4 ms·

Historically speaking death penalty had been used mostly to keep powerful people in power more then keeping society safe.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
Source? Because that sounds utterly preposterous.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  When one group has the legal maxium "rex non potest peccare," it separates people into a class that can act with impunity and one over which hangs the threat of death, those being sovereignty and everyone else. There isn't going to be a series of royal journal entries that state, "We insist on the death penalty to keep us in power," so this is going to be one of those conversations where one side will claim that there is evidence of the implication and one who says, "that's not enough evidence to support that claim." So, I'm not too sure if you'ld still like to continue, but it's a legitimate discussion to have even if one side can't definitively win because it can help us critique instances of sovereign immunity or things that approach sovereign immunity today.
- kmonsen 4y ago
  Lets first look at the Romans, one of the first articles from Google is: https://owlcation.com/humanities/roman-executions-why-the-romans-executed-people https://owlcation.com/humanities/roman-executions-why-the-ro... As you can see there were two types of crimes that got brutal death penalty, the main one being rising up against the state which got crucifixion. This is what allegedly happened to Jesus as he called himself king of the Jews. Second major crime was standing up to your family head, which got you thrown into a river in a sack with some animals. Your father however could kill you or a slave without penalty. Same in England, the main penalties were high treason (rising up against the king/queen) and little treason (rising up against father/husband). I was going to link to a hardcore history but it is behind a paywall now and not exactly scholarly science.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

Source? Because that sounds utterly preposterous.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
When one group has the legal maxium "rex non potest peccare," it separates people into a class that can act with impunity and one over which hangs the threat of death, those being sovereignty and everyone else. There isn't going to be a series of royal journal entries that state, "We insist on the death penalty to keep us in power," so this is going to be one of those conversations where one side will claim that there is evidence of the implication and one who says, "that's not enough evidence to support that claim." So, I'm not too sure if you'ld still like to continue, but it's a legitimate discussion to have even if one side can't definitively win because it can help us critique instances of sovereign immunity or things that approach sovereign immunity today.
kmonsen 4y ago
Lets first look at the Romans, one of the first articles from Google is: https://owlcation.com/humanities/roman-executions-why-the-romans-executed-people https://owlcation.com/humanities/roman-executions-why-the-ro... As you can see there were two types of crimes that got brutal death penalty, the main one being rising up against the state which got crucifixion. This is what allegedly happened to Jesus as he called himself king of the Jews. Second major crime was standing up to your family head, which got you thrown into a river in a sack with some animals. Your father however could kill you or a slave without penalty. Same in England, the main penalties were high treason (rising up against the king/queen) and little treason (rising up against father/husband). I was going to link to a hardcore history but it is behind a paywall now and not exactly scholarly science.