The Death Penalty is Bullshit

I came across a news article in my Facebook newsfeed about an execution gone horribly wrong in Ohio. It's not uncommon to hear about such things, either. Feeling horrified yet? You should be... Truth be told, this shitbag the State decided to murder deserved a pretty horrible punishment. He committed a truly terrible crime. However, I am still against capital punishment for many reasons. They are as follows:

1.) Many executions end up getting botched in some way.

These botched executions cause a lot of cruel and unusual punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited under the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

2.) The most common method of execution, Lethal Injection, does not provide a truly painless method of executing criminals.

More often than not, there is less anesthesia used on the convict than a Veterinarian would use on an animal being put to sleep. Horrified yet? You should be...

3.) Furthermore, Lethal Injection was NEVER intended to be a humane and painless way of executing people.

It was invented by Adolph Hitler's personal physician, Karl Brandt, as a means of exterminating enemies of the State, namely Jews in Concentration Camps. Horrified yet? You should be...

4.) If it is not okay for an individual to commit murder, then it is not okay for the State to do it, either.

With regard to domestic policy issues, States should NOT EVER have powers that citizens can't have. Especially over matters related to Life and Death. By supporting the Death Penalty, you are granting power to the government that they should not have. Horrified yet? You should be...

5.) There have been many cases where a Death Row inmate's conviction was overturned after it was discovered that they were innocent.

It's usually because DNA evidence was either falsified, used to exonerate the convict, discovered to be inconclusive, improperly collected from a crime scene, et al. That means we are sending innocent people to Death Row, where they will be killed by the State for a crime they never committed. Horrified yet? You should be...

And before anyone tries to use some Bullshit argument like 'How would you feel if it was your loved one that was murdered?!' or some other non-sense, the answer is no. I don't want the perpetrator put to death by the State. I want that asshole to suffer for the rest of his life in prison, preferably in solitary confinement or suffering under hard labor until he's too old and crippled to break rocks with a sledgehammer. Then, he can stamp out license plates until he drops dead on the job. That's a lot worse (and a much more fitting punishment) than having the State give him a lethal overdose of some drug cocktail. It also spares someone from having to be the Executioner and live with the moral quandary of being employed by the State to kill other Human Beings.

There is no humane way to put a Human Being to Death. Period. The only acceptable instance where execution is even something to be considered (let alone carried out) is when dealing with an individual convicted beyond shadow of a doubt of Crimes against Humanity. End of Discussion.

- Lord Publius