<story><title>The real reason to end the death penalty</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/real.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rswail</author><text>This &amp;quot;debate&amp;quot; has been over in all other nations that the US likes to be compared for years.&lt;p&gt;It is similar to the &amp;quot;tough on crime&amp;quot; incarceration &amp;quot;debate&amp;quot; in the US, where perverse incentives and political expediency has led to the US being the highest-per-capita incarcerator in the world.&lt;p&gt;Framing the death penalty debate around &amp;quot;innocent people get killed&amp;quot; will not change the partisan&amp;#x2F;class perceptions.&lt;p&gt;The US criminal justice system requires root-and-branch reform, starting with issues around policing, cash bail, school-to-prison pipelines, and unfair drug and &amp;quot;victimless&amp;quot; crimes.&lt;p&gt;Australia has been going through a similar debate and is at a similar point, without the death penalty, but dealing with the systemic racism and other class related issues.</text></item><item><author>tompccs</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t mean to pick on you specifically, but this sort of remark is why the left and intellectuals more widely fail at winning politically. Rather than use arguments that are amenable even to people who disagree on the fundamentals, you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms, thereby failing to actually influence policy (in this case a matter of life and death).&lt;p&gt;If the death penalty debate were framed more around &amp;quot;innocent people get killed&amp;quot; and less around more nebulous value-judgement based arguments (which, though valid, divide pretty neatly along partisan and class lines), perhaps the death penalty in the US would have gone long ago.</text></item><item><author>wideareanetwork</author><text>I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”.&lt;p&gt;Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law.&lt;p&gt;Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death penalty is wrong no matter be it accurate or inaccurate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcims</author><text>&amp;gt;Framing the death penalty debate around &amp;quot;innocent people get killed&amp;quot; will not change the partisan&amp;#x2F;class perceptions.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t agree.  All of these moral castigations about it being &amp;#x27;inhumane&amp;#x27; or &amp;#x27;barbaric&amp;#x27; don&amp;#x27;t strike me as rational or compelling in the least.  I think the idea is humane in the context of those impacted by the crimes in question and I don&amp;#x27;t see how putting a person in a box for the remainder of their life is qualitatively any less barbaric.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know where pg lands politically but I&amp;#x27;d say I&amp;#x27;m probably right of center on the American spectrum and for me there are only two persuasive arguments that we should abolish the death penalty.  One is that we make mistakes in who gets it, per TFA, and the other is that it&amp;#x27;s difficult to concretely describe the qualifications of who should get it, risking expansion at the whim of the populace.  In other words I absolutely believe there are just executions, I&amp;#x27;m just not entirely sure we can create a system to do it justly.</text></comment>
<story><title>The real reason to end the death penalty</title><url>http://paulgraham.com/real.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rswail</author><text>This &amp;quot;debate&amp;quot; has been over in all other nations that the US likes to be compared for years.&lt;p&gt;It is similar to the &amp;quot;tough on crime&amp;quot; incarceration &amp;quot;debate&amp;quot; in the US, where perverse incentives and political expediency has led to the US being the highest-per-capita incarcerator in the world.&lt;p&gt;Framing the death penalty debate around &amp;quot;innocent people get killed&amp;quot; will not change the partisan&amp;#x2F;class perceptions.&lt;p&gt;The US criminal justice system requires root-and-branch reform, starting with issues around policing, cash bail, school-to-prison pipelines, and unfair drug and &amp;quot;victimless&amp;quot; crimes.&lt;p&gt;Australia has been going through a similar debate and is at a similar point, without the death penalty, but dealing with the systemic racism and other class related issues.</text></item><item><author>tompccs</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t mean to pick on you specifically, but this sort of remark is why the left and intellectuals more widely fail at winning politically. Rather than use arguments that are amenable even to people who disagree on the fundamentals, you would rather retain the moral high-ground by refusing even to debate on their terms, thereby failing to actually influence policy (in this case a matter of life and death).&lt;p&gt;If the death penalty debate were framed more around &amp;quot;innocent people get killed&amp;quot; and less around more nebulous value-judgement based arguments (which, though valid, divide pretty neatly along partisan and class lines), perhaps the death penalty in the US would have gone long ago.</text></item><item><author>wideareanetwork</author><text>I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”.&lt;p&gt;Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law.&lt;p&gt;Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death penalty is wrong no matter be it accurate or inaccurate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xdennis</author><text>Just because it&amp;#x27;s banned doesn&amp;#x27;t mean the debate is over: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;1.bp.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;-BytxHbenQyQ&amp;#x2F;V_O2hw4mUXI&amp;#x2F;AAAAAAAA8Ns&amp;#x2F;qXAu6yAGvu87pfqHnbiGgn9dWGvkBEWzgCLcB&amp;#x2F;s1600&amp;#x2F;penalty.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;1.bp.blogspot.com&amp;#x2F;-BytxHbenQyQ&amp;#x2F;V_O2hw4mUXI&amp;#x2F;AAAAAAAA8...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Some western countries have respectably high numbers: France 50%, UK 48%, Holland 42%.&lt;p&gt;Not that the USA wants to be compared to us, but here in Romania it&amp;#x27;s at 91% and we still don&amp;#x27;t have it. (I suspect that romantic notions of Vlad the Impaler&amp;#x27;s time has something to do with the percentage.)</text></comment>