The problem with the Death Penalty - we're trying to pretend that we're not really murdering someone

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Of course it's ridiculous, but...

every time we come up with an argument against it, they counter with some bullshit like making it painless.

The whole lethal injection thing comes out of lawsuits claiming executions are cruel and unusual. Our argument was that execution itself is cruel and unusual, but they argued it was the methods used, so they came up with "comfortable" ones.

And that's the way it's still dealt with. But nobody's mentioning that what we're really doing it cleaning it up and making it ok for modern sensibilities. If I were to be pro execution, I'd agree with just kill 'em and get it over with. Line 'em up and machine gun 'em down. We had gallows with multiple ropes, why not ganged guillotines... How about family members and friends be the executioners-- real down home justice there.

Poison in the last meal?

You might want to goggle up Raney Bethea, who had the honor of being the last public execution in the US in 1936. I knew a guy whose father said he was there, and it was nasty stuff, but probably not quite as rowdy as some reports had it. Anyway, aside from the obvious hysteria over a black man executed in Kentucky for the rape and murder of a white woman, the stories about it in the yellow press back then were so revolting that public executions were banned nationwide soon after.

True crime can make you sick, but what we do about it is often no better.