Does capital punishment fit with liberalism? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Modern liberalism. Civil rights and liberties, State responsibility to the people (welfare).
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#14808409
Liberals must believe that babies are out there strapping suicide vests to themselves and committing mass murder. So liberals want babies dead, and that's understandable in the mind of a liberal. Liberals are in favor of capital punishment for babies.

However when it comes to adult criminals such as rapists, murderers and any other heinous crime, liberals are totally against capital punishment for these criminals. Liberals instead want these criminals to be let out of prison after a few years if they display good behavior. For example if they show a good attitude while raking leaves in the prison yard, that helps go towards their early release. If they do the crime again, then while in prison again as severe punishment they don't get dessert on Sundays.

Meanwhile liberals keep shouting, "We want more dead babies...more, more, more"!
#14816431
Uh ... "most people" ?!? :?:

I am not aware of that.

A murder should receive a corresponding harsh punishment, yes, but there is no such thing as "life in prison" anyway; there is no point to keep old people in prison, its just a pointless cruelty and an excessive waste of taxpayer money.

Because keeping people in a prison is a VERY expensive operation.

Here in europe we have penalties as low as seven years for murder and while thats maybe a bit short, even those countries dont have a problem with increased murder rates.

People who are able to murder other people - unless in self defense while fearing for my own life, I highly doubt I would be able to do such a thing and most of my fellow human beings are probably the same - dont function in such a way that they say "well if I only get X years I'll do it, but if I get death penalty I wont". As such, death penalty is completely ineffective and thus also a completely pointless cruelty, as it is forbidden by human rights.
#14816437
I guess liberalism, if that really is a thing at all, has been around for at least 300 years, probably more like 400 years, but the wholesale move away from the death penalty by "liberal" administrations (read mostly european) didn't come till after WW2. And I'd hazard a guess that the association between "liberalism" and the lack of a death penalty has less to do with "liberalism" and more to do with a post-war shock amongst european governors because WW2 was a particularly violent period in European history with millions dying all over the place. Any judge who ceremoniously puts on a black cap to pronounce the death penalty has to wonder to himself how much difference there really is between himself and the nazis with their gas chambers...
#14816617
I am a liberal but I do not support life in prison. In prison, the baddies pick up more bad habits and tricks to cheat and hurt innocents.

The only way prison will work is if the baddies are all kept in isolation and they psychologically suffer in there.

Capital punishment is also expensive. The prisons have to buy those specially made toxins. Who knows what the makers are charging for the total cocktail...I do not want to know.
#14816684
MistyTiger wrote:Capital punishment is also expensive. The prisons have to buy those specially made toxins. Who knows what the makers are charging for the total cocktail...I do not want to know.


That cost has less to do with the capital punishment itself than the byzantine ways western countries carry them out. Elsewhere in the world all you need is a bit of rope or sharp knife and about 5 minutes time if that.

Another factor that may have contributed to abolition of the death penalty is godlessness. Killing a person who does not have an after life is a bigger deal than killing a believer. For believers death is just an interruption of services and not their final termination.
#14816802
Since no one has seriously addressed the OP's question yet, I suppose I'll give it a shot. Liberals care about equality and liberty--these values aren't necessarily determinative of the question of whether the death penalty should be legal. However, I would say that the death penalty is contrary to the value of liberty, because it allows the state/collective to deprive the individual of his life contrary to his will. There are also problems in the implementation of the death penalty, such as the vast racial disparities, which are also contrary to the value of equality. That said, liberal values could also militate in favor of it; for example, if the racial disparities were eliminated, and there were reliable evidence of a deterrent effect.

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