BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The punishment principle of an "eye for an eye" is debunked

Steve Kangas. "Myth: Murderers deserve death." The Long FAQ on Liberalism. - "Fact: Only God or an omniscient being could determine that; Jesus argued against "an eye for an eye.". Summary. Almost all societies have dispensed with the principle of "an eye for an eye," and considered it a step toward more enlightened civilization. Christians who cite "an eye for an eye" in their defense of the death penalty are usually unaware of the strict criteria that God imposed before it could be used to take human life. The Old Testament also allowed the death penalty for crimes that today we consider less than misdemeanors -- clearly, the Old Testament law is archaic. Finally, Jesus himself argued against the principle of "an eye for an eye."
Pro-life anti-abortionists inconsistently support the death penalty.

How can you be pro-life in one instance (abortion) and pro-death in another instance (death penalty)? This is a very common position of many conservatives, and is inconsistent. If life is too dignified to be taken in the case of abortion shouldn't it also be too dignified to take in the case of capital punishment? While pro death penalty advocates defend themselves by saying that murderers are guilty, not innocent, and forgo their right to life, there are reasons why this is a faulty argument. The problem is that they talk in the abortion debate about a fetus having a "right to life". If such a "right to life" exists, it must be a fundamental, inalienable right. Yet, pro-death penalty advocates argue that it is alienable or conditional upon whether a person commits certain crimes. This is wrong, a "right to life" can never be taken away, it is innate.
Executions take vengeance out of hands of loved ones

Jeff Jacoby - "It is up to the law to speak to them-to speak for all grief-stricken survivors confronted with the butchery of someone near and dear. Capital punishment says to them: We, the community, take your loss with the utmost seriousness. We know that you are filled with rage and pain. We know that you may cry for vengeance, may yearn to strangle the murderer with your bare hands. You are right to feel that way. But it is not for you to wreak retribution. As a decent and just society, we will do it. Fairly. After due process. In a court of law."[13]
Proportional justice risks justifying extreme punishment such as torture

If the death penalty is considered a "proportional" punishment for someone who commits 1 murder, wouldn't we need a harsher sentence for a person that tortures and murders 10 people? If proportionality is the model, we might have to torture criminals in order to exert sufficient punishment. Therefore, the inherent flaw in a concept of justice based on "proportionality" is that it has no limits, creating a slippery slope to torture in the name of justice.
Loved ones should not have to support a killer in prison

"The Death Penalty: Morally Defensible?". Casey's Critical Thinking - Take, for example, a murderer who took the life of a teenager. The parents of the victim will be among the taxpayers that pay for his meals and his cable television. Should he choose to take advantage of college courses the prison may offer, the parents of the victim will be indirectly financing those expenses as well. Nothing could be further from justice. It is of this type of situation that the abolitionist approves. Somewhere along the line, their priorities have been turned upside down.
The death penalty is merely a vehicle for vengeance

Harry Lee Anstead, Florida Supreme Court Justice, dissenting from a ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the electric chair. St. Petersburg Times. 26 Sept. 1999 - "Our justice system is not simply an instrument of vengeance, despite the connotation to that effect contained in the extreme rhetoric that sometimes surrounds the constitutional debate over continuing use of the electric chair."[3]
The ends (deterrence) should not justify means (capital punishment)

It is unacceptable to justify capital punishment on the idea that it will produce a desirable social end, such deterrence. This is an example of the ends justifying the means and is unacceptable, as it could be used to justify, for instance, crucifixions in order to deter crime. More broadly, it is important not to bring utilitarian, practical considerations into a debate about life and death.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights allows for death penalty

Pro Death Penalty Webpage - "Abolitionists interpret from Article 3 in that [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] to proclaim each person's right to protection from deprivation of life, especially murderers! And they also point to Article 5, which states that no one shall be subjected to cruel or degrading punishment. From this, abolitinists self-righteously declare that the death penalty violates both of these rights. But in fact, nowhere in that declaration is the DP specifically condemned as a human rights violation!
Using death penalty to fight crimes distracts from underlying problems

Bedau/ACLU. "The Case Against the Death Penalty". 1992 - "Reliance on the death penalty obscures the true causes of crime and distracts attention from the social measures that effectively contribute to its control. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a weapon of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to support anti-crime measures that will really work."
The European Union opposes the death penalty

Brian Cowen, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Politics, 4/22/2004. - "Ireland along with our EU partners considers that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights. This position is rooted in our belief in the inherent dignity of all human beings and the inviolability of the human person. The European Union favours the universal abolition of capital punishment, and we work towards this goal in our relations with third countries."[28]
The death penalty does not honor the memory of a loved one

Jennifer Bishop, whose sister Nancy Bishop Langert and her husband Richard Langert were murdered in 1990. - "Our sister Nancy and her husband Richard were a young couple expecting their first child when they were shot to death in their home. They loved and valued life; our sister was carrying life within her when she died a terrifying and brutal death. Her last act as she was dying was to write a message of love in her blood. We can't imagine making the death of another human being her memorial."
5th amendment of US Constitution allows for executions

It states: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."[29]
The death penalty harms the family of the executed

Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography - "almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment."[16]
The death penalty best fosters repentance

Pro Death Penalty Webpage - "Death can actually be a peaceful and spiritually enlightening experience. Victims rights activist group 'Justice for All' presents an excellent example of my meaning below: 'The movie Dead Man Walking demonstrates a very good example of how just punishment and Jesus' message of love and redemption can work together: Had rapist/murderer Matthew Poncelet not been properly sentenced to death by the civil authority, he would not have met Sister Prejean, he would not have taken responsibility for his crimes and he would not have reconciled with God. Had Poncelet never been caught or had he only been given a prison sentence, his character makes it very clear that those elements would not have come together. Indeed, for the entire film and up until those last moments, prior to his execution, Poncelet was not fully truthful with Sister Prejean. His lying and manipulative nature was fully exposed at that crucial time. It was not at all surprising, then, that it was just prior to his execution that all of the spiritual elements have come together for his salvation, something no prison sentence is able to do. It was now, or never. Truly, it was his pending execution which finally led to his repentance. For Christians, the most crucial concerns of Dead Man Walking must be and are redemption and eternal salvation. And, for that reason, it may well be, for Christians, the most important pro-death penalty movie ever made.'"
US Founding Fathers approved of death penalty

Pro Death Penalty Webpage - "I would imagine that the Founding Fathers could not have conceived of a world or nation without capital punishment. Indeed, in those days, there was absolutely no question of the value of public safety and personal responsibility. Had they foreseen the rise in violent crime we have had in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s, they might have declared the death penalty in the preamble!"
Race is not a significant factor in capital punishment cases

Michael Nevin, San Francisco based columnist. "Death Decisions". 8 Apr. 2004 - "The issue of race has been cited by critics, who complain that minorities are unfairly chosen for death sentences. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up more than half of those under sentence of death. In 2002, 71 persons in 13 states were executed: 53 were white and 18 were black. The Cornell University study found that African Americans represented 41.3% of condemned inmates while they committed 51.5% of homicides."
Capital punishment is not barbaric; it is often a civilized punishment

Charles Colson. "Preserving the Dignity of Man. The Case for Capital Punishment". Prison Fellowship Ministries. 2001 - "Why is it barbaric to require that one who violently steals the life of an innocent (or 168 innocents) not be allowed to keep his own? Where is the moral tradition that prescribes life for mass-murderers? How can it be civilizing to tell the world's worst people that no matter no matter how many victims they butcher, no matter what cruelty they inflict on others, the worst that will happen to them is that they will go to prison? Those are questions that abolitionists never answer."
High speed rail not best way to create local jobs.

"On the wrong track: Why high-speed trains are not such a green alternative." Guardian. April 29th, 2010: "If we really want to create jobs in all local economies, rather than drain them away along a very fast railway line, we could insulate 20m homes; make every house a mini-power station to generate and export its own electricity; sort out extremely poor quality commuter railway lines around all our cities; improve inter-regional rail links; and build 10,000 kms of segregated bike paths to connect every school, hospital, employment site and public building to every residential area."
Unlike automobiles, rail fosters a sense of community.

Trains bring people together to share in a trip. When entering a train station, one feels a sense of belonging to a community and a larger society. Cars, on the other hand, separate people and keep them isolated from one another, so that there is far less of a sense of belonging. Trains enable chance interactions with other people that can lead to friendships or even romances. They force people to deal with each other, increasing the capacity of individuals to cope with social situations and build their communities.
High-speed rail will get subsidies, but so do autos.

"automobiles and airplanes already get along with massive subsidies. In 2009, the Department of Transportation ran a $70 billion budget, more than half of which went to the federal highway system. The airline industry only got through the post-9/11 years with considerable help from the U.S. government, and taxpayers pay more than 90 percent of the cost of some small-airport flights."
High speed rail cannot seriously displace air travel.

"On the wrong track: Why high-speed trains are not such a green alternative." Guardian. April 29th, 2010: "HSR is promoted as something that can sort out nasty carbon-producing aircraft on domestic routes. It has done this on the Paris-Lyon and Madrid-Seville lines, but this ability to trash a single air route should not be interpreted as something than can dent the growth of air travel. Germany has one of the largest HSR systems in the world, yet has seen an explosion in internal air travel."
High-speed rail only works between close cities

Samuel Staley. "The Pragmatic Case Against High-Speed Rail." Reason Foundation. June 22, 2009: "Certain preconditions are necessary for corridor transit to work, and they don't exist in the U.S. Most fundamentally, intercity rail needs to connect major urban downtowns or large employment centers that are close together--withing a couple hundred miles of each other. (In this respect, the emphasis on density per se is misplaced; the key is the density of the destinations.)"
High-speed trains are highly sustainable and green.

US High-Speed Rail Association: "Trains are the most sustainable & green form of transportation. Electric high speed rail is the most energy efficient of all trains. A national high speed rail system is the centerpiece of a sustainable America, and will significantly reduce congestion and our dependence on cars and oil, while cutting our carbon emissions by epic proportions. The entire system can be powered by clean, safe renewable energy including wind, solar, geothermal, and ocean/tidal. Clean electric trains are a major form of daily transportation in numerous countries, and are the single most powerful transportation choice that can solve serious mobility, energy, environmental, economic, health, and social problems simultaneously - on a global scale."
Cars/freeways better suited to independent spirit.

Jack Mobley. "A case against high-speed rail." Merced Sun Star. December 11th, 2010: "Overall, in America we have much better road networks than most other countries and have developed over the years an independent spirit more suited to the car than the train.The average American's love of personal liberty is reflected in our use of automobiles. In the future we may drive smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, but I do not believe the average American will give up their car for mass transit."
Upgrading existing lines is ineffective solution.

Philip Hammond. "High Speed Rail: the case for." The Telegraph. November 26th, 2010: "Opponents of the project have asked why we cannot simply upgrade our existing infrastructure to deal with this capacity challenge. But no upgrade of existing infrastructure can deliver the huge improvements in journey times and the transformation of our economic geography that a new high speed network would bring. Reliability would also deteriorate as we tried to squeeze ever more capacity out of existing, mixed-use lines. And another major upgrade to the West Coast Main Line would deliver years of disruption and huge economic cost."
High-speed rail is not a public good.

Samuel Staley. "The Pragmatic Case Against High-Speed Rail." Reason Foundation. June 22nd, 2009: "the fact the biggest reason high-speed rail won't work in the U.S. is that it doesn't make sense as a project funded from general tax revenues. High-speed rail is not a public good and it's not mass transit. It is corridor transit. At best, it's a niche market serving a highly specialized, relatively wealthy, and narrow customer base (high-income business travelers with expense accounts and tourists)."
High speed rail efficiently increases capacity.

US High-Speed Rail Association: "True high speed rail (186+ mph) shortens trip times more than 70% over slower, conventional rail. This increased speed equates to faster trips, higher ridership, and far greater overall capacity of the system to carry much higher numbers of people each day. In addition, each train can do more round trips per day, requiring less equipment, and making the true high speed rail business model far more profitable than slower, conventional rail."
High-speed rail has greater capacity than roads.

Railroad tracks permit a far higher throughput of passengers per hour than a road the same width. A high speed rail needs just a double track railway, one track for each direction. A typical capacity is 15 trains per hour and 800 passengers per train (as for the Eurostar sets), which implies a capacity of 12,000 passengers per hour in each direction. By way of contrast, the Highway Capacity Manual gives a maximum capacity for a single lane of highway of 2,250 passenger cars per hour (excluding trucks or RVs). Assuming an average vehicle occupancy of 1.57 people,[50] a standard twin track railway has a typical capacity 13% greater than a 6-lane highway (3 lanes each way), while requiring only 40% of the land (1.0/3.0 versus 2.5/7.5 hectares per kilometer of direct/indirect land consumption). This means that typical passenger rail carries 2.83 times as many passengers per hour per meter (width) as a road.
High-speed transportation is really a private good.

Samuel Staley. "The Pragmatic Case Against High-Speed Rail." Reason Foundation. June 22, 2009: "The problem, of course, is that high-speed rail in the U.S. is promoted as an end in itself, with unrealistically high expectations, and based on the erroneous idea that somehow this narrowly targeted niche transportation "choice" is a public good. It is not. It's a private good masquarading as a public good."
High-speed trains: costly govt project in search of need

Jack Mobley. "A case against high-speed rail." Merced Sun Star. December 11th, 2010: "The project is doomed to be another expensive government project in search of a need. If it were a viable option, the railroad companies would still be offering passenger service. High-speed rail will be an albatross around the financial neck of California for generations and the promise of 600,000 jobs being created is a pipe dream. We should stop this effort now before billions of dollars are spent constructing a means of transportation relatively few will ride and which will require many more billions of dollars in ongoing annual subsidies by the state of California."
Expanding roads and runways better than high-speed rail.

Jack Mobley. "A case against high-speed rail." Merced Sun Star. December 11th, 2010: "The argument that not building this train system would mean building more highways and more runways doesn't hold water either. If we're going to have to build one or the other, why not build the one which gives us the better options, namely more highways and runways? Lanes can be added to existing highways and more runways added to existing airports more easily than overcoming the logistical nightmare of 800 miles of high-speed rail cutting through the heart of California."
High-speed rail safer than other forms of travel.

From the point of view of required traffic control systems and infrastructure, high-speed rail has the added advantage of being much simpler to control due to its predictable course, even at very high passenger loads; this issue is becoming more relevant as air traffic reaches its safe limit in busy airspaces over London, New York, and other large centers. However, it must be noted that high speed rail systems reduce (but do not eliminate[56][57]) the possibility of collisions with automobiles or people, while lower speed rail systems used by high speed trains may have level crossings.
High-speed rail is predominantly used by wealthy.

"On the wrong track: Why high-speed trains are not such a green alternative." Guardian. April 29th, 2010: "Supporters of HSR talk about a total bill of £11bn from public funds. This is likely be a considerable underestimate, but even if correct it is a huge commitment to something regressive. HSR is used by high-income passengers, and the £11bn would be a public investment from all taxpayers to encourage wealthy individuals to travel to and from London more often and at a higher speed. This is far less important than sorting out local travel in all cities, commuter travel around all cities, and inter-regional travel."
Train capacity can be increased without HSR

"On the wrong track: Why high-speed trains are not such a green alternative." Guardian. April 29th, 2010: "High-speed rail will indeed increase capacity, especially if it proceeds on German and French models and produces new lines across open countryside. But what is not addressed is why we need the increased capacity, and whether or not this is the right way to go about it. Capacity is routinely increased in mainland Europe by using double-decker trains for passenger travel."
High-speed rail fosters transit-oriented development.

US High-Speed Train Association: "Transit oriented development (TOD) is the exciting new fast growing trend in creating vibrant, compact, livable, walkable communities centered around high quality train systems. TODs can be stand-alone communities, or a series of towns strung along a rail line like pearls on a string. TODs are the integration of community design with rail system planning. High speed rail is the backbone of a rail-based transportation system. When combined with regional rail, light rail, metro systems, streetcars and trams, a complete and integrated rail network is achieved enabling easy, fast mobility throughout the system. Coordinating and encouraging compact, mixed-use development around the rail stations completes the system by enabling people to live, work, and play along the system without the need for a car much of the time. Together, these save time, money, energy, and lives."
Decentralized country planning better than high speed rail.

"On the wrong track: Why high-speed trains are not such a green alternative." Guardian. April 29th, 2010: "We could even have a policy about developing strongly independent cities, such as those in Germany. The "need" to travel to London is a result of decades of public and private policy and cash to centralise functions there and to avoid the idea that Newcastle upon Tyne, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool could operate as high-level attractive financial, cultural, corporate HQ and media centres, just as Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg do in Germany."
High-speed rail has greater risk of catastrophic accident.

High speed rail, due to the extremely high speeds, is much more likely to result in a catastrophic accident in the event of some mistake and derailment. While fairly rare, the magnitude of the potential accident is a major risk surrounding high-speed rail. And, these risks don't simply apply to the passengers; they also apply to the companies building the rail systems, which may incur major legal liabilities and share-price setbacks from a major accident.