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Notes -
Over a decade ago, the BBC came out with a documentary titled How to Kill a Human Being that went into what the director believed to be the most humane and painless way to execute someone if you really wish to do so. Towards the end of the documentary, they interview someone who believes that death row criminals don’t deserve the most humane death possible because those criminals hardly offered their own victims a humane death. The documentary gives it an air of “Look, we’ve found a humane way to actually do executions, and these barbaric Americans don’t want to do that because to them, bloodthirsty cruelty is the point.”
Well, what do you know, Alabama has now actually implemented this “most humane” form of execution for the first time, and news coverage from the BBC and others have been almost exclusively negative. There’s little to no nuance, just statements that the UN and EU condemns this “particularly cruel and unusual punishment.” Where now is the context that the US is merely doing what it was previously criticized for not doing?
To be sure, the scene of thrashing does seem to be more violent than the documentary insinuated such an execution would be, but that itself appears to be because the inmate tried to forcibly hold their breath for as long as possible instead of allowing themselves to pass out from hypoxia. I wouldn’t pin the blame for voluntary thrashing on the method of execution.
What do you think? Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?
I'm pretty sure it's 100% outgroup-hatred along standard culture war lines. Executing convicted murderers is a red tribe value, therefore to all blue tribe civilized society, it's savage, uncivilized, and wrong no matter how it's done, and every weapon in the culture war will be brought to bear to oppose it. That explains why a genuine attempt to do it in a more "humane" way has absolutely no effect on the media position. It was never about that, it was about crushing red tribe.
Meanwhile, if somebody wanted to execute Jan 6 convicts, even in the most pointlessly brutal way you could possibly imagine, the same sources would likely cheer on how they were getting exactly what they deserved and lament that the punishment wasn't harsh enough.
I don't believe this for one second. Any evidence of such sentiment (i.e. people saying they should get it/it would justified if they did)?
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