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.

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

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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. :-(

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).

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.)

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.