Public Executions & The Death Penalty

It was a different ("Western") world back then and I think extremes of pain and injury were probably a much more everyday part of life, less affecting to the sensibilities.

I don't think it was entertainment exactly, at least not in the sense that we think of entertainment. It was a spectacle, a community event, an articulation of cultural and religious values, a carnivalesque distraction, and a significant release of routine.

 

Death would be much more welcoming than rotting in prison. Besides, it would be wonderful to deprive these private prisons of their disgusting psychopathic business to imprison and ruin people's lives for their financial benefit.

 

People found it entertaining, plain and simple. If the same were offered today, there would be a packed house, I guarantee. I don't think people change that much. When Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered, and the video was all over the internet, I carefully avoided it. I was shocked to find out practically everyone I knew had watched it. Not just sadists and losers. Like fucking doctors and lawyers were like "did you see it?" I asked one acquaintance why he watched it. He said he was just curious. I simply can't understand it, but there you go, people want to see that stuff. I'm horrified by the death penalty not exactly for moral/legal reasons (though I can make arguments against it in each case), but for this exact reason [MENTION=5224]Sadie[/MENTION] mentions, the macabre death-house spectacle. It brings out the very worst in people at all ends of the spectrum. It is a revolting display.

 

Yeah, for example ISIS pretty much puts out daily snuff flicks for people to watch. I've heard they get millions of hits.

 

Yeah, people would wake up early to gather in the town square for the execution that day. Humans are really messed up.

 

Times have changed slightly. Most people would not attend those things in person. Viewing through mediation represents a sort of psychological safety buffer, a sense of removal that allows for a sort of suspension of recognition of full realities.

I don't know why but I tend to be more "upset" by the ethical dimensions of execution. I have to look away from those images myself as they make me want to be sick, but I do enjoy it in video games. So it doesn't really surprise me that much that people enjoy it. We are beasts, after all. But I do expect the rational part of humanity to exercise a greater control. And I don't see execution as being remotely rational.

 

Not commenting on whether it's better or worse that people are viewing this through mediation rather than in person. Probably much worse, in many practical senses, in terms of "knowing" execution for what it is and exposing it to discussion.

 

Do you watch the news? Read the newspaper? The macabre is everywhere and it's normal for humans to be curious. We are afraid of death and violence and fascinated by it, whether we want to admit it or not. I do not watch death vids online. I wouldn't attend an execution, but I do read news stories that are utterly depraved when the headline should be enough. Only to regret it after.

Human garbage like pedophiles and murderers and rapists should be executed. There shoukd be no place for them in society and they should be put down. It should be done humanely and without spectacle, though. I didn't always believe that until I had a family. I think the US does a real shit job of protecting innocents from repeat offenders.

 

People like to feel as if they are a part in the betterment of society.

 

There is such a notion as 'bearing witness' to an act. It does not necessarily have to include spectacle.

 

A lot of it was morbid curiosity.

 

Ummm...
Right so executions have happened all through out history. Sometimes it was required you show up, sometimes not.
I believe that in some instances it should be mandatory to watch at a certain age. Take ISIS aholes that think its funny to cut people's heads off slowly. .or burn them alive. Make their executions 10 times worse and put it on display for the world to see.
I understand they are going to target children now.

 

Communities back then, much like small regional communities now, were far closer. Any crime affected everyone, as much as any crime against a family member/friend would affect us. If you go to areas where there are still local tribes/clans, and give a present/medical treatment to any of the villagers, they are all honoured, and all appreciative. Similarly, if you offend one, you offend them all. We cannot understand public punishments now, because we do not live in close-knit societies, and are more individualistic.

Public punishment in the past gave people whatever is given to families attending court trials now, imo. To understand why a whole village would turn out, only requires one to understand why a family might turn up to the execution of someone who has murdered a family member.

 

Good idea, let’s make them all Martyrs.
Violence begets violence.

 

While I think they should be executed, I don't think the world needs to make a spectacle of their torture.
It's not necessarily about vengeance, but working towards eradicating a threat and deterring others from radicalizing.

 

Just to explain my earlier remarks that execution is not rational,

I agree that there is absolutely no place for them in society, but I don't agree that society has a right to decide that they should die. I think society is basically an artificial construct, a "social contract" of responsibilities and privileges that those of us who are "sane" agree to participate in and abide by. When someone chooses not to respect that contract I don't think they deserve to die, I think they deserve to not be permitted to participate in society, and I think that society has a right to protect itself from those people by removing them from it. The easiest way to do that seems to me, to be imprisonment.

I find it difficult to discriminate between personal murder and execution; execution seems like it could just as easily be referred to as state-sanctioned murder. If a person violated the rules of society by killing someone else, then it seems logically inconsistent to me that society would violate its own evaluation of life by ordering the death of a person.

I don't necessarily expect that society will behave rationally, or that behaving rationally is necessarily the best thing, as there may be other considerations; I just express these things as thoughts that are important to me.

Whether society has a responsibility to provide these people with some level of bearable quality of life is not something I have thought through rationally with any level of detail because it's just a humane belief that I have held which I haven't really questioned until now. (Although now that I have thought of it, I will question it more.)

My personal circumstance is having spent my life so far cohabiting with a parent who has complicated psychiatric problems as a result of countless childhood rapes. So I do understand wanting to kill someone over this, because I have wanted to kill someone over this on many different occasions. These are just my philosophical perspectives on the relationship between society and these people.

 

Fortunately for everyone involved, my mother's perpetrator died of natural causes before we could take matters into our own hands. I'm conflicted about that, but mostly grateful.

 

Thanks invisible. It makes sense. But I don't really see it as an issue of moral consistency. I think when someone goes out and rapes and murders a child or someone else, they have forfeited their right to live in that society. Why should we continue to support them and provide resources for them? I do not oppose the death penalty but I'm not out there rallying for it. But if as a society , we cannot agree on executing these individuals, then I would accept life imprisonment. I do not accept that these individuals should receive parole and be out on the streets to do it again. For example, where I live, about 60 miles away, there was a man released from prison who had raped and tortured and murdered a 3 year old and a 6 year old when he was 16. He was incarcerated and then released. Then he got out and molested a 7 year old. Then he went back to prison and was released again this summer. People like this should never have the opportunity to ever prey on another person again. So either execute them or lock them up for life, that's my opinion.