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Source: (consider it) Thread: Let's just shoot people
RuthW

liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13

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A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge argued Monday (pdf) that if we're going to keep executing people in the US, we should stop kidding ourselves that it's not brutal and should give up on lethal injection.

quote:
Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful — like something any one of us might experience in our final moments.... But executions are, in fact, nothing like that. They are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. Nor should it. If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf.

...

The firing squad strikes me as the most promising. Eight or 10 large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time. There are plenty of people employed by the state who can pull the trigger and have the training to aim true. The weapons and ammunition are bought by the state in massive quantities for law enforcement purposes, so it would be impossible to interdict the supply. And nobody can argue that the weapons are put to a purpose for which they were not intended: firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets. Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn’t be carrying out executions at all.

Today the person whose habeas corpus petition was denied was put to death in Arizona, and it took so long that "his attorneys had time to file an emergency appeal asking officials to save his life as the drugs apparently failed to fully take hold." (LA Times article). How much he suffered seems open to interpretation -- his lawyer said he was gasping for air, the state's lawyer said he was snoring.

Personally, I think the judge dismissed the option of using the guillotine too quickly, but in general, I'm with him. When oh when will the US achieve more than a thin veneer of civilization and stop executing people? Why on earth is it so hard to figure out that if we think gassing, hanging, and shooting people are all too horrible, perhaps we ought to re-think the whole execution thing in the first place?

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leftfieldlover
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# 13467

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I am very glad that I live in a country [UK] where there is no death penalty. Surely executing someone is sinking to their level. An eye for an eye is very Old Testament. [Mad] Keeping someone alive in prison for possibly years and years, with that person knowing they will never be free, must be more worrying to the prisoner than a quick [or not so quick these days!] visit to the Death Chamber and oblivion.

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The Silent Acolyte

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# 1158

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quote:
Originally posted by leftfieldlover:
An eye for an eye is very Old Testament. [Mad]

Right and so it is. A law of mercy.

Why is it that Old Testament seems to mean ick! to so many purported Christians?

[ 24. July 2014, 02:42: Message edited by: The Silent Acolyte ]

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RuthW

liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13

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quote:
Originally posted by leftfieldlover:
Keeping someone alive in prison for possibly years and years, with that person knowing they will never be free, must be more worrying to the prisoner than a quick [or not so quick these days!] visit to the Death Chamber and oblivion.

Last week a federal judge agreed with you and ruled California's death penalty unconstitutional, in violation of the ban on cruel and unusual punishment, because it takes us so long to execute people. The state will probably appeal the ruling. In the meantime, we have hundreds of people sitting in San Quentin waiting to see if we're ever going to get our act together and figure out how we want to kill them.
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RuthW

liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13

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quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by leftfieldlover:
An eye for an eye is very Old Testament. [Mad]

Right and so it is. A law of mercy.

Why is it that Old Testament seems to mean ick! to so many purported Christians?

Because we're Marcionites. And we think squishing people's eyes out is nasty.
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Byron
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# 15532

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quote:
Originally posted by leftfieldlover:
[...] Surely executing someone is sinking to their level. [...]

This would be true only if the police dragged the suspect out the back of the stationhouse and beat them to death. The battery of procedural safeguards a suspect enjoys make an execution after due process and appeal as different in kind to a murder as imprisoning a person after conviction is different to a kidnapping.

I disagree with capital punishment because I disagree with retributive punishment in general, but I accept that, from a retributive perspective, a solid argument can be made for it. This is an issue over which decent people ought to be able to disagree with mutual respect.

What I don't like is medicalizing executions. It screams denial. If you're going to kill someone as punishment for their crimes, be honest about it, scrap the gurney, and employ methods like a firing squad or a gallows. Putting someone down carries no moral statement.

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Byron
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On the California front, execution in the Golden State is so dysfunctional that murderers are asking to be sentenced to die for the creature comforts!

Thanks to decades of litigation, America's death penalty is the worst of all worlds: hideously slow; used too infrequently to be a deterrent (even supposedly execution-happy Texas only executes something in the region of 1% of its convicted murderers); and, thanks to plea bargaining, applied with little relation to the seriousness of the crime.

It costs a fortune for no discernible benefit. States used to execute murderers within a few months of sentence: they now execute them after decades of appeals, and most are never executed at all. Unless the federal courts take a different line, it ought to be abolished simply on practical grounds.

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The Silent Acolyte

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# 1158

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Just for the record, I think that judicial execution is barbaric for those societies that can afford to warehouse for life those people convicted of 'capital' crimes. In this 21st century, every society can afford it.

Plus, this medicalized killing is stupid beyond belief. A bullet to the head or the guillotine makes sense if there has to be judicial executions.

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Byron
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Is execution any more barbaric than life without parole? I don't think so, and neither did these Italian lifers (being Italy, I doubt the prison kitchen was to blame). LWOP is just a slow-motion execution.

Life without parole, like the needle, is punishment in denial, keeping all the retribution of capital punishment, but lacking the courage of its convictions. It pretends to be humane, but abandons the heart of penal reform, the possibility that anyone may be redeemed and earn their freedom.

The real battle in the U.S. isn't over executing a handful of gangbangers, it's over abandoning thousands to cages run by the most savage inmates until they drop dead.

[ 24. July 2014, 05:03: Message edited by: Byron ]

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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I think if we are going to kill people governmentally (I think we should not but they keep not caring what I think about it), we should do it in a way that is going to be quick and as painless as possible. I think the absolute best method based on these criteria is arguably the guillotine.

Further it should be on C-Span or some such network -- every single execution should be during prime time hours, and should be shown live on TV. Maybe if enough people saw it, they would see how barbaric it is, and we could eventually get rid of it throughout the 50+.

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Byron
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# 15532

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Caught a rerun of The Running Man lately? [Biased]

Tellingly, for the last century in which Britain hanged murderers, its government became obsessively secretive about the process. Today, Japan is equally circumspect. Most Japanese accept capital punishment, but they want it out of sight, out of mind. More denial. At least most U.S. jurisdictions invite journalists and witnesses along.

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Schroedinger's cat

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# 64

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quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Caught a rerun of The Running Man lately? [Biased]

I did, as it happens. Seeing some of the protesters when high-profile people are to be executed makes me realise that letting people see executions will not put them off - quite the contrary. In the UK they stopped having public executions, and I believe one of the reasons was that the crowds and the partying was becoming uncontrollable.

I have heard that in Japan (somewhere odd) executed by hiring a sniper to take a condemned person out without warning, which actually does seem a whole lot more humane than making people focus on a date when they will be killed.

State-licensed killing is wrong, for so many reasons. Making it life instead would probably prove cheaper, what with all of the appeal process, which seems to get it mitigated to life often anyway.

So yes, it is brutal barbaric thing to do. Using "medical" technology rather than being torn to pieces by wild animals simply helps the 'mercans feel that they are being "humane".

But it is still taking a life, and that is barbaric.

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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
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I am getting the impression that Byron feels death is preferable to any form of suffering.

You are dying, die faster !
You are jailed for life, better to die.
You survive a serious assault and will have nightmares for the rest of your life, jump off the statue of liberty.
You have a headache, it might go on for agggeeesss, cut it off.
That cough sounds persistent, here, have some cyanide laced chocolate ..

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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Carbon dioxide has long been suggested as a method of execution. It's quick, painless, cheap, requires no special equipment or expertise, and is 100% effective.

It's never been adopted because it's quick, painless, cheap, etc... FFS America.

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Byron
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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I am getting the impression that Byron feels death is preferable to any form of suffering.

You are dying, die faster !
You are jailed for life, better to die.
You survive a serious assault and will have nightmares for the rest of your life, jump off the statue of liberty.
You have a headache, it might go on for agggeeesss, cut it off.
That cough sounds persistent, here, have some cyanide laced chocolate ..

I'll snap through the hellish bit first: anyone who disregards quality of life is either stoic to the point of catatonia, or a masochist of Sadean proportions. Zonk-out or cilice-up, as ya like, just don't expect the rest of us to share your predilections.

Right, onto my argument, which is that no civilized society throws people onto the scrapheap. Too many states have sentenced convicts to endure barbarism and called it justice. I dislike LWOP 'cause I consistently apply my grounds for disliking the death penalty.

What's bizarre is that so many "progressives" think that life in a concrete jungle is more civilized than an execution. We shouldn't offer one as an alternative to the other; we should have neither.

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quetzalcoatl
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Oh wow, 'cilice-up' is funkatorial.

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IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700

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quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Last week a federal judge agreed with you and ruled California's death penalty unconstitutional, in violation of the ban on cruel and unusual punishment, because it takes us so long to execute people. The state will probably appeal the ruling. In the meantime, we have hundreds of people sitting in San Quentin waiting to see if we're ever going to get our act together and figure out how we want to kill them.

Since we are considering firing squads anyhow - a single machine gun team could clear the entire execution backlog of California in under a minute. Use a few bulldozer and a mass grave between rounds, and you can probably deal with the entire USA in a single day with minimal manpower and costs. For that matter, just walk them into a mass grave, dump some mustard gas on them, wait, close it up with earth and you are done. Further cost cutting can be achieved by leaving out the mustard gas...

I'm against the death penalty myself, if societies can afford lifelong imprisonment. But the style with which one kills people does say something about the respect one affords them, and about the values one holds. I'm guessing that quite a number of people who would accept firing squads would not want to see the industrialised mass killings I have described. Though clearly these would be highly efficient.

It is not a priori absurd to wish to kill a person with the minimum of pain and indeed a minimum of "splatter". It is not absurd to wish to kill them one by one. This need not be squeamishness and inefficiency, it can demonstrate a kind of respect and care for the person to be killed, and that is not immediately irrelevant just because one is in fact killing them.

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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear

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Callan
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# 525

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Originally posted by Byron:

quote:
Life without parole, like the needle, is punishment in denial, keeping all the retribution of capital punishment, but lacking the courage of its convictions. It pretends to be humane, but abandons the heart of penal reform, the possibility that anyone may be redeemed and earn their freedom.
In the UK at least you have to work quite hard to get a whole life tariff. Generally, you have to be a serial killer or a repeat offender or to have done something pretty bloody abominable. I don't think that it should be used lightly nor do I discount the possibility of redemption. However I do think that some people ought to be working out their salvation in fear, trembling and a maximum security cell.

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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton

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Byron
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# 15532

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quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
In the UK at least you have to work quite hard to get a whole life tariff. Generally, you have to be a serial killer or a repeat offender or to have done something pretty bloody abominable. I don't think that it should be used lightly nor do I discount the possibility of redemption. However I do think that some people ought to be working out their salvation in fear, trembling and a maximum security cell.

Catchy slogan. [Devil]

Salvation's for priests to worry about. Criminal justice ought to be concerned with public safety. Some prisoners will need to be locked up until they die on those grounds; but death behind bars should never be a foregone conclusion.

Instinctively, I'm all for retribution, but its an instinct I force myself to ignore. Payback doesn't undo the damage done, and leads to counterproductive and cruel laws.

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Beeswax Altar
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quote:
originally posted by IngoB:
For that matter, just walk them into a mass grave, dump some mustard gas on them, wait, close it up with earth and you are done. Further cost cutting can be achieved by leaving out the mustard gas...

The gas chamber is already considered to be cruel and unusual punishment even though it hasn't been declared unconstitutional. The last use of the gas chamber was by Arizona in 2010. Lethal injection is on it's way out as a method of execution. The next step is either total abolition of the death penalty or a combination of older methods of execution (firing squad or hanging with the guillotine being a remote possibility).

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Darllenwr
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# 14520

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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Carbon dioxide has long been suggested as a method of execution. It's quick, painless, cheap, requires no special equipment or expertise, and is 100% effective.

It's never been adopted because it's quick, painless, cheap, etc... FFS America.

Actually, suffocation by carbon dioxide is a pretty unpleasant way to go - your body is fully aware that its carbon dioxide content is up and takes every step it can to relieve the problem - you go into hyperventilation. Also your blood becomes acidic, which isn't very nice ...

Suffocation by nitrogen, on the other hand, is a very different matter. Ask any RAF pilot about their first experience of the hypobaric chamber. As the oxygen supply fails, you are blissfully unaware of what is happening to you. Which is why all RAF pilots have to undergo training in the hypobaric chamber so that they know what it feels like.

If we insist upon executing people, and similarly insist upon it being clean and painless, nitrogen narcosis has a lot to recommend it.

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
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I think carbon monoxide is painless?


(Can't believe I'm discussing the best execution method here.)

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Darllenwr
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# 14520

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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I think carbon monoxide is painless?


(Can't believe I'm discussing the best execution method here.)

But not as cheap as nitrogen - 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen.

And I can't believe that I am arguing for this point either.

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Amanda B. Reckondwythe

Dressed for Church
# 5521

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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Carbon dioxide has long been suggested as a method of execution. It's quick, painless, cheap, requires no special equipment or expertise, and is 100% effective.

I understand helium is better, as it doesn't trigger a suffocation reflex as does CO2.

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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Okay: Nitrogen it is.

So if we can work that out in less than 12 hours, what's stopping the US penal system?

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Carbon dioxide has long been suggested as a method of execution. It's quick, painless, cheap, requires no special equipment or expertise, and is 100% effective.

I understand helium is better, as it doesn't trigger a suffocation reflex as does CO2.
Helium is dead expensive, and a prisoner's last words need solemnity. Not... that.

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Callan
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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:
hanging with the guillotine being a remote possibility
Extremely remote, I should have thought.

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Beeswax Altar
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The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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Although this is Hell, I'd take this topic seriously in all forums. I think we delude ourselves sometimes that we are civilized, decent, kind, loving and have progressed. But it is merely a veneer and to what we should aspire.

Even in countries without executions, the natural human wish to kill others who have killed loved ones and harmed you exists. For myself, I am personally grateful that my murderous dreams against such personal experience of two criminals have been reduced to nearly nil over time; in waking I have disavowed violence all of my life, but I still have the human tendency for retaliation, rage and want to make someone pay, including making them pay with a painful horrid death. I have also watched cats "play" with mice.

We must acknowledge our tendencies, both for evil and for good, for peace and for violence, if we are ever going to learn anything. For me, this is one of the most attractive bits of Christianity: paying back violence with forgiveness and acceptance of the flaws and grievous behaviour in others: God forgive them they know not what they do.

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anoesis
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# 14189

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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is not a priori absurd to wish to kill a person with the minimum of pain and indeed a minimum of "splatter". It is not absurd to wish to kill them one by one. This need not be squeamishness and inefficiency, it can demonstrate a kind of respect and care for the person to be killed, and that is not immediately irrelevant just because one is in fact killing them.

I agree with you entirely that the wish to execute persons individually and with a minimum of 'splatter' may indeed have to do with treating them with a modicum of respect - it is a good point. However, the way it's panning out currently in the US doesn't look especially like this is the way around things are, to me - who would elect to take an hour and a half to die if there was a quicker way? Also, with respect to execution by firing squad, I understand that historically revolvers or regular small-bore rifles have been utilised, and the tradition is to aim for the heart, not the head. Praise be, I have never even come close to actually witnessing such a thing, but I know that when an animal is shot, in a vital organ, by a hunter with a rifle, there is very, very little in the way of 'splatter'. So it remains possible that this method could (potentially, at least), be quick, painless, and reasonably tidy. And you don't need to be strapped to a gurney, which I wouldn't find especially conducive to a dignified exit, I don't think.

I'll add my voice to all those above and say I can't believe I'm discussing this - and that I'm opposed to capital punishment.

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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --

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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

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I don't know if any of you caught this documentary, but this information has been around for years. The US could do things differently if it wanted. Currently, at state level, it frequently does not want.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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anoesis
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by IngoB:
For that matter, just walk them into a mass grave, dump some mustard gas on them, wait, close it up with earth and you are done. Further cost cutting can be achieved by leaving out the mustard gas...

The gas chamber is already considered to be cruel and unusual punishment even though it hasn't been declared unconstitutional. The last use of the gas chamber was by Arizona in 2010.
I suspect IngoB was deliberately going for the most dreadful possible method of execution, causing appalling pain and suffering, as long as it was efficient, in order to make his point. I don't know what gas would have been in use in the US up until 2010, but it won't have been mustard gas, which is an instrument of chemical warfare.

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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --

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Beeswax Altar
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Nope...it was hydrogen cyanide which was also used as a chemical weapon (I think).

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IngoB

Sentire cum Ecclesia
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quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
]I suspect IngoB was deliberately going for the most dreadful possible method of execution, causing appalling pain and suffering, as long as it was efficient, in order to make his point.

Indeed. I thought talking about burying them simply alive in the end was obvious enough...

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The Phantom Flan Flinger
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quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I understand helium is better, as it doesn't trigger a suffocation reflex as does CO2.

And it would make the last words interesting.....

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deano
princess
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Okay, the death penalty is wrong. I find it to be nothing more than a way for society to extract revenge, which society has no business doing.

Having said that, if we are discussing the most "humane" way of killing someone (now there is an oxymoron), then the two methods below would seem to fit the bill...

1) A large overdose of heroin. A blissful rush followed by night-night.

2) Lay them on a large concrete slab and drop a ten tonne weight on them from 100 metres. It would be like stamping on a spider; quick and painless I would have thought.

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Baptist Trainfan
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The lady on "Newsnight" last night (this link, starting at 26:39) was asked about any alternatives to lethal injection. Granted that her position is (rightly, in my view) the ultimate and complete end to executions in the US, she really got herself muddled when she was asked about more humane methods of killing people which could be used until that aim comes about.
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The Phantom Flan Flinger
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Okay, the death penalty is wrong. I find it to be nothing more than a way for society to extract revenge, which society has no business doing.

Agreed.
quote:

Lay them on a large concrete slab and drop a ten tonne weight on them from 100 metres. It would be like stamping on a spider; quick and painless I would have thought.

Is that humane? It may only involve a wait of a few seconds, but I would imagine the mental agony would be incredible?

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Adeodatus
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quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

Painless? Whom did they ask?

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Mere Nick
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

Painless? Whom did they ask?
They never heard any complaints from the recently beheaded, did they?

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
quote:

Lay them on a large concrete slab and drop a ten tonne weight on them from 100 metres. It would be like stamping on a spider; quick and painless I would have thought.

Is that humane? It may only involve a wait of a few seconds, but I would imagine the mental agony would be incredible?
I would imagine the mental agony of knowing, with absolute certainty, that one is about to die is pretty incredible no matter what the method of execution happens to be.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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Adeodatus
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Lay them on a large concrete slab and drop a ten tonne weight on them from 100 metres. It would be like stamping on a spider; quick and painless I would have thought.

That's how Wile E. Coyote would conduct executions.

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"What is broken, repair with gold."

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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
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quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

Painless? Whom did they ask?
They never heard any complaints from the recently beheaded, did they?
Experiments have been done showing the decapitated head will show response to being called by name for 10 to 20 seconds.

Without lungs the person has no way of complaining.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Huia
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Lay them on a large concrete slab and drop a ten tonne weight on them from 100 metres. It would be like stamping on a spider; quick and painless I would have thought.

That's how Wile E. Coyote would conduct executions.
Yes, and see how badly it works out for him.

Huia

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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.

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anoesis
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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

Painless? Whom did they ask?
They never heard any complaints from the recently beheaded, did they?
Experiments have been done showing the decapitated head will show response to being called by name for 10 to 20 seconds.
Holy Shit! Who has been conducting these experiments, I have to ask?

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Without lungs the person has no way of complaining.

Very true. However, I thought I had heard that those executed by lethal injection were given a muscle relaxant drug at the same time (presumably to stop them thrashing around in a manner distressing to those watching), and in a high enough dose, that might prevent 'complaining' also.

I have also heard (and this is with reference to the slaughter of animals by the halal method, but you have to allow the similarity to guillotining), that an EEG will show no traces after about three seconds of the carotid artery being cut.

Anyway, it's all moot in my view, given that even if methods of execution in the US are reviewed, the guillotine is a really, really, unlikely replacement candidate...

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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --

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Sober Preacher's Kid

Presbymethegationalist
# 12699

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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The argument goes that the guillotine is both cathartic yet painless.

Painless? Whom did they ask?
They never heard any complaints from the recently beheaded, did they?
Experiments have been done showing the decapitated head will show response to being called by name for 10 to 20 seconds.

Without lungs the person has no way of complaining.

That "experiment" by a French doctor was later shown to be a fake, and his claims were a hoax.

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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.

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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

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Possibly, but it takes minutes of oxygen deprivation to kill the brain - and presumably the decapitated person dies of anoxic brain damage, after all, what else could they die of ?

Ridiculously detailed article on the definition and determination of death.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

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Eegs show rats retain cortical activity upto four seconds post decapitation - but unsurprisingly this experiment has not been carried out in humans.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Kelly Alves

Bunny with an axe
# 2522

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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Experiments have been done showing the decapitated head will show response to being called by name for 10 to 20 seconds.

Without lungs the person has no way of complaining.

That "experiment" by a French doctor was later shown to be a fake, and his claims were a hoax.
Was that the prisoner Languille?

[ 25. July 2014, 22:56: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.

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RuthW

liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
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Several people here have said that if we're going to execute people, it should be as quick and as painless as possible, humane. And a number of posts have taken that as a presumption.

Several people have also paused to note that they find it more than a bit bizarre that they are making points at all about how people should be executed. That points to the absolute insanity of the whole thing. We weigh the merits of the guillotine, a firing squad, a slab of concrete, various kinds of gaseous chemicals, as if this were a sane, humane, decent, moral thing to do.

Well, yes, of course, if we're going to kill people, let it be quick and painless -- but why? Because that makes it better? Seriously? Because we are decent people who don't draw and quarter people in the town square? We don't have the public spectacle of hangings on holidays, so we're better than our forebears, who flocked to such events?

I submit that in the US we are most certainly not better than that. Yes, it is better for the person who will die if he doesn't languish on death row for decades before being executed, if he doesn't gasp for breath for the better part of two hours before dying, if it's quick and relatively painless rather than drawn-out and horrific. But it is not better for us. Using a "humane" method of state execution allows us to think that it's all okay, that we aren't barbarians, that we are in some way better than and fundamentally different from the people we are killing. And we're not, we're just not.

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