Edit: if what you are saying is true that's exactly the kind of behaviour that's undermining our entire justice system and faith in the government and the system as a whole.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12238910 and marked it off-topic.
Like it or not, the death penalty is perfectly within the norms of the civilised world; it's popular even where not allowed.
In this case, the only thing incompatible with civil, substantive discussion was … you.
On HN, over-the-top rhetoric isn't in anybody's interest. It refutes itself and trivializes the subject.
Perhaps you should have asked him to clarify under what circumstances he would support the death penalty rather than admonishing him.
I don't believe in censoring opinions I don't happen to agree with. I think that is one of the ideas of the original article.
HN is not all things. It is a site for civil, substantive discussion on topics of intellectual curiosity. A throwaway line suddenly invoking the death penalty is obviously not that—it's just talking smack on the internet. Maybe a detailed argument would have been different, but I doubt it. Pulling that rabbit out of hat is a stunt.
Not all opinions and contributions are equal. It's seductive to feel that they should be, until you realize that it isn't possible to treat all posts equally: if we did, the inflammatory, reflexive posts would win. That wouldn't just tip the balance—it would be a rout, because the people who prefer reflective, thoughtful discussion would leave. On HN we prefer reflective, thoughtful discussion. It's the rarer and more valuable species.
In a technical biological sense, no doubt all plants are equally valid. But if you want a garden you've got to pull weeds.
There is a large province of the Philippines called "Davao" which, 20 years ago (more or less), was a haven for terrible, corrupt people. Were you to make the mistake of going there, you would be kidnapped, held for ransom, and executed if your family/friends could not pay. This was pretty much a guarantee. So, more or less, you wouldn't go there.
Enter a man named Rodrigo Duterte. Mayor of the biggest town (also called Davao). He instituted martial law, brought in the military, and started executing police, drug dealers, and local officials who were corrupt.
Today, Davao is one of the safest and nicest regions in the Philippines. His daughter, now the mayor, carries on in his tradition, but since the corruption is largely gone, I don't think she gets around to executing too many government officials.
The country noticed this. In the last 12 months, he was basically drafted against his will to be the president of the Philippines, on the hopes that he would repeat the process on a national level.
He is doing so. He was sworn in sometime in June, and has begun executing the people responsible for corruption in Manila and other northern regions of the country.
Now one can argue all sorts of things in this case. It leaves an unsavory taste in my mouth and those of some very smart people I know. But at some point it ceases to be civil society policing itself, and becomes civil war. We simply hope that the chieftans disband when the civil war is over (Duterte is probably one of the few authoritarians who will actually do so, so I hold out hope).
I don't think the United States has quite reached the level of corruption the Philippines has, but I see it heading that direction. It's best to think what we will do if it goes that far. Maybe today the death penalty for being a corrupt government official is too much, but the status quo penalty of: "get paid leave until it blows over" is, I think, too lax.