The story is not so much the story for me. (Note the reddit tag)
The story is the reaction to the story. It's a reaction that has become entirely predictable on reddit - and as a meta-observation, I wonder to what extent reddit is contributing to the political culture.
I actually disagree with a LOT of what this article is saying. I mean sure, I hail from Texas, specifically Houston, and the article mentions we're "competing with Austin as tolerant meccas for transplants who prefer the Sun Belt to the Old South". But what I disagree with might simply be an echo chamber effect; I don't see a lot of racism here in Houston, it's more of a play on the Golden Rule of Christianity: Don't fuck with someone how you wouldn't also want to be fucked with. That line doesn't see race. You can be white, black, brown...whatever, but if you cross the line with someone, be prepared to accept the consequences of said line crossing. Additionally, I feel the author has played up the whole death penalty thing. It's not like Texas is looking at minor traffic tickets and shouting "SEND HIM TO THE CHAIR!". We're executing people that have done some SERIOUSLY TWISTED SHIT. I fully support the death penalty on the grounds that some people HONESTLY DESERVE IT. Sure, that sounds a little fucked, but to me, giving someone the death penalty is simply giving them an expedited form of a life sentence. In short, this feels like an awfully biased, if not full blown editorial piece. I understand the author's position, and their right to an opinion, but I'll be damned if I can't disagree with it.
Texas still executes a lot of people -- more than several other nations combined. California and New York have similar populations -- big-ass cities, plenty of rural too. Yet New York has had zero executions since it reintroduced the death penalty in 1995. If you want to talk about twisted, New York Effin' City invents new ways to commit crimes. Are you saying that the death penalty is fine because of the nature of the crimes? Are you saying you're exclusive to some kind of horror that warrants taking a life? Are you even certain that's a punishment for every murderer, some of whom want to die? I need to understand this thinking. I'm moving to Oklahoma soon (Tulsa). It's different enough from Texas. I still want to know why "he needs murderin'" is a decent civic stance.
It's a pretty simple thought process, admittedly :/ I just think the death penalty is something that should exist, for the worst offenders; mass murderers, serial killers, the REALLY big fish. My reasoning for this is two-fold: firstly, having been through jail at one point (not sitting out a warrant, but for a moderately severe crime...felony 1A, TL;DR used to sell drugs, got charges dropped and released, got sober.) I KNOW how depressing it can get in a place like that. It sucks, it really does. Some of these worst offenders, twisted as they may be, are still human. They have to live with what they did, every day. Some of them revel in it; worse, they're PROUD of it. And in my personal opinion, if you're proud of dragging some poor soul down a highway with your truck (which is a more unfortunate part of my state's history ), you might just deserve lethal injection. But still others, that resent their actions and might genuinely regret doing them, well, they WANT to die. This raises a problem, and a solution: it's surprisingly hard to kill yourself in jail (also learned from experience...TL;DR diagnosed major depression for most of my life, jail felt like the final nail in the coffin, made an attempt and failed, got put in solitary for remainder of my stay in county), but the prison also NEEDS to clear spaces for other potential inmates, because crime never sleeps. So if you resent your past transgressions and honestly WISH to die, wouldn't it be nice if the prison-industrial complex would not only let you, but pay your way to do so? Finally, even in states where the death penalty ISN'T a thing, isn't a life sentence basically the same thing? Currently in the states, we don't view prisons and their ilk as a way of rehabilitating their captives before releasing them back into the world, but as a form of punishment, causing prisoners to resent the very system they were incarcerated by, which leads to repeat offenders (and a rather scary amount of people saying "fuck the police", but that's an entirely different conversation). Is it more human to lock someone away and throw away the key, PERMANENTLY taking US tax dollars to keep them incarcerated in a little cell, where some will ultimately lose any concept of the outside world, succumb to any number of mental illness, and ultimately die of natural causes as a ward of the state? Personally, that sounds just as twisted as the death penalty to the people that argue against it. Sorry for going on a bit of a rant there, but I do hope I've explained my stance on the matter.
I think the best reason to not execute someone is because there is always a chance that they are innocent. It is often that inmates are released or exonerated after years and years in prison. As well, there is an ethical question as to whether or not any group of people should be allowed to say another dies. Western society has clearly come down in favor of this ability, but it is a tremendous power doubtless.
Well, of course you can - but it seems that you are disagreeing based on cultural differences, which is pretty much what the article is talking about - so you are also managing to validate the point.
What are your thoughts on the reddit conversation graphictruth? The top comment disagrees with article, and most comments on that comment offer counterpoints/rants in support of the article. I'd prefer that people engage with one another's points more, and that the debate involve more stats and less anecdata, but I have that criticism about just about every political discussion everywhere.
I question that it's possible. This sort of thing seems to occur in any such discussion. I'm afraid I lost a much longer reply, attempting to post. But I am personally intolerant of intolerance and reddit seems to be demanding that I revise that ideal, in favor of racists and other sorts. I would prefer to simply ignore them - but they are on such a rampage that I cannot pretend they really aren't as bad as they are. So I'm depreciating my involvement.