What was your flagged comment? I missed it before it was buried. Capital punishment is flawed because it's a permanent (certain) solution to an inherently unce

What was your flagged comment? I missed it before it was buried. Capital punishment is flawed because it's a permanent (certain) solution to an inherently uncertain problem of whether people are guilty. We can't be 100% sure we aren't killing the innocent, and I don't want to enable the State to be more of a death machine capable of killing its political enemies than it already is. The thought that any one ideology is going to remain in control of such a system is unlikely, so in our system, this means the guns alternate between who they're pointed at in a twisted pendulum swing or feedback loop. Making it easy for the State to kill is just building a weapon for the baying mobs to get hold of, and that's probably going to be the end. As to your point on cruelty, it's sort of clumsily inherent in executions and no longer a feature, if it ever was. There's little evidence deterrence exists today, if it ever did. If it takes cruelty to the point of putting terror in the hearts of people to be a deterrent, it's not workable. The West isn't going to have crosses, quarterings, public hangings, etc, and that's just the tame stuff we've tried over the ages. Physically, anyway -- solitary confinement is up there mentally, if you value inflicting suffering. A race to the bottom in terms of brutality isn't going to bring about a new great empire or help us maintain this one, imo. I don't think the liberal societies built on rule of law really have an answer to growing contingents of the bottom 10-20% of men. The solutions of antiquity are probably just wholly incompatible today, so I'd say we're going to have to spend lots of money to push those people down in society rather than out in exile. That means things like conservatorship to camps to cells, at great cost.