If.... and this is in the sidebar:
Straight newrepublic link for me, either OP changed this within 12 minutes of your comment before I loaded the page, or something weird is going on for you, maybe some sort of caching and you got an older version of the post? Which client do you use?
That America is planning to do it already proves barbarism. Just like Republicans don't need a successful fascist takeover to prove they are fascists. They already are.
Even if it doesn't, its only because everyone refused to do it.
Whats important, is that Trump and his sycophants CLEARLY want this. And they don't see the problem either
I got some bad news for you.........
...
No if. You run torture camps where you detain people you've kidnapped from around the world. You kill innocent fishermen with navy seals. You murder entire weddings in drone strikes. You bomb baby food factories. You arm the Indonesians to carry out a genocide in East Timor. You drop chemical weapons on Vietnam. You bomb Cambodia and Laos, rendering about a million homeless. You kill one million in Iraq. You fund a genocide in Palestine. You fund a genocide in Guatemala. You bombed Yugoslavia when a diplomatic alternative that you proposed is on the table. You've turned Libya into an open air slave market. You've had Cuba in an economic stranglehold for decades, culminating in the current crisis. You're the only nation that ever dropped an atomic bomb on civilian centers, and you did it twice. Six figure death toll those days alone. There's no if. You're a barbaric shitstain of a nation. Death to America.
We've always been a barbaric nation. Please stop pretending that we haven't.
Taking you all back to the Dark Ages! That’s about Kegbreaths speed!
You're a barbaric nation for many reasons already, this will just be another nail in the coffin.
I always thought their oath of allegiance, done every day in school, sounded so much like something kids in North Korea would be forced to do.
This is just another thing to add to the pile.
Lol the fact that you're even comparing them to a country that they literally genocided speaks to the effectiveness of American propaganda. Glad y'all eyes are starting to open up, but America has always been the evil country doing evil things lol.
the US has streamed several executions already. they just happened to be extrajudicial carried out by police/ICE
Those were streamed incidentally, not officially.
When police body cameras are always on and you execute someone, you're not streaming it "accidentally". You know you have a camera on your body while you murder someone and choose to do it anyway.
This is a really odd argument that I can't understand, there is a categorical difference between an official broadcast of a scheduled execution and the video from a police body camera being released following the police killing someone. I don't understand how you can say they are the same thing, whether the cop remembers in the moment they have a camera on is irrelevant. Capturing an incident as part of routine recording and then releasing that video after the fact is not at all like scheduling an execution and broadcasting it live for the world to watch.
I don’t understand how you can say they are the same thing
The people doing the killing knows the cameras are on, watching their actions. And they go ahead and kill someone anyway.
Just because the US justice system hides tax payer paid public servants from concealing their lawfully required body cam footage is a US justice problem. But the cops know they're being recorded at all times and they'll kill an unarmed civilian anyway.
I am not following. From my perspective, the people doing the killing are in very different circumstances and the purpose of the cameras are completely different. The message being sent with an execution being conducted like this seems completely different than the message being sent when there is a release of bodycam footage showing police killing someone.
If a country is executing its own citizens, that country is already a barbaric nation.
Let's quit pretending like we're not! It doesn't mean we all are or that we are all the time, but we fucking are!
The only way we can truly change things is by coming to terms with reality.
America is light and dark.
We passed the “barbaric” marker a long time ago.
Yes, but this publication is conservative. When they're saying it's barbaric, it's bad.
don't worry guys, it's really not as bad as you think. it's worse. you've been a barbaric nation since 1776.
*before
agreed, but I thought they probably weren't technically a nation then, at least as the US
Good point, mostly wanted to highlight that they colonized the "USA".
For Liberals, barbarism is when you publicly show what you are doing instead of doing it in secret.
I’ve been waiting 40 years now for that leftward swing.
Best we’ve done so far is Obama passing a heritage foundation free market based “healthcare” system.
Don't forget extending and building upon the Patriot Act!
Hate to break it to you, but this has always been a barbaric nation that was founded on colonialism and genocide. Putting an execution behind closed doors does not change that.
After 3 years of full fledged US-backed livestreamed genocide it is quite astounding people are upset about an execution being livestreamed
Yes, nation of punching down, cloaked behind "liberty and justice for all". It was always mostly lies and a little truth, a way for the wealthy to take more as they've done for ages, and use supernatural as excuse too for their violence against people. So much knowledge was lost too, it's tragic the invaders couldn't get along like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had found a better way. It's not too late to make better choices for better future.
A few thoughts on this.
I'm strongly against capital punishment. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty who deserve to die and the world is better off without. But our criminal justice system, while good, has made too many mistakes. Plus, given all the appeals and whatnot, it's actually cheaper to keep someone in jail for life than to execute them.
The problem with our society is when it comes to violence, we live in a state of almost childlike innocence. The vast majority of Americans have NO exposure to real violence and death. The vast majority of Americans have never seen another human die, in real life or on video. The vast majority of Americans have never even seen a real dead body. We censor any death or gore on news, and call ourselves civilized.
Even our 'violent' movies and TV are nonsense- the bad guy gets shot, a squib goes off under his shirt, and he falls down. Meanwhile the hero is taking blow after blow that (in reality) would each cause life-altering injuries. It's almost cartoonish.
So with this innocent ignorance, we then debate things like war, gang violence, and capital punishment as abstract academic concepts, as we have no frame of reference to ground them in reality.
Personally I think more Americans should acquaint themselves with the reality of the world we inhabit. The reality is that human bodies are fragile as hell, it doesn't take a lot to seriously wreck one in all kinds of ways, and when that happens it's NOT funny or pretty.
So for that reason, I would like to see at least the recordings of executions be made public. If the American people are going to discuss a policy, they should see what they are actually discussing. I suspect one video of an electric chair execution would be enough to end capital punishment in the USA for good. But even still with firing squad, I think people should see the reality of turning a living human into a dead human.
With that all said- this is NOT the place to do that.
This is not about domestic policy. This is about international peacekeeping. To the Islamic extremists, this guy is a hero. Shoot him live on TV and you turn him into a martyr. The extremist people WANT to die in service of their cause. Death is not a feared consequence, it's the expected end of martyring themselves. You think someone who goes to shoot up a mall expects to live through to retirement? No, they understand that's the end, they just want to take out others at the same time.
This video would not 'strike fear in their hearts', it would be a recruitment tool! This is something anyone with even the most basic understanding of Islamic extremism understands. I don't understand why the so-called experts are ignoring it.
Exactly. Even going past the fucking barbarity of it, it reveals the sheer stupidity of Hegseth and the administration far more.
Did you know Trump in the last months of his first term executed more people than any president of the 20th century except for FDR? and for FDR 6 of them were Nazi saboteurs. And FDR had 3 full terms. In total FDR executed 16 people. Trump had 13 in barely 6 months.
After the Gregg decision (post-1963) the only federal executions were by George Bush junior and he only executed 3.
Basically this guy is the most murderous president we have ever had in the worst possible way ever. Even Hitler had some real beliefs beyond genocide and murder. Trump has none.
The thing that bugs me about Trump and the administration is how little planning and forethought seems to go into things of worldwide significance. Ready-Fire-Aim is a joke it should not be how the nation (formerly) leading the free world operates. And worse is the mindset it represents.
Our government employs a great many experts on Islamic extremism, and I can promise you that not one of them is too busy to meet with the Secretary of Defense.
And yet either these experts weren't consulted, or their advice was ignored. The announcement went out anyway. And now there's probably room fulls of experts all screaming that this will cause far more problems than it'll solve, so there's backpedaling.
So I ask, if I was Hegseth what would create this situation? And the most likely answer I come up with, like an awful lot of Trump decisions, is that I just assume everyone is either like me or like a stereotype and act accordingly. I don't need to study or consult because It's My Job To Make The Decision and I Made The Decision.
The result of that is decisions are made off the cuff, without consideration or forethought, which leads to problems that are both easily predicted and easily prevented.
Iran is another perfect example. We want to get rid of Iran, so we go in, fire a fuckton of guided missiles (which cost $1.5 million each, and apparently we have no way to replace them), blow up the leader and some buildings, then step back and do nothing to manage the resulting aftermath. The religious council naturally appoints the leader's son as new supreme leader, and whoops seems they still have a functional military and by deploying it to a tiny patch of water can grind worldwide trade to a fucking halt. Now they're organized again and they're pissed, and we're almost out of missiles so we don't want to start another war. So we're negotiating with the guy whose dad we just killed begging him to stop killing the global economy.
Did nobody consider this possibility ahead of time?
I'm NOT an expert on Iran. But from what little I learned on Wikipedia, I can tell you with near certainty that if you want to 'stop' Iran you have to kill or capture not just the supreme leader but the religious council who appoints him, and many high ranking members of the IRGC also. Do that and install a temporary puppet government with a promise of free elections in a year, or find whoever's the current 'heir to the throne and install them as Shah under the old governmental structure. Then leave enough forces behind to keep the remainder of IRGC loyalists from causing trouble. This requires more than missiles, it requires a bunch of 'wet work' (think spy movies / assassinations). It requires boots on the ground. It requires putting Americans in harm's way. Overall it will take years and cost $billions. But the result, if done correctly, could be the secularization of Iran- undoing our evils when we helped depose the Shah.
Shooting off a bunch of missiles and expecting the problem to go away doesn't make the problem go away.
If?
We’re already a barbaric nation… or have you not been paying attention for like… your whole life?
It just means mask has slipped.
White phosphorus and cluster bombs are still used by the US.
Meanwhile the list of fuckery is so long it's hard to pick a starting point.
Much of the world wants to see the US destroyed. We earned that, but because of that we pretty much have to make attempts to strike fear into our enemies. I have a problem with America's history of foreign policy, but I don't have a problem with the death penalty. I'm of the opinion that certain actions a person can take should absolutely make them fear the consequences of their actions.
Harsh punishment doesn’t deter crime because most criminals are like “of course I won’t get caught” and/or they’re super desperate.
Personally, I think the death penalty ought to be banned simply because the court system isn’t perfect. Innocent people can, will, & have been executed.
So how long until you're okay with an innocent person being put to death?
Also, why does someone else get the right to choose to end another person's life? What's the difference between a man pulling a trigger at a bar killing someone, and a judge deeming they deserve to die for it? What makes the judge have the right to decide who lives and who dies, but some dude in a bar can't?
"im fine with the state executing people as long as it behind closed doors!" - liberals
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News