Humane v. Clean
Robb Allen has started an interesting discussion of the death penalty:
the concept of ‘humane’ has been conflated with ‘clean’. 00 Buck from a 12 gauge behind the ear is quick and as painless as it gets. But it’s messy. Guillotines are the same. There’s no pain and it’s over practically instantly. But there’s a loose head and plenty of blood.
Instead of doing it fast and efficiently, we’ve convoluted the process with a series of injections trying to somehow to make ourselves feel better about the process of ending another’s life in as pain-free manner as possible.
Humane seems to mean that it looks clinical to outsiders.
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:39 am
Not to mention the cost savings that come with the use of a buck shot round
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
What I think he means is that we have castrated ourselves with the knife of being CIVILIZED. I consider being uncivilized and living in a civilized country a prison sentence. Too poor to escape.
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
Kinda like dog food. It’s not how it tastes to the dog, it’s how it looks to the humans.
June 22nd, 2010 at 11:13 am
I defended death penalty cases in Illinois, in the early ’80s when we switched from the electric chair to lethal injection. It’s like you said, Uncle, it was intended to make the death penalty more palatable to the public, not to make it easier for the prisoner.
June 22nd, 2010 at 11:26 am
I’m surprised there’s any kerfuffle about lethal injection. I remember being put under for surgery and I was out in 2 seconds. Why don’t they do that first, and then do them in?
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Rather than a firing squad, why not just have a jailhouse informant call the local SWAT team – that way the dog dies too.
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Recursive loop. 😀
The jailhouse dog is a police officer, so that’s a capital offense. When they go to execute the SWAT cop that shot the dog, someone shoots the new dog and gets the death penalty, etc., etc.
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Two words:
Living. Head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine#Living_heads
One more word:
ew.
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Thanks Geek. Yeah, I thought of that re: Guillotine. I’d take the firing squad any day. And puleese, aim for the heart. I totally subscribe to “not in the face, not in the face!”
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Thanks, as in Thanks 🙂
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
argh!
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I could’nt care less if the method of execution is “humane”. What the convict did the get the death sentence was’nt humane, so why should good folks worry about him/her getting “humane” treatment?
IMHO, the method of execution should be EXACTLY what the convict did to his/her victim.
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Because the goal of the exercise isn’t to prove we can match psychopaths in our capacity for creative sadism.
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Huck, it’s because we’re the good guys. Agree with it or not, that’s the rationale. What they did is inhumane because they are the bad guy.
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Or better yet, just up the dose on the anesthesia. Massive opoid overdose is about as painless as you can get, which is why we use that method to euthanize pets. But it results in muscles spasms, so as Uncle noted, we prefer a far more complicated, yet less effective, method.
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
What about nitrous oxide asphyxiation? Painless and jolly good fun!
June 22nd, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Geek, alas even if you maintain full awareness of your situation, it will be 13 seconds at best. By then, your brain has run out of all the stuff it needs to survive.
And with your head separated from your body, there is no chance of survival at all.
One major point to understand is that death isn’t going to tickle. Even the needle stick is going to hurt. The goal is to not prolong the suffering any more than is necessary, again as pointed above, because we are not monsters like those we want to execute. But honestly, and maybe this is being hypocritical of me, I don’t want them going out “feeling GOOD!” so, ODing on opiates doesn’t sit well with me.
June 22nd, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Jake got me – I looped. 🙂 but I dunno how humane and non-sadistic it is to strap a guy down and then zip him up with a bunch of different needles and fluids while he gets to watch. That’s fairly creative and worthy of Creepy Magazine despite the humane-ness. Why not do it while he’s sleeping then?
June 22nd, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Personally, I advocate Involuntary Organ Donation. A condemned criminal usually represents a fair amount of badly needed transplant material.
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm
“Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I’ll be back”.
-Vigo the Carpathian
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Its more about keeping the views from being “grossed out.”
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Bah, s/views/viewers/
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:37 pm
@ben, they do. That’s why they call it lethal injection.
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I suggested dropping a 160 ton steel cube on the convicted. Very quick and painless. And clean, until you lift the cube of course.
June 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Labrat, over at Atomic Nerds, says that hanging is just as bad, or as good. According to her, one always dies from slow strangulation in a hanging. If it’s expertly done, so as to break yer neck, you still die of slow strangulation, you just don’t get to kick, the spinal cord being severed.
This spares the feelings of the spectators.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:51 am
Robb — I don’t want the guy to suffer. I just want him dead.
Punishment is either to rehabilitate through aversion therapy (Grandma’s Ye Olde Hickory Sticke), deterrant effect on others (highly suspect effectiveness in modern capital punishment cases, nearly ZERO effect even in Jolly Olde England with public executions for rather mnor crimes), or simply for sadistic pleasure.
By the time we get to the death chamber, the time for punishment is over, it’s time to just take out the trash.
Mike — Involuntary Organ Donation sounds good, unless you have ever read Larry Niven. I don’t EVER want there to be a legislated motive to encourage the false, unjust, or excessive imposition of the death penalty. For-profit prisons are bad enough.
Because it WILL get abused. If demand for organs is high enough, more and more crimes will become capital offences. (After all, the original delineation between “felony” and “misdemenaor” wasn’t a year in prison versus less than a year in jail — felonies were capital offences, misdemeanors were not. Yes, you could be hanged for stealing. And many were. Publicly.)
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:59 am
You know, I was actually agreeing with him until you reminded me about that. You’re absolutely right.
And I should not have needed reminding.
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 am
Re: Organ donation
As far as I’m concerned, my organs are not public property.
They are mine, as a most basic and fundamental property right. They are mine to retain, sell or donate as I see fit, and when dead, a non trivial part of my estate.
My opinion is that post mortem organ auctions with the proceeds going to the estate should be standard, noncontroversial practice.
Whoever arrived at the idea that organs could *only* be exchanged under circumstances of freebie altruism was out of their minds, and that most of our society accepts this without critical question is a Bad Sign.
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:52 pm
I’m with GeekWithA.45 – if you want my organs get ready to pay a big price or suffer tears of disappointment. And the Government get$ NONE of it – and if they try to tax them I’m destroying them first.