I don't like the arguement that if you are not willing to do or watch something that it should not be done. I, for example, do not want to inform people that their loved ones have died, but that does not mean that as a society we should not do it.

> If the death penalty was done like jury duty, where citizens were asked to take turns being executioners nobody except the deranged would agree to it.

I don't know, if I had the details and felt confident that the person was indeed guilty, I don't think it would cause me much anguish to push the button. However, if I didn't agree with the jury's decision of guilt, forcing that person to do it would be extremely inhumane, it could ruin your life.

That's an interesting thought. Imagine if you needed the same jury of twelve people who were present at the trial, to all push a button simultaneously in order to mete out whatever punishment they had decided was fair. (Anyone other than those twelve might be acting on bias or stereotype due to a lack of information about the case, after all.)

In fact, to go a bit further with this—imaging that ongoing punishment required getting this group of people back together at regular intervals and getting them all to push the button again. (For example, meting out a lifetime prison sentence one year, or one month, at a time.) It isn't meant to cause re-evaluation due to the meeting being a hassle, so maybe they could just do this online—but it should cause re-evaluation of whether each juror still feels as strongly about the person's sentence now as they did before.

One could even imagine a situation where any capitol punishment would be measured in QALYs, and then the jury each have to do that many man-years of confirming in order to apply the punishment. (Thus, applying a sentence of death to an eighteen-year-old would require decades of total work, or years per juror.) That seems about the right weight upon one's conscience. It would also mean you'd probably never be able to do jury duty more than once in your life.

"Most voters said no"

I'm curious about your argument. The death penalty was suspended, limited, limited again, and finally the last loopholes allowing it in special case were closed by the passing of more than one bill by parliament, none of which were referendums. Are you basing this on polls?

Basing it on representatives who campaigned with abolitionist policy who were elected like Pearson and Trudeau. Constituents also let their MPs know in the 1980s the attempt to reinstate executions wouldn't be tolerated so it failed to pass, of course back when representative democracy sort of worked and parties weren't just hawkish theatre like they are now.

Does Canada have an armed forces? Is everyone in it deranged?

Do you know what a court martial is? It's typically where you end up after executing prisoners.

Why do you consider execution so different from killing people in combat?

They are by definition different things, and legally considered so by the signatories of the Geneva Conventions. Execution is putting someone to death, typically where they have no power to affect the outcome. Killing uniformed soldiers in open combat is not execution - (it's combat, hence the name). Killing civilians, prisoners, wounded, etc can be considered execution and as such a war crime.