Witnesses watched through a window at an Alabama prison as Kenneth Eugene Smith became the nation's first person to be put to death using nitrogen gas.

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, convulsed on a gurney as Alabama carried out the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas.

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
    36·
    5 months ago

    I don’t think blaming the garbage collectors will make people produce less garbage.

    Your analogy doesn’t make sense because our governments create much of the crime they arrest people for lol

    • SoylentBlakeEnglish
      11·
      5 months ago

      I feel like you understand what I’m saying and are just being facetious.

      Putting all the moral positions aside, at the end of the day, we are stuck in this situation. That’s the reality and it has to be dealt with, like it or not.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        36·
        5 months ago

        No, I’m being serious. What you’re saying is that we shouldn’t blame the government (the garbage collectors) because it won’t fix crime (make people produce less garbage). I think that’s absurd. We can, in fact, blame them for creating crime.

        • SoylentBlakeEnglish
          11·
          5 months ago

          No I’m saying that crime exists, period. With or without government, it doesn’t matter, we are born with an internal sense of justice. We know if we’ve been wronged even before we can walk or talk.

          Somebody has to deal with it. You can pick a side politically or eschew it completely favoring anarchy, that’s your decision, but SOMEBODY HAS TO DEAL WITH IT.

          Here’s a better question, let’s say the government falls tomorrow. America’s out of money, cops, military, Congress, everyone’s disbanded.

          Do you think there’s gonna be less killing then?

          I agree with you that government can in fact create crime, and I don’t mean by just passing legislation, but actual unethical actions - and that’s not to go into war crimes or crimes against humanity.

          Fuck i contend the existence of poverty is a crime against humanity.

          So here we are at this question. This or that. We can be critical of government for its punishment focused approach to crime, rightfully so, but absent government, does crime disappear? would theft, rape or murder decrease or increase?

          I say they’d increase, at least for the initial decade. We’re a long way away from subsistence farming, and not necessarily in a good way. In a prolonged grid down environment it’s expected 90% perish in the first year. How far would you go to get your family medicine? Cuz if my kid needs meds and the only way I can get them is through other people, well, that’s just what I gotta do then. It’s not even a decision.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            25·
            5 months ago

            So here we are at this question. This or that. We can be critical of government for its punishment focused approach to crime, rightfully so, but absent government, does crime disappear? would theft, rape or murder decrease or increase?

            What? I only meant that a different government would produce less crime, and that with the right combination of policies crime could be either vastly reduced or totally eliminated. I’m not an anarchist lol