Capital Punisment: Justice or Murder?

There's still a person behind the on/off button. What's the difference between starting up a machine or, say, pulling a trigger?

Maybe because those other people aren't conditioned. The idea didn't force its way in with the original still lingering somewhere. In this latter case, the idea that some people deserve to die is the original.
Truth be told I find it a bit naive to assume that everyone would just retch at the thought of shooting a serial rapist through the head. No they don't, not all of them anyway. I'm not saying we find these people on every corner of the street but I know they're there.

There you have it. Expressing a view you don't really possess is hypocritical. If you want someone to die in a fit of rage and only at that point, you're being hypocritical at that very moment.

So the big difference between soldiers and executioners, who both kill as ordered by a higher legal power rather than for individual gain, is the inmate's inability to fight back. Well sorry but I thought someone is at his most harmless when he's dead and a Phoenix Down is used on his zombie.

Also, your argument of "cowardice" has a shade of self-contradiction to it. I'll play along with one of your former arguments for a second and agree that killing someone would place a significant mental burden on the person committing the act. How is someone a coward when he, according to you, risks his own sanity for doing what he thinks is right?

Last but not least, executioners (even the coldest, most ruthless of the bunch) cannot be compared to criminals for the simple reason that they are level-headed or at least humane enough to abide to the law.
Having it in yourself to kill someone is not the same as having an urge to strangle anyone you come across, or at least it wasn't the last time I checked.

We could kill two birds with one stone by burying the convict alive!
Just kidding.

Then don't make them clean. I abhor how so many people still bend over backwards over aesthetics. His family will have a slightly harder time looking at him with a bullet in his head (even though that's by far not the worst to look at) but I don't see it as a punishment as much as I see it as a snap of reality. Oh, and they too reap the benefits or having to pay less for any other criminal who has drawn the short end of the straw. Not much of a consolation but I just wanted to point out the bigger picture here.

Either way there are too many cheaper alternatives to dispose of a dead man walking than the lethal injection or the electric chair as they exist now to just overlook them. Try pointing a stick at him while shouting "Avada Kedavra" for all I care.

And this is not the case when lifetime imprisonment is on the line rather than death penalty?

View also: my opinion on clean executions. Seriously, there are measures aplenty that can be simplified with an easy yet probably ontroversial adjustment. Or what do you mean exactly with "the practice"?

I don't see it as new, I see it as renewed. Capital punishment and all the mumbo-jumbo that precedes the final act is hardly the same as it was in the Middle Ages, wouldn't you agree?
Also, you contra guys are the ones saying that it's a step backwards. I don't agree with that. Not if it'd be done properly this time. ;)
Besides, in some cases your "much better methods" may be able to complement and coexist with capital punishment.

 

It's different because many people see it as different. Yes, by starting the machine, you're killing someone, but you can choose to see it as merely a job, especially if you don't look at the criminal as he is dying. It would still take someone without a great deal of empathy and a hardness of emotion, but it would be more humane to the executioner than personally doing the killing. (and no, I don't particularly care how humane it is to the criminal.)

 

But that would make the person stop caring. Like a doctor who has to tell people every day they are dying, if you lost your empathy, you pretty much lose being an actual person. I dont' see how a father or mother could just do that all day, then come home to their kids. How would they explain it? I still prefer lethal injection.

 

That's assuming that everyone gets married and has 2.5 kids. Many people, and I'm assuming a large proportion of the people that would be hired for a job like this, don't form many lasting bonds at all. Look at me - I only have two friends that I still keep in contact with, I feel no urge to do anything "social" - dating, etc, I'm not going to get married, and I feel perfectly happy living this lifestyle.

 

A general issue I see that everyone pretty much agress with is that jail is a reasonable punisment. The topic about prisons is something hard to side with almost. It is an institution that is suppose to make criminals think about their actions and the consequence of it, and to be rehabilitated into a condition where by they are able to assist society. Now, we know that most people who leave jail are likely to reoffend against the law. It shows that the rehab is not working as well as it should.
Capital punishment was the first retributional act carried out by humans. It is an emotional act more that any 'just' act. It is hard to tell if it has ever stopped anyone from committing a crime before.

 

There are a lot of criminals that, at least I, feel should be punished and not rehabilitated. There are an awful lot of criminals who do not deserve the chance of rehab and should just be punished for what they have done and never released back into society. This will also serve to show people that whatever they have done is not right and will be punished accordingly.