i’m sure everyone can be normal about this post yes?
transcript:
a tumblr post:
autistichalsin posts:
Some of you are literally watching the right wing continuously try to expand the definition of “pedophilia” to include “existing around a child while queer,” and then agreeing with them when they say pedophiles deserve to be summarily executed.
Not only does this place innocent people in danger of political executions, it also puts children in danger, as most children who are sexually abused have this done by someone close to them, and feelings that they would be responsible for the death of their abuser if they reported leads to lower rates of reporting. It also leads to higher rates of abusers murdering their victims when they’re found out because the punishment will be the same anyway.
Part of being on the left is realizing that it’s better to let 100 guilty men go free than to wrongly convict one. Another part of being on the left is realizing that one’s life is never something others have the right to take away- even the most evil people alive. Yes, that includes mass murderers and rapists and pedophiles. Once you make one group acceptable to kill, you give others a vested interest in defining groups they have prejudice against into that group.
You have to start dealing with the fact that no crime makes one’s life forfeit. Not even the worst most depraved and sadistic acts. The worst people alive have rights, and if you can’t accept that they deserve them, at least try to accept that it is to your benefit that they retain rights no matter what they’re accused of. And if you can’t do even that, well… you just might be the kind of person who would cut off your nose to spite your face.
If you want to protect victims, if you want to protect minority groups, you have to realize that sex crimes, or any crimes at all, do not deserve the death penalty. Period.
brettdoesdiscourse replies:
When a certain kind of person “deserves” to die, bigots will make sure marginalized groups all are that kind of person.
little-gay-dowitcher replies:
My former neighbors were the “kill all pedos” type. They were also incredibly transphobic. And I was visibly queer. So guess who got stalked, harassed and threatened all throughout the brief period of time they babysat for their friend?
Stop enabling fascists. They’ve already proven they’re willing to attack minorities for no reason. Don’t give them a chance to excuse it.
Finally, a leftist who actually understands that wanting to build a society free from state-sponsored violence means that state-sponsored execution is bad no matter what and it’s not just a question of how bad the crime wa–
–oh.
I think we can make an exception for people that have carried out, or are actively carrying out, a genocide. Same would go for Hitler if he wasn’t a coward that did it himself.
What part of “no one has the right to decide whose life is forfeit and whose isn’t” didn’t you internalize when you said it the first time?
Let him spend the rest of his life in supermax, sure. Make sure he never sees the sun again. Make sure the only people he sees for the rest of his life are people who know what he did. But as for executing him, you are literally the person in the post. What counts as carrying out a genocide? Are soldiers doing that if they’re told by their commanding officers they’ll be executed themselves if they don’t? How about workers who take a bribe to divert aid trucks to somewhere, unbeknownst to the worker, they’ll get raided? Heck, what counts as a genocide? Forcibly relocating native Canadians in order to build a natural gas pipeline across their ancestral home is unequivocally bad, but is it genocide? Thought Slime seems to think so. Should we guillotine Justin Trudeau?
I’d take rotting in prison forever. That’s acceptable.
Then why’d you say you wanted to kill him? Either you believe in the death penalty or you don’t.
I don’t believe in the death penalty but I also won’t cry over the death of a fascist carrying out genocide. If he dies a lonely death in a cell, that’s still the same outcome, even if power is a vacuum. It was also a late edit in jest, but I also hope he bites it asap.
To give you a more adult answer, it would be absolutely insane to allow anyone the power to decide whose life is forfeit and whose isn’t. We’ve witnessed that slippery slope before with the death penalty in Texas and Missouri. If we allow that kind of thing to continue or go unchecked, where does it end? How long before someone decides that something else justifies it and where does that power cease to continue expanding? What about rank when it comes to war crimes like you mentioned earlier? It’s easy to say “fuck that guy, they deserve a slow death,” but if society put that into practice, it would be chaos and would set a terrible precedent. Executions are a definitive characteristic of any authoritarian regime.
There are also special cases where a cop or a soldier goes off script and summarily executes someone unarmed. Do they deserve death because of their carelessness for the life of another? I know if the person killed was a friend or family member, I’d hope for the culprit’s death, but I’d never feel like I should be allowed to decide that.
This kind of thing can lead to a very deep dark hole where society blackens and removes all humanity, and leftist movements exist to preserve life.