>Not sure how the same argument doesn't apply to the death penalty given that a dead person presumably has also "lost the right to have rights." Precisely. It

>Not sure how the same argument doesn't apply to the death penalty given that a dead person presumably has also "lost the right to have rights." Precisely. It is a back justification for a religious notion that universal/cosmic justice is actually a thing and not a product of human psychology in groups. Karma is one example of this pernicious religious thinking. Supreme Court can't come out and say that though or else the magick trick of governance and statehood falls apart. It relies on both your consent and your belief in its inevitability to maintain its existence and influence. Allowing for banishment will teach the other animals on the farm that the farmer is not god. Separation of church and state is impossible as statism is itself a religion with a god (the state, maybe in proxy for the ephemeral We The People); all the separation accomplished was plastering a neutral color wallpaper on the old system.