this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
181 points (96.9% liked)

News

23367 readers
2992 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed 11 worshippers and wounded six others at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 in the deadliest-ever attack on Jewish people in the United States, was unanimously sentenced to death by a federal jury on Wednesday.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Spacebar@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

We all know by now the death penalty isn't a deterrent.

When the government condones killing, it makes killing acceptable.

We should be aiming to make killing another person a reprehensible taboo and by allowing the death penalty we are actually condoning it.

Throw him in a supermax where he will be forgotten. Killing him let's him off the hook.

[–] TheCopiedCovenant@lemmy.cafe 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think it's really flawed logic to say that the death penalty condones or encourges murder. I also think it's designed to be the ultimate justice, not a deterrent. Here's my opinion on the matter:

Are there monsters who deserve death? Absolutely!

Is killing citizens a power we should give to the state? Never.

[–] R00bot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 year ago

To me, a life in prison is far more terrifying than death. Especially if it was solitary confinement or something.

[–] Spacebar@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

When ANY killing is acceptable, murder becomes slightly less reprehensible to a society.

If the state kills someone through the courts because they deserve the death penalty, then when a murderer feels a person deserves it, they can justify, in their minds, the killing of a person.

Again, any killing of a human should be the ultimate taboo. That's the way to decrease murder in a society.

[–] SystemThreat@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll always maintain that forcing someone to live with their decisions (not mistakes -- decisions... there's a difference) is way more punishment than giving them release from them.

[–] hydrospanner@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

This may hold some merit in situations where the perpetrator does, in fact, feel remorse, guilt, and negativity toward their actions.

In cases like this, I believe this person would live out their days feeling justified in what they did, and use their incarceration as proof of the very conspiracy theories that fueled their actions.

Bigger picture, capital punishment is one of those topics where I'm undecided overall and feel that there's a lot of valid takes, on both sides of the issue. I also feel there's a lot of bad takes too, of course, but that's common on any issue.

That all being said, in this specific instance, I feel that, personally, it's a situation that has me reevaluating the bigger picture and looking at the role of government, the legal system, and punishment...capital and otherwise...as expressions of our society's pursuit of justice.

In this light, and in this specific situation, I'm not sure the traditional pros and cons arguments about the death penalty apply, at least in my mind. Rather, this is an open and closed case with no doubts on who was responsible, what their thought process was, etc. It's not like DNA evidence will suddenly clear this person's name of all wrongdoing in twenty years.

At this point, for me, carrying out a death sentence (or not carrying out a death sentence) isn't about what's right or fair or measured or appropriate as it concerns the relationship between the justice system and the perpetrator. Rather (again, in my subjective view), it's simply about the justice system doing what is within its power for the victims, survivors, and their loved ones/community.

In my mind, there's no question that this person deserves to die, and if that's what a jury of this person's peers, in their community, has decided is appropriate...and the justice system has the legal capability of carrying it out, then in this specific case, I fully support that course of action.

[–] sagrotan@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Following that logic we should make killing a taboo but putting a human -guilty or not- in a concrete bucket for the rest of his life not? I don't have a solution, but I know, revenge isn't justice and that is NOT the solution.

[–] Hardeehar@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Letting him rot in jail is perfectly reasonable. Let him live with it. There are fates worse than death and that IS justice in my eyes.

[–] danhab99@programming.dev -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The death penalty isn't about punishing criminals.

Society as a whole decides that due to a person's actions and values they can no longer qualify as a person like the rest of us. To be a person you are required to value people's lives. There is no room for choice or debate about this matter, it doesn't matter what your religion or your heritage is, if you are a person, you're required to value the life of other people.

When failure cases like this guy and Dylan roof show up, we have to judge whether or not they're capable of valuing life and if they're not then they're not people. It's that simple. And if you're not a person, your livestock and human livestock is pretty damn worthless, so you might as well slaughter them on the spot.

[–] girlfreddy@mastodon.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@danhab99 @Spacebar

Problem is that there are innocent people convicted of crimes, and the death penalty assures that at least one innocent person will be killed for a crime they didn't commit.

That's a high price to pay for the supposed satisfaction of removing a psychopath from the living.

[–] PlantJam@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"The Life of David Gale" covers this topic. It's not great, but I might just be biased against Cage and Spacey.

[–] girlfreddy@mastodon.social 2 points 1 year ago

@PlantJam

Yeah, I have a problem with Spacey now as well.

And that movie was pretty badly done.

[–] danhab99@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

A stupidly high price requires a stupidly high bar. The bar isn't high enough.

[–] Spacebar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's a horrifying take.

To say it's as simple as a jury deciding a person is no longer a person and we can then dispose of them? What about the innocent people who've been executed? An acceptable level of collateral damage, even when you admit capital punishment isn't about punishment?

What about when a we decide a whole group of people aren't people? That's happened multiple times throughout history.

[–] danhab99@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

And there's the limiting factor. Since there's no way to reverse capital punishment like you can just take someone out of jail; A jury has to have absolutly no doubt and no more possible questions before deciding that this criminal can or can't change. The bar for capital punishment should the 1000 times higher than the next highest bar. It is because of my stance that I'm upset at how often people are condemed to death, capital punishment is being used too loosely and if society isn't capable of dispationatly executing a failed human and instead choose to take their feelings out on the bad guy then captial punishment should be banned.

I don't see what's wrong with acknowledging the fact that some humans are objectivly failures and have no place being compared to the average person. There aren't that many of them, most people (like 98%) are good people and will never beable to be judged like this because noone can possibly be holier than everyone. It's not a hard stance, its a system of value that acknowledges that some people are not actually people. It' noones fault until it can be proven to be someones fault and when it happens you have to clean up.

Its just work

What about when a we decide a whole group of people aren’t people?

Ok, bear with me. It's actually as easy as not deciding that groups of people aren't people. Right? You don't have to do that, there's no rule requiring you to do it. People aren't groups and groups aren't people.

That’s happened multiple times throughout history.

We're all collectively better than those people for these simple facts:

  • we don't drink the water we shit in
  • we wash our hands
  • we comprehend the fact that people are worth more alive than dead