dteowner
Shoegazer
To start such a discussion, you really need to specify whether you're talking current reality, easily reachable possibility, or philosophical wankery. All 3 discussions have some value, but they lead to different debates and folks tend to blur the lines to suit their agendas.
For example, consider the costs. As the US system stands currently, it actually costs more overall to kill the criminal than to feed them for life. This is due to the fact that we allow decades of pointless legal wrangling before execution. It doesn't have to take that long (with the legal fee meter running wild the whole time), but the current reality is that it does. Opponents of the death penalty will gleefully gloat about the cost problem and use that as a primary hammer in any debate. Proponents will willingly ignore the current fiscal realities because they've been artificially created in the first place and could easily be corrected. Without some sort of foundation, the debate goes nowhere.
For example, consider the costs. As the US system stands currently, it actually costs more overall to kill the criminal than to feed them for life. This is due to the fact that we allow decades of pointless legal wrangling before execution. It doesn't have to take that long (with the legal fee meter running wild the whole time), but the current reality is that it does. Opponents of the death penalty will gleefully gloat about the cost problem and use that as a primary hammer in any debate. Proponents will willingly ignore the current fiscal realities because they've been artificially created in the first place and could easily be corrected. Without some sort of foundation, the debate goes nowhere.