292
The conspirators who assassinated Abraham Lincoln being prepared for execution, Washington DC, USA, 1865
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
292 points (99.3% liked)
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The way I see it, treason DESERVES the death penalty, but it shouldn't ever be levied unless there is no other choice (ie a strong possibility of them being sprung, pardoned, or otherwise escape a life sentence by help of their fellow traitors).
Sometimes you don't give people what they deserve because of what it does to you, not because of what it does to them.
The death penalty (which I abhor) ideally would only be used for those who are too dangerous to be kept alive.
I think Napoleon's return is the best example of the consequences of not executing someone. He escaped from Elba and the wars started right back up, resulting in hundreds of thousands of military and civilian deaths in less than 4 months, only for him to be exiled again. If they'd executed him instead of sending him to Elba, the "hundred days" and the Waterloo campaign would never have happened.
Yeah, I think with dictators, cartel heads, and similarly “well connected” murderous figureheads the death penalty makes more sense. The line gets fuzzier when you get down to the level of like a cult leader - someone who maybe has connections but their power is probably insufficient to make escape likely.
With Napoleon specifically, they didn't want to set a precedent that leaders of defeated countries should be executed.
ftfy
your right, but also, you're right.
hear me out: napoleon couldn't help it. but he certainly didn't do it alone.
the fucks waiting for him to escape, the fucks who furnished him with an army and weapons etc., - those are the fucks who should hang.
enabling sedition should be right up there with sedition, especially when it's for personal profit.
Yes, but sometimes there's an iconic leader that a movement centers around, and while the machine they drive is made up of millions of others, that personality is key.
It's why Trump is so scary. Yeah, the GOP has been evil for decades. But the fascist shift of the past 9 years wasn't something they expected. The GOP lost control of their own party with Trump, and now they're as terrified of him as anyone, but unable to stop him. It's become a personality cult that is no longer connected with political stances.
Liz Cheney was a textbook examen of a far-right establishment Republican, and she was driven out of office and is now in legitimate danger of assassination by the Trump crowd despite holding the same political positions. All because she didn't bend the knee to Trump himself.
The GOP is also terrified at what comes after Trump. He's nearly 80 and is the entirety of their platform now.
kinda disagree with where you take this line of thought - they've certainly been evil for decades, at least since the southern strategy - fosho - but the fascist shift is something they've been building for a decade+ since they realized demographics were not going to keep white people a numerical majority.
So they began a long campaign of gerrymandering (too many examples to begin to describe), disenfranchisement (tens of thousands of black votes discarded in florida that would have elected Gore) and political horror (Willie Horton et al) - and now they're going to see it through with proj 2025.
I think this has been a longterm goal of the right for decades as they see no solution to being a minority except for minority rule.
Well said!
(I’d modify “deserves” somehow but agree killing should be reserved for when there is some imminent risk.)