I would argue that beheading is a more merciful execution than the electric chair or lethal injection.

Justifying the beheading done there is just evil. By Sharia if you're just an apostate or kafir paying jijiya who has done some miniscule mistake which might include affecting the feeling of an Imandar(i.e Muslims). Now anyone can be a kafir because the definition of being a muslim is extremely vague in Quran and hadiths, so that's why you see violence between shia, sunni, ahmediya and all others. Even different factions between Sunnis.

I'm not defending capital punishment in the Middle East, but pushing against the "culturally dependent beheading" quip.

how?

The electric chair and lethal injection have both resulted in torturous, prolonged deaths for some victims. If beheading is done correctly, you essentially die right away.

I would argue that the masses of people that flock to see the beheading also result in some stress towards the victim. But the fact that it is not a clean room beheading but a public one culturally dependent too ...

If we argue which type of death is more or less pleasant we've directly descended into not just the Middle East, but the Middle Ages.

I'd take a few beheadings for some of the laughable sentences given in 'leading democracies' for like rapist, child rapist, murderers.

Who would have thought that cutting someone's limbs off as a punishment would result in nearly very little theft in those countries too.

Until you realize that there's about a 5% error in the justice system and if you're unlucky you don't just spend a few years unjustly in jail, not you are also maimed for life.

People that don't realize that can just crawl back to their cave and live out the darwinistic dreams there. (Just speaking/ranting generally here now.)

> Who would have thought that cutting someone's limbs off as a punishment would result in nearly very little theft in those countries too.

Only people that don't read up on the science. Draconian measure affect crime rates much less than immediate negative feedback after the crime (which doesn't need to be draconian).

I mean Singapore has draconian punishments for crimes too but they correspondingly have next to no drug use. We lose tens of thousands of people to fentanyl every year, whole towns are devastated etc. Hanging a few drug smugglers is definitely the lesser evil.

That being said, I enjoy my individual rights in the US and wouldn’t live anywhere else but there is a valid argument to be made that our ethics are sometimes a little too short sighted/individualistic and not holistic enough.

(I’m also definitely against the death penalty, just trying to make a point)

The thing is, the death penalties in Singapore are in the single digits per year (out of a population of 6 million, effectively higher as this excludes non-citizens). People are not killed without thought, there is careful and lengthy investigations in each and every case.

The deterrence does work and saves countless lives that would have been taken from ODs and cartel-ish activities

Sure but it’s a smaller country and you’re making my point for me about the effect of draconian punishments.

Plenty of places with extreme laws have terrible drug abuse, also.

Not true at all, I worked there for a week. Clearly very wealthy African group on top of the marina Bay sands where we were paying like NZD$30 per vodka soda and these guys had multiple magnums of champagne, openly smoking weed.

Singapore = if you have money all of their supposed laws etc do not apply (just like so many other places).