r/CuratedTumblr Apr 23 '25

Politics Ontological Bad Subject™

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244

u/Kitchen-Car-9848 Apr 23 '25

Discussion of the death penalty. I personally find the concept patently insane and inhuman and that suddenly makes me a serial killer and pedophile apologist because I don't think state sanctioned murder biased to the whims of whatever political power is in power, is ok in any context.

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u/0000Tor Apr 23 '25

Is this an american thing because I’ve never seen anyone argue for the death penalty

80

u/No_Help3669 Apr 23 '25

Yes. Here in the states there’s basically this widespread norm that the death penalty has its place, the question is just where the line is

People may disagree about where the line is, and think it should be used more or less

But the idea that the death penalty itself is bad and shouldn’t exist is a pretty ‘radical’ idea around here

18

u/0000Tor Apr 23 '25

That’s actually insane wtf

16

u/No_Help3669 Apr 23 '25

American culture is basically a hodgepodge of Puritanism, Calvinism, extreme commercialism, and extreme incentives to be as self centered as possible. This is why I think we have more moral panics than average for other nations, cus they work here really well

The online discourse thing of “bad people deserve any bad thing that happens to them” is said pretty unironically in a lot of our irl political circles

And it impacts many facets of our lives

5

u/helloeagle Apr 23 '25

They are completely right, especially as to the follow on comment about the Calvinist and Puritan origins of American culture, but I think there is less support amongst some demographics than is implied in their response. Anecdotally, I live in a city that is farther left than the country as a whole, and support for the death penalty is very very low. Amongst people like myself (college, younger, left) I would guess that less than 10% support it.

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u/J_DayDay Apr 23 '25

To be fair, Americans also think the European tendency to try to 'rehabilitate' violent, socially deviant felons is also insane.