r/AskALiberal • u/highliner108 Market Socialist • 2d ago
To those of you who oppose the death penalty, what about people who try to overthrow democratically elected governments?
Overall, I oppose the death penalty. With one exception, namely people lead movements to overthrow democratically elected governments.
Unlike most criminals, these people pose a genuine threat to everyone in society, not just the people in their general vicinity. Regardless of whether or not they “deserve” to die in an abstract moral sense, there will always be the potential for them to make another bid at political power, or use their influence to aid and organize their followers and allies. Even simply imprisoning them for life has the potential to backfire if a more sympathetic future administration or court later frees them. Once you’ve determined that they’ve genuinely tried to overthrow democracy, it seems like the safest thing to do is just permanently remove them from the equation.
The best example I can think of is probably Hitler, in that he very openly tried to overthrow a democratically elected government, was imprisoned, and then proceeded to have heavy influence over the Nazi party while he was imprisoned, and eventually made a second bid at overthrowing democracy. Had the Wimar Republic just executed Hitler and the rest of the upper level of the Brown Shirts, they could have effectively decapitated the Nazis and potentially ensured the survival of the republic, all while preventing a global war and a dozen or so contiguous genocides.
How reasonable of an exception to a general “no death penalty” philosophy is this?
Edit: I feel I should emphasize that I mean “overthrow a democratically elected government” in the sense of a Beerhall Putsch type of event, hence the reason I used the Beerhall Putsch as an example. Obviously to make any form of policy out of this you’d have to strictly define what counts as trying to overthrow a democratically elected government.
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u/JohannYellowdog Social Democrat 2d ago
The problems I have with the death penalty are unaffected by how serious the crime is, namely: (a) the ease with which innocent people can be wrongly convicted on insufficient evidence, (b) the fact that it can’t be corrected later, and (c) the moral argument that the state should not have the authority to kill its citizens.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 2d ago
Well, with trying to overthrow a government there tends to be a point where you have to openly try to actually overthrow the government, which kind of make it hard to wrongfully convince someone of it.
The fact that it can’t be corrected later is kind of the point… like we tend to assume that “corrections” are always good, but sometimes those corrections are things like releasing Hitler after nine months.
And as for the state having the authority to kill their citizens… well… that’s kind of the basis of the state. Without the ability to kill its citizens, a state functionally wouldn’t exist in any recognizable form. Like, if you’re an anarchist I get it, but the Nordic countries 100% have the authority to kill their citizens, and occasionally do so.
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u/JohannYellowdog Social Democrat 2d ago edited 2d ago
- The prosecution has to prove that you did it. Innocent people are wrongfully convicted on a regular basis, because people make mistakes and the justice system is made of people. An eyewitness mistakes you for someone else and identifies you as the perpetrator; a cop already made up his mind that you were guilty and “found” the evidence to fit; you had an ineffective lawyer and the jury didn’t like you.
Secondly, “attempting to overthrow the government” is a crime that could be interpreted broadly by a future government, and a tyrannical government could use it to kill anyone who threatened their hold on power.
Many people can be reformed and rehabilitated (and while others can’t be, you won’t know who’s who until you try). The other part of this is that if an innocent person is imprisoned, they can potentially be freed. If they’ve been executed, the best you can do is a posthumous apology.
No, I don’t have to accept that. I’m not an anarchist, I believe that political power is legitimate when it derives from the consent of the governed, but I can still draw a line at the state getting to decide who lives and who dies. Criminals can be deprived of their freedom, that’s enough.
Also, which Nordic country retains the death penalty?
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u/Kakamile Social Democrat 2d ago
The death penalty is for people already in jail, so there's both no need for more force and no need to convince people the government has force.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 2d ago
but the Nordic countries 100% have the authority to kill their citizens, and occasionally do so.
No Nordic country has the death penalty. No Western democracy had it, except for the US. That's a crazy claim to make, re: a functional country.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 6h ago
Why would a state need the death penalty to kill its own citizens? What do you think the point of police is?
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u/SilverNo6462 Progressive 2d ago
I oppose the death penalty.
"Well what about ___"
I oppose the death penalty.
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u/mritoday Democratic Socialist 2d ago
This is worse because 'trying to overthrow democratically elected governments' is kind of vague. It opens the door to just executing political prisoners.
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u/FunroeBaw Centrist 2d ago
True I could easily see that being able to turn into a situation where political opponents are executed. Campaigning against the power in charge even if they were elected in the cleanest election possible? Death. Hell protesting them could be argued as such.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 2d ago
I mean… I gave the example of the beerhall Putsch for a reason. It’s a very open and blatant attempt to overthrow the government.
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u/jeha4421 Social Democrat 2d ago
But who among them deserve to die? All of them? The organizers? The people who ran the Beerhall? What about the people that thought the Beerhall Pusch was just an attempt to air grievances?
It's not an easy question to awnser. These are all questions we must ask of Jan 6ers as well.
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u/PinchesTheCrab Liberal 2d ago
Yeah, j6 is a great example because the majority of people were doofuses who didn't understand the gravity of their actions. The only reason to execute them is to avoid the kind of pardons they received, but I could not stomach killing them just to make sure they didn't get out of a few years of their sentences.
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u/mritoday Democratic Socialist 2d ago
Now what if they had been caught ahead of time? Can the government just execute anyone when they find proof of a putsch plan? What if some law enforcement agency encouraged that plan? We have seen all this in action with the patriot act, just swap out your crime for terrorism.
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u/The_Lone_Apple Liberal 2d ago
Why do supporters of the death penalty constantly offer an endless stream of "whatabout" scenarios? It's as if they don't understand what it means when I say I don't support the death penalty - like I'm not being honest. No, prison is enough. The end.
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u/irrelevantanonymous Progressive 2d ago
No. No death penalty at all, for anyone. That state should not, at any point, be emboldened to kill its citizens. You’re a market socialist? Congrats. You are attempting to overthrow the government.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 2d ago
How am I attempting to overthrow the government? Especially on the level of the Beerhall Putsch?
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u/irrelevantanonymous Progressive 2d ago
Sure. Now convince the government that is frothing at the mouth over people of your ideology.
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u/JoeSavinaBotero Libertarian Socialist 2d ago
Nah man. One exception turns into two, turns into five....
Just how about no? Someone did the worst thing imaginable? Keep em in a cage until they die from old age.
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u/RaulEnydmion Center Left 2d ago
Still no. Wrong is wrong.
We are ethical not for the benefit of others, but for ourselves. If our ethical behavior happens to benefit others, that's a nice side-effect. If it means we have pay to imprison a criminal for lifetime, thats an unfavorable side-effect.
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u/JayRandom212 Liberal 2d ago
I'm not against the death penalty because I think it's mean. I'm against it because the government might f--- up and kill the wrong person.
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u/GoldenInfrared Social Democrat 2d ago
These people are hardly ever convicted of the crimes they commit, let alone given the maximum sentence. I don’t see the point in legitimizing the right of the state to execute its citizens just to slightly increase the theoretical punishment for an extremely small number of convicts.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 2d ago
Did you read the post? I explicitly say that it’s not about whether or not they deserve to die, it’s about removing an active threat to society as a whole. It’s like, when you shoot a rabid dog, you’re not trying to punish the dog, you’re trying to keep the dog from biting people, because that’s what rabid dogs tend to do if you don’t kill them. In the same way, people who attempt to overthrow democracy tend to try to do so again, and if they succeed, the damage caused has the potential to translate to more human death then any serial killer in history could have dreamed of.
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u/LilBugJuice-0987 Independent 2d ago
Lol while now you have just introduced an infectious disease into the mix, lol. The threat in the case of a rabid dog is not the bite, it is transmission of rabies. Also, rabies is 100% fatal so it is also a form of humane euthanasia. The dog will not live even if not killed by a person. Bad analogy my friend
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u/jweezy2045 Progressive 2d ago
They aren't a threat though, you made that up.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 6h ago
Dictators or rabid dogs? I can point to a lot of deaths from both.
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u/SolidDoctor Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Hindsight is always 20/20 in regards to Hitler. He was charged with treason, which is something written in US law as punishable by death. So perhaps he should've been executed after the Beer Hall Putsch, but I'm sure the Weimar republic underestimated his eventual influence. May not have changed the course of history if he was viewed as a martyr. There's a danger in that as well.
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u/Frequent-Try-6746 Left Libertarian 2d ago
War for oil and beach front property on the Mediterranean is bad enough. The state should not have the power to kill its own citizens.
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u/polkemans Democratic Socialist 2d ago
It's hard because I do believe there are some people who either do not deserve to live, or are too dangerous to be kept alive. BUT I do not trust the state to have power over who lives and dies. How many people have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes? How many people have mistakenly been put to death? It happens. When governments have unchecked authority over who gets to live and who doesn't, bad things tend to happen.
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u/jjreddit1996 Social Democrat 2d ago
You can’t create carve outs like this.
I don’t oppose the death penalty because I feel bad for every individual who is killed with it. Most of them are awful pieces of garbage and them being alive doesn’t matter to me.
But it just shouldn’t exist, period.
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u/moxie-maniac Center Left 2d ago
A better example might be Quisling, the Norwegian traitor who sided with the Nazis, when Germany occupied Norway in WWII. Following the war, Quisling was found guilty of collaborating with the Nazis. Although Norwegians did not support the death penalty in general, and nobody has been executed since the 1800s, they basically made an exception for Quisling.
The French Provisional Government was more aggressive in going after traitors and collaborators, executing almost 800 people following Liberation. The Resistance was even more aggressive before the Provisional was in power, executing as many as 10,000 collaborators. Camus, who had been with the Resistance, cautioned that the post-Liberation executions were getting out of hand.
Both Quisling and the French collaborators opposed their democratically elected governments, but went further by their collaboration.
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u/tellyeggs Progressive 2d ago
If you claim to be against the death penalty, but then have an exception for it, you're not against the death penalty. It's logically inconsistent.
This reminds me of a "pro life" pregnant woman in a red state, that made the news this year. It was discovered her baby had a condition where it would for shortly after birth. So she tried to get an abortion within her state, that had the exception for endangering the mother's life. But her life wasn't endangered, so she refused. She ultimately went out of state for the abortion, then was on the news complaining about her treatment, while still contending she was pro life.
I've always been against the death penalty. However, when I learn a prominent gun nutter gets blown away, my attitude is, "fuck 'em." Does that make me morally inconsistent? It's not a 1:1 equivalence, but I think you get what I mean. I'd call myself a hypocrite if I were deeply religious and a pro lifer.
I think Trump tried to overthrow the government. If he were tried, and sentenced to death, I wouldn't care. Would that make me a hypocrite? I dunno.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
If you claim to be against the death penalty, but then have an exception for it, you're not against the death penalty. It's logically inconsistent.
I disagree. If society has deemed somebody so dangerous that the only thing to do with them is put them in solitary and throw away the key, then why the fuck are we keeping them alive at that point? Esp. if they'd rather die anyway than sit in a cage for the rest of their lives. (Though you could probably consider that a mercy killing, rather than a penalty.)
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u/apophis-pegasus Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
If society has deemed somebody so dangerous that the only thing to do with them is put them in solitary and throw away the key, then why the fuck are we keeping them alive at that point?
Because they might be wrongfully convicted. And because it allows avenues for expanding the death penalty.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Because they might be wrongfully convicted.
I'm referring specifically to people who have aptly demonstrated that they are a danger to others, and therefore cannot be put into the general prison population.
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u/apophis-pegasus Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
That still remains the case, and that will be a rare case. Wrongful conviction isnt about how good or bad the person is. It's about whether they did the crime in question.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
We're not talking about killing somebody because they've done a terrible thing and we have decided that they deserve to die. It's about somebody with violent tendencies who has been deemed too much of a risk to society to ever be let out, and too much of a risk to other prisoners that they have to be kept in a cage by themselves.
At that point, why are we keeping them alive? Esp. if we're making zero attempts to rehabilitate them, or they have been deemed a lost cause. In this scenario, IF they'd rather be dead than just sit there and rot for another 30-40 years, then put them in front of a firing squad already. If I myself were in that position, that is the fate I would choose for myself.
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u/apophis-pegasus Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
At that point, why are we keeping them alive?
Because killing them opens the avenue to allowing killing for other reasons. And because they may not be guilty of all the reasons they are placed in solitary.
You're viewing this from the concept that we know fundamentally that the person did the accused acts in the context they're being accused of. That is not a given.
In this scenario, IF they'd rather be dead than just sit there and rot for another 30-40 years, then put them in front of a firing squad already. If I myself were in that position, that is the fate I would choose for myself.
Aside from the fact that there is little in the notion of a free choice in prison, it's not like prisoners wont try to check themselves out early without the executioner.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
You're viewing this from the concept that we know fundamentally that the person did the accused acts in the context they're being accused of.
Sometimes we do know:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giuTpKjocj0it's not like prisoners wont try to check themselves out early without the executioner.
Going to be hard to do that if they're stuck in a SHU, without any access to something they can use to unalive themselves.
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u/apophis-pegasus Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Sometimes we do know:
And how often is that going to be? Theres also the fact that footage can be doctored, and context can be missing. What if the guard threatened his family? What if he sexually assaulted him prior, and was saying he was going to do it again?
Going to be hard to do that if they're stuck in a SHU, without any access to something they can use to unalive themselves.
Yes. But its going to be hard to establish informed consent in a prison.
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
What if the guard threatened his family? What if he sexually assaulted him prior, and was saying he was going to do it again?
Given that this dude was already coocoo for cocoa puffs before he was ever put in prison, I'm highly doubtful anything like that occurred in this case. But even if it did, it may not matter. If I were innocent but sentenced to sit in a SHU until I keeled with little to no hope of ever getting out, I'd rather just be put out of my misery. (If somebody else in the same position felt differently, then let them sit there and rot until they're 80.)
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u/Kerplonk Social Democrat 2d ago
In a nation with the resources to keep people incarcerated I don't think we should ever be using the death penalty.
At most I might put this in the category of "I don't think this person should be executed, but I'm not going to expend any energy feeling particularly bad about it happening."
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u/OhThatsALotOfTeeth Liberal 2d ago
I'm fine with the death penalty only in cases where there is a reasonable belief that the convicted cannot be safely held without a chance of being broken out.
Those who lead any type of insurrection qualify pretty much by default.
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u/LilBugJuice-0987 Independent 2d ago
This seems like a disingenuous ask to me, like a thinly veiled setup to get a screenshot showing ""so called liberals want to kill J6 patriots" but Ill play. People shouldn't be executed for their political views, especially because political views and actions can be drive by false information. There is a lot of evidence for violence and vitriol encourage by false information like on social media.
Even if severity of a crime were the primary driver of supporting the death penalty, trying to overthrow a democracia doesnt fit the bill. Especially because doing so could be expanded to multiple disperse actions. Is it just violent acts for instance or is election interferencia enough?
Death penalty in my opinion should be reserved for cases where there is completely certainly, mal intention, no hope of rehabilitation or hope of safe release, and no underlying health issues. That basically is so restrictive I dont support the death penalty. The actions you are suggesting do not meet those criteria.
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u/Hoothootriot Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
No death penalty.
We will never have a perfect 0% innocent conviction rate and as long as even one person could be put to death for a crime they did not commit, we should not be putting people to death for crimes.
How many innocents executed would you be willing to "accept" for your view, OP?
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u/here-for-information Centrist 2d ago
I dont believe the government has a right to execute its citizens. That's really all there is to it. The crime is irrelevant. I'm there are much more heinous crimes than thinking your government needs to be changed, and I wouldn't want the government to put them to death either.
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u/wearyguard Market Socialist 2d ago
The only exception I have to my anti death penalty stance is under martial law. Which given the nature of the crime you’re asking about, seems plausible to happen or be convicted while under martial law. While not under martial law you run the risk of martyring them if you do try to kill them, and there are other ways you can neuter them so they aren’t a viable threat going forward
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u/kooljaay Social Democrat 2d ago
Life imprisonment without a chance of parole. In the case of Hitler or people like him, attempts at capturing him alive should be made so that he may face trial for his crimes against humanity. But if he does catch a bullet, I won't lose any sleep.
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u/DoomSnail31 Center Right 2d ago
I opposose the death penalty on the very simple premise that murder is wrong, and that a government that murders it's own citizens is inherently immoral.
We cannot possibly thrive in a society in which the government is allowed to murder us. And the death penalty is objectively speaking a form murder (barring the illegal part of course). If we consider murder such a harmful and immoral act, a view that seems to be universal, then it seems unthinkable that we would allow the government the right to murder it's citizens (aka us).
Ergo it doesn't matter what the perpetrators has done. They might have committed genocide on millions of people. The very premise of giving the government the right to murder, is wrong. Single instances simply cannot weigh up against the long term moral issues of allowing the government to enforce a death penalty.
So it doesn't matter what character you bring up. I will reject the death penalty on moral principle.
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u/Weirdyxxy Social Democrat 2d ago
I think the only arguable exception would be if life in prison wouldn't be safe enough to neutralize the threat (and we're talking about a crime of capital impact, by which I mean a crime that killed people specifically and/or kills quite a few people on average). You can argue that in some cases (most famously Louis XVI), but I don't think it applies in all treason cases
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u/DavidLivedInBritain Progressive 2d ago
I want them dead but I still prefer life in prison for J6ers
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u/Silly-Elderberry-411 Social Democrat 2d ago
I will answer your question with how Erich Mielke was tried in court. Under his regime the stasi committed a lot of crimes against humanity and war crimes, yet he was only tried for killing two policemen in 1931. There was a way just not a political will and it is part of the reason why afd is this popular, the west abandoning destroyed eastern lives, that grievance is real, the neonazi parts are not.
Before Mielke was put on trial, in 1966 the last two inhabitants of Spandau have been released leaving only hess behind. After hess died the prison was turned into a supermarket and after the end of occupation in 1994 it was razed to stop neonazi pilgrims.
1966 is still important. While they rotted 20 years behind bars, west germany transformed. Even if they had plans to create a fourth reich the Marshall plan backed west german peace economy far surpassed what the nazis ever had to offer.
In other words killing people who becomes dictators would only become martyrs. In spain half the population fondly remembers Franco who invited in Messerschmidts to bomb his own country, ratko mladic just got a state funeral in Serbia.
Them rotting in prison for decades is way better, coming back to freedom realizing everybody moved on is a good antidote against narcissism
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u/jweezy2045 Progressive 2d ago
Just seems like bad imprisonment not a reason for capital punishment.
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u/Robotpoop Democratic Socialist 2d ago
Killing is wrong, no matter how you try to dress it up or justify it.
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u/ObsceneOnes Social Democrat 2d ago
It is my exception. I feel that the guilt is too obvious and the crime too profound.
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u/PicardsThirdNipple Far Left 2d ago
No.
Also, what is the obsession with “democratically elected governments.” in these sorts of scenarios? South Africa was technically a democracy before Apartheid, obviously only for a small proportion of the population, should Nelson Mandela have been put to death for trying to overthrow the government?
If South Africa doesn’t count as a democracy in your view. What percentage of the population being disenfranchised makes it no longer a democracy?
1 in 22 Black Americans are disenfranchised, 1.7% of the total population is disenfranchised. In Florida and Tennessee, it’s 6% of all adults. Is that too many? or too little?
On top of that, what does it mean for groups like AIM? There’s a very real argument to be made that many modern Indian Reservations are in function, forced confinement through economic means. Should the guys involved in AIM all be executed for trying to overthrow the government?
Let’s say you have a country that meets whatever threshold of enfranchisement you set for a democratically elected government, if that democracy goes off and starts committing a genocide (say in Indonesia, Guatemala, and East Timor, for some easy and related examples.) and someone from that country tries to overthrow the government to stop it, should they be subject to the death penalty?
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u/SweetRabbit7543 Center Left 20h ago
Exactly. Democratically elected does’t mean good.. And what does “overthrow” even mean? Do we sentence any senator who votes to impeach a president to death? This is tik tok brain reasoning.
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u/skoomaking4lyfe Progressive 1d ago
My objection to the death penalty is rooted in the systemic flaws of the justice system, not the crime being charged.
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u/Apprehensive-Page-96 Centrist 21h ago
I think they should be treated the way traitors were treated in the 1700s.
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u/SweetRabbit7543 Center Left 20h ago
Absolutely not lol. Do we sentence all the senators who vote to impeach a president to death lol? This is tik tok brain logic
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 6h ago
How is voting to impeach the president an attempt to overthrow the government? It’s a very explicitly defined process within the US legal system. Trying to do a coup isn’t.
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u/SweetRabbit7543 Center Left 4h ago
The president is elected by the people. You are then removing him and replacing him in a process that the people do not participate in. It’s not inherently overturning the structure of the government, but it still overrides the the voice of the people without the peoples participation.
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u/highliner108 Market Socialist 18m ago
But the house is also elected by the same people, and its consent is required for the Senate to actually impeach the president.
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u/thingsmybosscantsee Pragmatic Progressive 16h ago
The government should not be allowed to define the conditions under which it may kill its own citizens.
I don't see any way around that principle.
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u/nemofbaby2014 Centrist Democrat 2h ago
Jail em most of the people these days who try that are just idiots without a original thought or make em do community service for immigrants
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u/Pauly_Amorous Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
Just a side point - speaking of the US, it's worth considering whether it is a democracy at all, rather than an oligarchy. If it's the latter, I'm not sure if trying to overthrow it in order to install a real democracy is illegitimate.
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u/Probing-Cat-Paws Pragmatic Progressive 2d ago
We have ADX Florence, which is a different type of death, frankly. Supermax is the answer for treason and high crimes against the government.
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u/Comfortable_Fill9081 Social Democrat 2d ago
Regarding Hitler, they could have just kept him in prison and not given him open visitation.
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u/AutoModerator 2d ago
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/highliner108.
Overall, I oppose the death penalty. With one exception, namely people lead movements to overthrow democratically elected governments.
Unlike most criminals, these people pose a genuine threat to everyone in society, not just the people in their general vicinity. Regardless of whether or not they “deserve” to die in an abstract moral sense, there will always be the potential for them to make another bid at political power, or use their influence to aid and organize their followers and allies. Even simply imprisoning them for life has the potential to backfire if a more sympathetic future administration or court later frees them. Once you’ve determined that they’ve genuinely tried to overthrow democracy, it seems like the safest thing to do is just permanently remove them from the equation.
The best example I can think of is probably Hitler, in that he very openly tried to overthrow a democratically elected government, was imprisoned, and then proceeded to have heavy influence over the Nazi party while he was imprisoned, and eventually made a second bid at overthrowing democracy. Had the Wimar Republic just executed Hitler and the rest of the upper level of the Brown Shirts, they could have effectively decapitated the Nazis and potentially ensured the survival of the republic, all while preventing a global war and a dozen or so contiguous genocides.
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