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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I get the sense that among the proponents of the death penalty in the US, there is a certain ritual component to the act; it's not just about killing criminals, but rather there is a specific vision of the appropriate way(s) to kill the most heinous criminals so that justice may be served in a proper American way. Hanging is not part of any such vision, and instead evokes a sense of foreign countries and brutal episodes of history that definitively are out of place now that history has ended, almost as if the proposal were to enact the death penalty by public guillotine.

(You might imagine an opponent of the religion restricting access to white flour to disrupt Catholic/Orthodox Christian communion, and then asking why they don't just do it with slices of whole grain rye bread instead.)