US state of Maryland abolishes death penalty

[l'Enfermé]

Great example of a global mod trolling a thread here.

I'm not trolling Sam.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It seems pretty clear to me that even if one believes in the death penalty as a punitive measure (which I do not, for the record), it is an institution that has major flaws. The Innocence Project has exonerated hundreds of people, some of whom were on death row, and that's only in cases where reliable DNA evidence still exists. The governor of Illinois was so disturbed by all of this that he declared a moratorium on the practice over a decade ago, in 2000, and it was abolished in the state in 2011. So I don't know why anyone would be disappointed to see such a rotten practice ended.

[Q]

Well this is too bad

Disappointing.

[Nevsky]

Capital punishment doesn't have a place in progressive socialist society. It clearly belongs to older, less enlightened times. I don't see what's so wrong with death penalty during times of revolution, though. If I lead a world revolution, I would immediately round up all people like Kissinger, Brzezinski and company and execute them quickly so that they won't cause trouble any more. No need for large scale terror, just liquidate the actively and consciously criminal key figures of the capitalist system.

[Sam_b]

Users (and Moderators who should know better) should be reminded that a forum such as Politics is not for one-word posts.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Capital punishment doesn't have a place in progressive socialist society. It clearly belongs to older, less enlightened times. I don't see what's so wrong with death penalty during times of revolution, though. If I lead a world revolution, I would immediately round up all people like Kissinger, Brzezinski and company and execute them quickly so that they won't cause trouble any more. No need for large scale terror, just liquidate the actively and consciously criminal key figures of the capitalist system.

Someone needs a reality-check

[Nevsky]

It should have been clear that I wasn't serious about that. I'm just saying that not all "bad people" are innocent products of material conditions. Wouldn't you kill someone like Heinrich Himmler or Klaus Barbie if you had the chance?

[RedAnarchist]

Nice to see one more jurisdiction somewhere in the world realise that killing people isn't doing the job they thought it would.

[Deity]

Someone needs a reality-check

Way to be a dick.

He didn't say he WAS going to lead a world revolution (even if he did, who are you to say that's unrealistic for him?) He simply said what he would do, which could be a valid point in this situation where he is giving his opinion.

[Fionnagáin]

He didn't say he WAS going to lead a world revolution (even if he did, who are you to say that's unrealistic for him?)

Even bloody Mao didn't fancy himself "leader of the world revolution", a man who though that no building was complete without a twenty-foot picture of himself on the front, so I don't think it's quite the snobbery you imagine to suggest that Nevsky should perhaps reign in his ambitions just a wee bit short of that.

[l'Enfermé]

For fuck's sake Nevsky was clearly joking can we just move on?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well this is too bad

I am not going to join the moral outrage on this thread, but surely capital punishment is at present little more than a sledgehammer in the hands of the bourgeois state, being disproportionally applied to racial minorities and to the working classes in America?

[l'Enfermé]

I am not going to join the moral outrage on this thread, but surely capital punishment is at present little more than a sledgehammer in the hands of the bourgeois state, being disproportionally applied to racial minorities and to the working classes in America?

Well, the obvious solution, then, is to extend capital punishment to white criminals as well, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

[Quail]

Well, the obvious solution, then, is to extend capital punishment to white criminals as well, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

What baby? All I see is dirty bathwater. Why do you think the death penalty is a good thing?

[Brutus]

The judicial system is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, so it will be used to advance bourgeois class interests. How can it be a good thing?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, the obvious solution, then, is to extend capital punishment to white criminals as well, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Perhaps; but is this likely to happen under capitalism? I think not. One problem is that these proceedings are ostensively "colour blind"; the prejudice of most participants in unconscious. Short of instituting quotas, this can't be fixed immediately, and until it is fixed, the death penalty remains a weapon against the racial minorities and the impoverished.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well, the obvious solution, then, is to extend capital punishment to white criminals as well, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Your lack of logic is astounding.

Working person commits murder = penalty of death.

State commits murder = applause and support???

What if its a gang-related murder, and the working person is murdering a murderer? Should that be a capital crime?

Why the fuck do you support putting such power, literally of life over death, in the hands of the bourgeois state? Especially when we know that the accuracy of the death sentence is so fucking terrible, it's like saying 'yeah I know innocent people will get sentenced and probably killed but so what'.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Your're*

You're*

[Art Vandelay]

Well, the obvious solution, then, is to extend capital punishment to white criminals as well, instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The idea that any communist should support the empowerment of the bourgeois state to kill, is so entirely un-Marxian that I can't even fathom where to begin. We've had this discussion before and I'm prepared to have it again because your logic was nothing but a bad rehashing of the slippery slope argument. Its sad seeing a comrade support the empowerment of the bourgeois state apparatus and not the opposite.

[Rugged Collectivist]

Capital punishment has no place in communist revolution, the judicial system is a cornerstone of bourgeois society. kangaroo courts and shit aint gonna be in my revolution

As someone previously mentioned the judicial system predates bourgeois society. I think the death penalty should be phased out in the long run but if you genuinely believe that power can be pried from the hands of the bourgeoisie completely bloodlessly than you're delusional.