Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday.
Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis.
Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.
Would love it if we just stopped the government sanctioned murders.
- Human beings are literally animals.
- Innocent animals deserve to live; murderers don’t.
- Let’s eat murderers instead of animals.
Human animals who murder other animals for food get to keep doing it —> murderers get to die for a good cause. Everyone’s happy!
You remind me of the time I was marching to protest the Iraq war in Los Angeles and, as the procession of thousands walked by, there was a guy on the sidelines with a bullhorn yelling, “HOW CAN YOU BE AGAINST WAR IF YOU’RE OKAY EATING ANIMALS?”
I’m guessing the number of people he converted to veganism after that was similar to the, I am guessing, zero people you converted to veganism with your comment.
Read the room, buddy.
I’m not vegan. Just pointing out the obvious.
War is bad because it consigns millions of innocent creatures to death and suffering.
Factory farming is bad because it consigns BILLIONS of innocent creatures to death and suffering per year.
How do you wrap your tiny morally imbecilic mind around the former but not the latter?
That’s why governments exist - for societal sanctioned killing. And you will never get away from that.
The rest of the modern world enters the chat.
What is an army?
the state as an entity exists to prevent the outbreak of class war, it regularly does this violently, and people are often killed without the need for the death penalty.
You should read Lenin’s State and Revolution, at least the first chapter
You know CO (carbon monoxide) is treated just like oxygen by the body but the brain doesn’t realize it’s not getting the oxygen you just pass out. It’s the reason why people die by accident, the body just breaths like normal.
Stop bringing logic to their murdering.
It ruins it.
“Murder” is an illegal killing. This is not an illegal killing. It’s also not an immoral killing, but that’s a separate conversation.
It’s also not an immoral killing, but that’s a separate conversation.
Actually, let’s have that conversation.
I have two questions for you:
- Do you believe it can ever be moral to take an innocent person’s life?
- Do you believe that our judicial system has never wrongly convicted an innocent person and sentenced them to death?
If the answer to those questions is no, then I do not understand how you could ever say the death penalty can be moral.
If you answered yes to the first, you’re a monster. If you answered yes to the second, you’re hopelessly naive.
- Do you believe it can ever be moral to take an innocent person’s life?
Absolutely not. But you’ll agree this guy is not innocent.
- Do you believe that our judicial system has never wrongly convicted an innocent person and sentenced them to death?
That line of reasoning would be paralyzing. There’s a high chance that you’ll kill an innocent person while driving, but you’re still driving. I suppose the alternative is even worse.
Absolutely not. But you’ll agree this guy is not innocent. At all.
Perhaps. But the question of the death penalty is larger than just this guy.
That line of reasoning would be paralyzing. There’s a reasonably high chance that you’ll kill an innocent person while driving, but you’re still driving. I suppose the alternative is even worse.
And there, I suppose, is the difference between you and me. You are willing to murder people, some portion of whom you know are not murderers, because somehow you’ve decided that their deaths are worth it in this instance. I am not. I find the murder of even one innocent immoral. And frankly, in a democratic system where the state acts on behalf of the people, we all have that innocent blood on our hands. We are all murderers; we are made that way by the state. Should we all, then, die?
You’re also comparing accidents to deliberate acts in order to justify their murder. Those two things should not be conflated. No execution is an accident.
- Killing innocent people is wrong.
- The death penalty has a chance of killing innocent people.
- Therefore, the death penalty is wrong.
Versus:
- Killing innocent people is wrong.
- Driving a car has a chance of killing innocent people.
- Therefore, driving a car is wrong.
Clearly, this argument is not sound. You’ll need to come up with another.
For a more nuanced discussion on this topic I’d recommend a modern Ethics textbook, such as Shafer-Landau’s Living Ethics, which breaks down arguments over the death penalty to their syllogistic form.
EDIT: more examples.
- Killing innocent people is wrong.
- Practicing medicine has a well known chance of killing innocent people.
- Therefore, practicing medicine is wrong.
Etcetera
When I set out to drive, or paraglide, I do not set out to kill a person.
If I were to execute the death penalty, I would set out to kill a person.
Intent matters.
