[tompccs]

I don't mean to pick on you specifically, but this sort of remark is why the left and intellectuals more widely fail at winning politically. Rather than use arguments that are amenable even to people who disagree on the fundamentals, you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms, thereby failing to actually influence policy (in this case a matter of life and death).

If the death penalty debate were framed more around "innocent people get killed" and less around more nebulous value-judgement based arguments (which, though valid, divide pretty neatly along partisan and class lines), perhaps the death penalty in the US would have gone long ago.

[ufo]

Framing this as a left vs right issue is an USA-centric way to frame the question. Consider how the US is basically the only country in the american continent that still goes ahead with capital punishment. Most other countries in the continent, from all kinds of political orientations, have either banned capital punishment outright or haven't executed anyone in more than a decade.

[Y_Y]

Referring to "the American continent" is a very South American thing to do. I think in the US they consider themselves to be sharing a continent with just Mexico and Canada.

Furthermore I think you don't go far enough. Around the world, abolishing the death penalty seems to be a mark of high development, apart from Japan (and arguably China and India) there aren't any highly developed nations that are still killing people.

[thraxil]

Not getting into anything else, but I will remark that I got in trouble in 5th grade (in a US school) and a letter sent home to my parents about my bad attitude and showing of disrespect towards my teacher after she asserted that Mexico was in "South America" and that "North America" consisted exclusively of the USA and Canada. I argued with her and neither of us would back down. It was the first time I'd ever been in any kind of trouble. My parents were proud and took me out for ice cream. US public schools have some decent teachers but also some really ignorant ones.

[qwytw]

Stretching the definition of "high development" here a bit (but since you're considering China and India) Belarus still has the death penalty (they were executing at least 1 almost every year until 2020).

[jkingsbery]

Even in the US, "left vs right" on the death penalty is an oversimplification. A pretty good summary can be found here: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/religious-st... ... Anecdotally, as a religious person, I'd say that most Catholics I know either oppose the death penalty or would want it to be much more limited than it is now.

[klyrs]

I once had a surreal conversation with a Jehovah's Witness priest who was proselytizing on my campus. It was around the time of the Iraq war, and he opened with something like "if killing is wrong, why do we have the death penalty." I managed to use Saddam Hussein's alleged human rights violations as a rhetorical lever to justify the killing of one to prevent the killing of many. As a supporter of neither the death penalty nor the war on Iraq, I've never walked away from a victory with so much regret

[rswail]

This "debate" has been over in all other nations that the US likes to be compared for years.

It is similar to the "tough on crime" incarceration "debate" in the US, where perverse incentives and political expediency has led to the US being the highest-per-capita incarcerator in the world.

Framing the death penalty debate around "innocent people get killed" will not change the partisan/class perceptions.

The US criminal justice system requires root-and-branch reform, starting with issues around policing, cash bail, school-to-prison pipelines, and unfair drug and "victimless" crimes.

Australia has been going through a similar debate and is at a similar point, without the death penalty, but dealing with the systemic racism and other class related issues.

[jcims]

>Framing the death penalty debate around "innocent people get killed" will not change the partisan/class perceptions.

I don't agree. All of these moral castigations about it being 'inhumane' or 'barbaric' don't strike me as rational or compelling in the least. I think the idea is humane in the context of those impacted by the crimes in question and I don't see how putting a person in a box for the remainder of their life is qualitatively any less barbaric.

I don't know where pg lands politically but I'd say I'm probably right of center on the American spectrum and for me there are only two persuasive arguments that we should abolish the death penalty. One is that we make mistakes in who gets it, per TFA, and the other is that it's difficult to concretely describe the qualifications of who should get it, risking expansion at the whim of the populace. In other words I absolutely believe there are just executions, I'm just not entirely sure we can create a system to do it justly.

[Pet_Ant]

> In other words I absolutely believe there are just executions

I think that is the GP,s point: the real problem is to convince you otherwise.

[ectopod]

Why? If he (or she) believes or can be convinced that the death penalty should be abolished, why do you care if they also believe that some of the executions that already happened were just?

[Pet_Ant]

1) because it implies that one day they might be it favour of bringing them back with the right technology etc

2) because you want to convince people of important moral principles. I don't want you to not beat your wife because you'll get caught, but because it's inherently wrong.

[jcims]

Certainly fodder for ongoing discussion but I think it’s important to prioritize goals.

Alignment on public policy decisions allows for more degrees of freedom in underlying philosophical differences than attempts to align on the philosophical primitives themselves. It also achieves an immediate goal.

Plus if you are engaging in conversation in a good faith attempt to understand and be understood, you have to allow for the case that your views are moderated or changed as well.

(The distance you feel from that right now is approximately the same I feel in the opposite direction.)

[jcims]

Exactly.

[qwytw]

How about that it's significantly more expensive on average to execute a prisoner (due to the extensive appeal processes) than to imprison him for life? I would assume that should be a very compelling argument in favour of abolishing the death penalty for somebody who is "right of center".

[jcims]

I can understand why you would say that based on all of the stereotypes floating around, but honestly I've never seen this argument move the needle for anyone.

For some they just say 'I'll do it for a dollar' and disengage. Realistically the cost of incarceration isn't what's driving their argument for the death penalty, it's just a talking point.

For me, it's just the price of due process.

Maybe to save a few keystrokes, I think we are too flippant about the death penalty today but I think its an essential part of a justice system.

[sjg007]

You could also go with it's racist. The death penalty is racist.

[jcims]

I don’t see how it is inherently racist but there’s certainly a case to be made that its likely to inherit biases from the judicial system.

[mattmanser]

It isn't really over, even now it pops its head up now and again. There's probably more people who believe in it than you realize.

For example in the UK 58% of people believe that the death penalty should be allowed for some crimes (e.g. terrorist attacks). Only 32% oppose it (presumably with 10% undecided):

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/legal/articles-reports/2019/10/0...

So far from being the majority view, often anti-death penalty stance is the minority view but the political elite suppress it.

Let that really sink in, most of the comments here are very wrong in thinking the debate is over, with twice as many of the public still supporting it in a country where it's been abolished for over 50 years. Always remember to fight against capital punishment, the deal is not done.

I believe they do this as they understand the nuance better and realize that overall it causes more problems than it solves, so don't want to open that can of worms once it's shut. Looking back in history there's also significant political fallout every time someone is found innocent after their execution. Some hard-right politicians will band it around for easy points with their base, plus obviously the wider public too for more extreme crimes.

[im3w1l]

I could believe that there is a minority that is strongly opposed and a majority that weakly supports it. So that if you weigh it by passion, net sentiment is against it.

[bjourne]

Not disagreeing with your stats, but it seems that the long-term trend is decreasing support for the death penalty in the UK: https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media-centre/archived-press-rel...

[xdennis]

Just because it's banned doesn't mean the debate is over: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BytxHbenQyQ/V_O2hw4mUXI/AAAAAAAA8...

Some western countries have respectably high numbers: France 50%, UK 48%, Holland 42%.

Not that the USA wants to be compared to us, but here in Romania it's at 91% and we still don't have it. (I suspect that romantic notions of Vlad the Impaler's time has something to do with the percentage.)

[adrian_b]

I suspect that the very high percentage from Romania has much less to do with Vlad the Impaler than with the fact that there are still a large number of people alive who remember the unusual circumstances in which the death penalty was abolished in Romania.

In Romania, the death penalty was not abolished by any democratic institution and that action was not preceded by any public debate.

The gang who seized power in 1989 in Romania abolished the death penalty immediately after killing the dictator Ceausescu to remove the competition, because absolutely everybody expected that many other people who had important positions in the Communist must be also executed immediately, because only that would have been consistent with the messages spread by the new power in the previous days.

However, the people who had seized the power could not kill any other from the Communist leadership, because those were their friends, family or accomplices, so they used the surprise trick of promptly abolishing the death penalty.

This unexpected action was the moment when many people woke up from the euphoria after the supposed fall of the Communism and they began to suspect that the people composing the new power might not be who they claim to be, but it was already too late.

The immediate abolition of the death penalty in Romania had its desired effect, of transforming the former powerful communists into rich capitalists owning what had previously been called "the wealth belonging to all the people", so it is still strongly resented by many who remember those events.

So Romania is a very special case, which explains the unusually high percentage of support for the death penalty.

[btilly]

The US criminal justice system requires root-and-branch reform, starting with issues around policing, cash bail, school-to-prison pipelines, and unfair drug and "victimless" crimes.

I'd put our abusive plea bargaining system in there.

Sadly the rest of the world is moving towards that bad idea, rather than away. :-(

[Hard_Space]

I don't know. Even the constitution acknowledges the possibility of truths that are 'self-evident'.

I remember when the Guantanamo torture scandals emerged in the 2000s, how various political actors attempted to say 'Let's not get hot under the collar about this - let's put it on the table and talk it through.'

For me, there are some things that just don't warrant debate, and encompass such deep-seated truths about humanity that putting them up for debate is a repulsive and disingenuous act, as outlined in 'A Modest Proposal' . I agree with the parent poster that this is one of those cases.

EDIT: This was supposed to be a response to the parent comment of the one it got attached to (for some reason).

[rmcpherson]

“We hold these truths to be self evident...” is from the Declaration of Independence. It does not appear in the Constitution.

[MisterBastahrd]

Doesn't matter. The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution is not limited to the words of the document. The Constitution itself is derived from a history of law, letters, and intent that predate the very concept of the United States.

[sjg007]

Depends on if you are an originalist or not.

[MisterBastahrd]

Nope. A textualist, maybe, but originalists would very much be looking towards English law for guidance on what the Constitution meant.

[lurquer]

> For me, there are some things that just don't warrant debate, and encompass such deep-seated truths about humanity that putting them up for debate is a repulsive and disingenuous act,

The authors of the Declaration of Independence would perhaps agree.

But, keep in mind that stance — as they will knew — would result in the ‘disagreement’ being resolved by force and war.

Consequently, it’s wise to really give some thought to whether an issue is ‘self-evident.’ I personally do not think capital punishment is such an issue; that is, I acknowledge there are good arguments on both sides.

(Are there good arguments on both sides regarding whether some people — like King George — are inherently and divinely superior to others by virtue of their lineage? That’s a different matter... I would have fallen into the ‘self-evidently’ absurd camp on that one.)

[short_sells_poo]

Very much agreed. The left and intellectuals have won the debate in most (all?) of the west and the US policies are widely considered barbaric, inhumane and corrupt. The current state of affairs in the US is unfortunately a testament to the US society.

Having said that, the US is quite a specific case and the truth is that the current approach of the left doesn't seem to work there. Progress is being made, but as an outsider, there seems to be too much partisanship on both sides. Too much us versus them. There is as much derogatory and hostile attitude in the left leaning forums as the right leaning ones, with a small sliver of moderates who get lost in the noise.

I can't claim to have a solution to this. The US seems to be a feudal society at this point, where a large portion of the serfs are actively undermining efforts to lift them from their serfdom, and a large portion of the liberators consider the serfs uneducated peasants who refuse to accept what's good for them. They are both led by a political elite whose incentives are to maintain (even entrench) the status quo because it gives them an easily manipulated voter base and a clear enemy to rally against.

[viklove]

The only flaw I see in your analysis is that you seem to believe Europe is better off in any way. Feudalism is making a resurgence all over the west.

[mettamage]

Sure, from a persuasion point of view I agree. But from a "trying to understand another human" point of view, I'd recommend you to read the Wikipedia page on ethics [1]. My own education on the topic: a course in college (as a business student) and watching some of the Harvard lectures on ethics [0]. IMO ethics courses teaches people to gain a more fine-grained vocabulary on explaining their own positions and understanding other's positions.

GP clearly uses a deontological line of thinking on this matter. Something that GP considers to be "inhuman and barbaric" invokes a line of thinking in where he/she believes one ought to not do a certain action, because it simply is wrong.

I'm not the best at explaining deontological ethics, nor are the people who think like this. My point is: a lot of thought has gone into the types of statements that GP makes, and IMO it's worth thinking about.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics

[ehnto]

The trap you are both falling into is the thought that political discussions centre around trying to understand the other persons point of view. It is almost always the other way around, one person trying to persuade an unwilling party that they are wrong. So as the poster said, as right as you are, you would still lose the political argument if that was how you tried to argue for your view.

You can be correct all day long and change nothing, or you can be persuasive and meet them in their thought bubble to coerce them toward aligning with your views. You can't just pop their world view with statements of fact, because they may very well think your fact is wrong. In this case not everyone believes the death penalty is immoral, so if your only argument is "the death penalty is immoral" you will change nothing.

[true_religion]

It’s all good and well to try and persuade someone, but like the GP sometimes I like to simply state my ideological viewpoint. The problem with narrowly arguing based on someone else’s ideals, is that any agreement isn’t a true meeting of the minds.

For example people, once tried to end the deal then penalty by talking about to pain involved in hanging. Proponents agreed and eventually came up with the electric chair, then lethal injection. No pain, no problem right?

If we talk about innocents killed, proponents will add stricter guidelines, and allow for more appeals, or even say that the crime must have been videotaped in front of a crowd of witnesses. We might end up with a death penalty that applies to the likes of Derek Chauvin alone, but it’ll still be a death penalty.

[snakeboy]

That's called a compromise, right? Reducing the pain involved and increasing the burden of proof required are both concrete, positive reforms, even if it doesn't completely resolve the issue.

[tstrimple]

Let's just kill fewer innocent people and it's fine right? Why won't you compromise with us?!

[snakeboy]

You can laugh all you want, but killing fewer innocent people is in fact a good thing. If you can't see the value in that, then politics is not for you :)

I think we should celebrate that kind of incremental progress so long as it's not progress towards some kind of inescapable local minimum. And even in that case, it just becomes more complicated, not obviously wrong either.

[Consultant32452]

"You're a bad person if you disagree with me" is a great way to never get what you want. It's not simply stating your position, it's anti-persuasion whether you want it to be or not.

[philwelch]

That’s kind of the point.

Saying “you’re a bad person if you disagree with me” draws a line in the sand that precludes civil disagreement and picks a fight. Most people like to avoid conflict, and any possible counterargument to “you’re a bad person” inevitably comes across as defensive.

In other words, the tactic is to bully the opposition into shutting up. And it works very well.

[Consultant32452]

Sounds like we're in agreement that it's a tactic to shut the opposition up while ensuring we keep killing people indefinitely.

[ehnto]

I do agree with you, I think we're also kind of discussing two separate points. Of course just stating how you truly feel is perfectly fine, I don't disagree with that at all. A meeting of the minds as you put it requires people are candid, agreement and compromise isn't really required for that kind of discussion.

Additionally we're also discussing whether or not that approach can be effective at bringing in good policy, and I think that's often not the case. A hard stance with a binary argument is just very difficult to work with, you end up giving the opponent no opportunity to compromise and so they don't, you end up with no policy being written and things don't change.

Policy making is very intentionally an attempt to make a vast array of different views from across a nation coalesce into something that can be made into law, so it requires compromise.

[r00fus]

Persuasion in the current bipolar political environment is way overrated.

You're not going to persuade a Q follower or BLM protester about the opposing viewpoint.

Polemics in this realm are far more effective.

[antman]

Society, businesses and families fail when there is no ground truth, right or wrong, historical knowledge and are based on the most recent FUD or feelgoodery.

Arguments and negotiations need to have common grounds on how thing are interpreted. Else the most immoral person flourishes.

Me following this US debate from the other side of the world I mostly see it framed as “the innocent people getting killed” and not the “immoral to kill” debate as per this article. I don’s see it getting anywhere.

[pydry]

I don't think anybody really supports/opposes the death penalty because of a rational analysis of facts and statistics. It's usually an emotive decision - the notion that "revenge must be taken" or that "life is sacrosanct". These are pretty core parts of people's identity and it is hard for them to let go.

Either way, stories (e.g. miscarriages of justice by an uncaring state) are likely a more effective way to convince in this controversy, not statistics:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/02/23/why-is-it-so-hard-to-pe...

[Blumfid]

I don't want to kill someone. I don't know if or why a person became a murderer.

It could be their upbringing which should be the responsibility of the society and clearly the society failed.

It could be a medical issue. A biological one.

It could be that the murderer did nothing wrong in their worldview.

We have to understand this as a society. We have to teach it if people don't understand it.

[samatman]

That's fine, just understand that your moral intuition isn't universal.

If there were some device (which doesn't exist and maybe can't) which simply lights up with perfect accuracy when pointed at someone who tortured someone before murdering them, I would support instant execution of that person by firing squad.

I'm not willing to accept a 4% error rate however. I'm not sure how low it would have to go, but it's lower than it plausibly can.

This isn't some kind of lack of "understanding" on my part, and you're not going to "teach" me to feel the same way about this issue as you do. We have different values. So you'll have to content yourself with my being on the same side of the policy question for different reasons.

[Blumfid]

I thought about this topic for decades now.when I was 16 I thought you should murder a murderer.

I thought a lot about moral and ethics, the balance between being right and no right exists.

So I do believe your thinking can and might change in the future.

Your torture example still ignores the history of the torturer. Would you like to be killed after this from a society which had it easier and better then you and did not help you? Is that really fair to anyone?

Do you believe in a god? Would you assume jesus would let you in after that? (I'm not religious, I do think so that either it's a good god and it doesn't matter believing in her but your actions)

Do you believe that we are in a simulation? What if you wake up in your next life as a murderer?

There are so many potential thoughts which we haven't thought through that removing a murderer from society to prison is the best choice we have as long as it is a prison who tries to rehabilitate a person.

[jjk166]

I don't know how anyone can acknowledge that moral intuitions aren't universal while simultaneously believing their moral intuition can be used to justify the death penalty.

[lostlogin]

Why do you think that the left and intellectuals ‘more widely fail at winning politically’?

I’m not even sure what that is intended to mean - specifically the bit about intellectuals.

[heyparkerj]

I think it would be fair to interpret that as "failing to change as many minds as they could"

[wideareanetwork]

I’m not trying to win an argument, just stating what I believe.

[tompccs]

> Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point...

Fair enough, I understand that those are your beliefs (they are mine too) but you'd be surprised how poorly they hold up in the real world against the testimonies of victims of some truly horrific crimes.

But from the sound of it you would prefer to weaken the case for abolishing the death penalty for the sake of making a more general point around the sanctity of life that, in the long run, will achieve...what exactly?

[pessimizer]

That's not really what "justification" is. I go through life assuming that only my mother and other loved ones care what I believe as such. Other people care about the arguments that I can make, with a bonus if I can make them using premises that they already accept.

[reedf1]

An argument is what it will boil down to because there will be a group of people who don't believe that it is "inhuman and barbaric". For the record - I agree with you, but I also recognize there are people who do not agree with us.

[tomjen3]

That means you are more interested in stating what you believe than winning an argument that will save innocent lives?

[escape_goat]

That's fair enough, but he's pointing out the consequences of your beliefs. The crux of the objection is that you position yourself in opposition to the discussion of any other justification for abolishing the death penalty; it is not that the death penalty must be abolished, but that it must be abolished for a specific correct reason. This presents a relationship between the death penalty and your beliefs where it seems to your audience that you wish to abolish the death penalty not due to any urgency regarding its consequences, but because of your insistence on imposing your will on others.

[tchalla]

Let's assume the "innocent people get killed" argument abolishes death penalty today. What are the second-order effects of that argument which can be detrimental to the society that you can think of?

[olivierduval]

Actually, the counter-argument is "innocent people get killed by already convincted murderer that went out of jail"...

ECONOMICS: Another counter-argument is "the society pay for the whole life of the jailed murderer, so it's a cost paid by the society for something that broke society laws"

And then another argument is "a murderer may prefer to be killed than to be kept in jail for the rest of his life".

Actually, there's a whole philosophical debate around all this: what is the role of the sanction ? Is it revenge from breaking society laws ? Is it revenge from the victim ? Can someone that broke society laws (even in murder case) be changed by the jail time and come back to the society as a good citizen or are some crimes the mark that this people are forever lost to the society ?

I'm against the death penalty. I'm french so we don't have it since 1980. And we don't really have "forever jail": it's 20 years I think and can even be shortened if prisoner show in jail that he's ready to come back to society (except if it would be a trouble for the society). As a consequence, there's from time to time a convicted criminal, out of jail after a reduced time, that kill/rape someone again. And each time, there's a public discussion about this...

[orwin]

> And we don't really have "forever jail": it's 20 years I think and can even be shortened if prisoner show in jail that he's ready to come back to society (except if it would be a trouble for the society).

20 year is the maximum required in case of non-premeditated murder (or manslaughter on minor i think).

In some cases (murder of a minor, group manslaughter of a state agent, premeditated murder of a state agent and one other case i can't remember), the criminal can be given "incompressible" perpetuity. After a minimum of 30 year, on a judge decision (often because the murderer is dying or very, very old), the "incompressible" part can get shafted.

Also death penalty is expensive. More than keeping prisonners locked up.

[jhgb]

> Actually, the counter-argument is "innocent people get killed by already convincted murderer that went out of jail"...

Counter-argument to what? Surely not counter-argument to the death penalty since "releasing people" is not the alternative to the death penalty, life imprisonment is.

[mattmanser]

Well, none, we have plenty of evidence that there's none. Almost all the countries that have implemented it have lower homicide rates than the US. Usually significantly lower.

Obviously there's probably also various other reasons for that too, like they usually also have heavily restricted gun ownership, but there's certainly no evidence that abolishing the death penalty has adverse effects.

[fighterpilot]

I'm curious, what do you think those would be?

[posterboy]

> arguments that are amenable even to people who disagree on the fundamentals

Now I'm not sure what you think fundamental, but I am pretty sure that "murder" is a something the other side understands.

The irony in this is iron clad. It is also hyperbole, because this is an internet comment, not a political debate.

[watwut]

The left is getting more votes and it seems like leftist ideas do well in polls. So when it comes to ability to convince people about issues, they actually do well.

Also, I don't really see equivalent expectation routinely placed on right - they are not expected to proactively make compromises on their own heads before they even state position.

[UncleOxidant]

> you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms

Everyone has a moral high-ground that isn't debatable.

The right does this as well for it's issues such as abortion.

Left or Right, everyone thinks there is some moral high ground that's not debatable. Everyone has some line that they don't think should be crossed.