The Death Penalty Ought to be Banned

A. It is Cruel My opponent has graciously conceded this point with his quote: "The only measurement of cruelty is public perception." Since capital punishment enjoys an approval rating of between 60 & 70% in public perception according to Pew and GALLUP, it is therefore not cruel. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...) & (http://pewresearch.org...) B. It is unusual >> "we should support capital punishment ... because China does it ... and has the audacity to suggest somehow capital punishment is some major tenet of Eastern Philosophy." How interesting that you've completely warped what I said. Lets look at my text again... "In the US and China, the death penalty is legal, and in China, it's a powerful deterrent to crime." - Irrefutable fact. "As far as Enlightenment philosophy, why are these philosophers so much more valuable than Eastern philosophers that we need to follow them to the exclusion of other ideologies?" - Valid question. Eastern and Western are the two major schools of thought. What else should I compare it to? In twisting my words to his own use, my opponent has accomplished nothing other than do confuse the readers. He seems to have missed the point entirely - "Our practices are not unusual simply because other Western democracies don't do what we do. Other WD's do a LOT of stuff we don't do, and we call them unusual... who's right?" C. Innocent People Die. >> "I am not blaming the criminal justice system (at least not here). The truth is, keeping people in prison longer increases the chances of false positives being surfaced. Killing people increases the chances of false positives being killed which, as my opponent agrees is "a pervasion of the duties of the State."" Innocent people die in war too... should we then stop fighting? Innocent people dying is not a NECESSARY side effect of capital punishment, and cannot be introduced as though it is. When it occurs, it is a failure of the state. While you are not blaming the justice system, it is clear that the justice system is where the fault lies. In a perfect justice system, no innocents would be executed. D. Taxes will be used to keep a convict alive. >> ""It also increases the likelihood that my taxes will be used to keep a convicted child molester or rapist or sociopathic killer alive." Ahhh, so many things wrong with that sentence I don't actually know where to begin. First of all, the death penalty does not apply, ever, to child molesters or rapists. Second of all, ... let me get this straight ... you want to kill people ... because you don't feel like paying taxes" Sigh... once again twisting my words. Forgiving the fact that molesters and rapists are not killed (though they should be), I see no reason why I should be forced to pay taxes to keep someone who has killed someone else alive. Actually... I'm going to kill your parents, then ask you for money to keep me alive. Are you going to pay? I think not... Nobody "stands behind" the tax argument as the only argument. It's merely a supplement, and I'm not sure why you're suggesting that is my only platform. BTW - I don't like the idea of paying for social security... but that's just me. E. Closer relations with Western Democracies. >> "As to the first one, my opponent makes my points for me. Dreading the day we invade Iran, we "MIGHT get help from the UK, Danes, Poles, and maybe Canada". Not sure how this in any way made your point for you - lets look at the quote in context - "The EU and the US are sufficiently close that our having a death penalty won't really affect the relationship, either positively or negatively, so the point is kind of moot." So it doesn't really matter whether or not we have a death penalty - other countries WILL NOT help invade Iran. The Brits, Poles, and Danes MIGHT, but the death penalty really has no bearing at all on that. >> "Instituting the death penalty does not help or hinder our relationship with China, one way or the other. The Chinese government, unlike the British government, is not swayed by the liberals who see capital punishment as an abhorrent and barbaric practice. Nor is it run by blood thirsty monsters who take delight in state sanctioned killing ... So I don't actually see the second point." You use the same logic to discount the second point that I use on the first. Thank you for verifying that line of reasoning as valid. And funny story about the British government being swayed by liberals... the British government, by and large, is A LOT more liberal than the US. In fact, the US has ABSOLUTELY ZERO left-wing parties (except the tiny communist & socialist)... the UK does. So this nonsense about political sway is irrelevant... Both points under this section are indeed moot and irrelevant as my opponent conceded about the second one. ***************************************************** Now if you want to argue Enlightenment philosophy of Locke and Montesquieu, it's interesting that Locke actually justifies punishment including death...