The Death Penalty Ought to be Banned

Thank you for accepting the challenge. I hope this debate would prove more interesting than the last one on this topic. A. It is Cruel My opponent argues against the cruelty of capital punishment as follows: "You're arguing that lethal injection is cruel - not that capital punishment is cruel." and "I'm not sure why many people viewing something as cruel makes it objectively so" My response to the first objection is that it is absurd. Lethal injection is a subset of capital punishment. And by subset, I mean Lethal injection represents 99% of capital punishment in the United States over the past 5 years. To distance lethal injection from capital punishment is like saying the Nazis were kind hearted and compassionate just because Schindler was. If you think of a way to make capital punishment that people conceive to be humane, then kudos to you. But until that method becomes used, and used in significant numbers, Capital Punishment is still a cruel and inhumane institution. Because in America, Lethal Injection IS capital punishment. To the second objection, well, actually ... that Is how we define something to be cruel. Public perception. At one time, the stockade was considered appropriate, but now it's considered cruel. At one time beating one's child was considered appropriate, now it's considered cruel. There is ultimately no objective measurement of cruelty. The only measurement of cruelty is public perception. B. It is unusual In regards to it being unusual, my opponent argues "America is the melting pot, both of culture and philosophy." He says, 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. I suppose his arguments have merits. Of course ... if we were to accept them ... pray tell me, what exactly does qualify as unusual? I mean, if we're going to use China's standards of punishment ... wouldn't that effective nullify the 8th Amendment? To accept his melting pot (crack pot) ideology, both the states and federal government should then have the right to impose torture ... on American citizens. So now, my opponent has two choices. He can either retract and claim the death penalty IS unusual. Or he can try here to debate the use of torture is NOT unusual. And since torture is Not Cruel AND Unusual, it should be legal in the United States. C. Innocent People Die. "We can never eliminate the uncertainty from the system, but after a point, there's nothing more that CAN be done to ensure that there are NO innocents being harmed by the state." He's right, that AFTER A POINT, there's nothing more that can be done to ensure no innocents are being harmed by the state. But are we at that point? Death is unfortunately irrevocable. People vindicated can be released from prison. People executed ... well ... they can't. As I stated in my opening: "as time progresses and criminal forensics technology becomes more and more advanced, our understanding of what actually took place in a crime scene becomes more and more accurate." 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." 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 ......... You know what? I don't feel like paying social security. I can invest my money perfectly fine. Let's kill the old people, since ... "I'm not going to pay for that if I don't have to." Not even Republicans will stand behind the statement we kill convicts (along with falsely convicted innocents) because we'd rather kill them then pay to keep them in prison. In fact, let's get rid of prison altogether. Keeping people in prison is expensive. Why not revert back to whips or the rack? I am willing to bet that if we whip / rack people convicted of felonies, it would be sufficiently effective. Or how about we attach electrodes to convicts and electrocute them to teach them the consequences of crime. Then we would save even more money. And You, as a taxpayer, well, would that make you happy? E. Closer relations with Western Democracies. My opponent raises two points. 1. "The EU and the US are sufficiently close that our having a death penalty won't really affect the relationship, either positively or negatively" and 2. "As far as economic health is concerned, we need to be more focused on pleasing China than the EU" 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". These Western Democracies are the only people who MIGHT support us in further conquests. Wouldn't it be a gesture of good will to further our good relations by showing America also cares about human life? And secondly .... I don't actually see why China cares whether or not we impose the death penalty. 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.