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Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Nope, because the default, prima facia, position is that killing people is bad and causes pain and requires some kind of response. That's why arguing against the death penalty is actually quite hard. Especially when faced with incontrovertible evidence (video/confessions/etc.).

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Life in prison isn't a response?

Re: the edit, calling confessions "incontrovertible" is... unsupported. https://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvict...

> Life in prison isn't a response?

It is. Some people argue that it's actually a more harsh punishment than death, though. A lot of rich literature here.

> calling confessions "incontrovertible"

You're missing the forest for the trees, my point was "assuming guilt by default... blah blah." I know confessions aren't technically always reliable.

You didn't actually answer my question. You started by co-opting someones pain for your argument, asked us to put ourselves in their position and then told us we were wrong for doing exactly what you asked and did.

And if your default argument is that killing people is wrong then how is the state executing someone better and in favor of the death penalty? Your arguments make no sense.

> killing people is bad

> arguing against the death penalty is actually quite hard

Almost in the same sentence too

You do realize there's a difference between the state killing as a punishment and an individual killing for sport, right? These are two different categories. To wit, it's obvious I was referring to the latter.

There's actually more categories as well: killing in a war as a combatant, euthanasia, abortion, and so on.

>and an individual killing for sport,

What about individuals killing as a punishment? That's a lot more common than organized recreational killings.

False confessions are a lot more common than you seem to think; a confession is hardly "incontrovertible". Confessions aren't an exception either, many forms of evidence are less reliable than many think or wish.

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