I notice a lot of conservatives that are generally smart enough to generally see that government should be kept limited... And plenty of those same people then trust the government with killing its own citizens.
I vacillate on this issue a bit, blowing hot & cold. Mostly on the question:
Ought gov't have the right to kill its own citizens, after they have been rendered (mostly) a non-threat to the rest of the citizenry? Arguing in favor of the DP:
1. Obviously constitutional and traditional punishment at time of the founding. Any BS 8th Amendment hand-waving is just that, since the DP was considered neither cruel nor unusual. Want it to be unconstitutional? Pass an amendment.
2. Obvious efficacy, in both the immediate case and the effect on others down the road.
--2a. In the immediate case, the murderer will certainly not murder again.
--2b. Given the number of convicted murderers and the probabilities of any one of them murdering again (in or out of prison), we could off several innocent folks per year and still come out ahead.
--2c. With even the most minimal discouraging effect on the population at large, we could off MANY innocents and still come out ahead.
--2d. To sum up, the math is a stone bitch against the anti-DP argument and does need to be taken into account.
3. No good, hard cases of innocent men being executed. Their best cases are pretty weak. The latest
cause celeb was a dude here in Texas. It is one of those cases if you hear only the Innocent Project's side, dude was innocent [Arson investigation is junk science!!!!!(1)]. But, there was enough evidence of other sorts to convict dude.
(1) True, it is junk.
