Volunteering to watch an execution

[Dill]

(05-02-2017, 09:07 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Public was just a turn of phrase and I'm not advocating the gallows on city square; however, I do feel there should be a degree of transparency. I feel like I am taking the liberal stance and others who think they should be closed to the public are taking the conservative stance.

I can only assume by "change your mind" you mean to going from pro to con; yet the execution described in the OP may change someone from con to pro, if they were to see it's not like on the Green Mile with thedry sponge.

Well, since the 17th century there has been a progressive liberalization of 1st world industrial societies. Part of that has been the shift from punishment as and outdoor public spectacle to closed and indoors. Part of it has been a shift away from capital punishment altogether. Seems to me, then, that keeping it indoors and restricted is more liberal--"civilized" a liberal would probably say. 

Personally, I think the death penalty diminishes the value of life in a society overall, and where it is public even more so.
Conservatives tend to be more pro death penalty, ready to volunteer to help carry out executions, to lower the age and expand application, etc.

I believe the US is at present the only 1st world country with the death penalty. It exists in virtually all authoritarian regimes around the world. China apparently executes thousands every year. Some of it public. Often groups of people, like these poor Tibetans.


A few who watch executions might be more likely to go from con to pro. But I doubt if many would. I am pretty sure that in the US more currently pro would go con.  There was a time in the US when public executions were common, then public revulsion changed that, and ended the death penalty in many states.

I agree with you about transparency.