conditions in prison are bad" is an argument for improving living conditions for prisoners, not for murdering them.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    But I am guessing your argument is you can’t rehabilitate a billionaire or something. You are wrong btw if you think that.

    You can not rehabilitate the thousands of people who's lives were worsened by a billionaires actions. They commit crimes on a scale so insane that they need to be addressed in an entirely different way from conventional crime. They don't rob a business and kill a store keeper, they put thousands of people out of work and leave them unable to support themselves and their families. They destroy lives for the sake of personal gain on an industrial scale.

    A single armed man in a stadium couldn't do as much harm to humanity as a multi-billionaire does from his desk.

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