Are executions making the US look bad?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I regret not adding a Serious tag to this thread.

We can get it back on track!  So, the other part of your question..does it hurt the us, in light of war somewhere, as an advocate of moral governance or humanist values?  Probably not.  We're okay with killing.  Wars, criminals...ultimately it's the same.  Humanism doesn't reject killing outright.  It asserts that all wars are man made and may be ended by men.  That wars are terrible insomuch as they cause immense destruction to human life, and that a war is always the last resort.  

Humanism, good morals...does not say... that there's no such thing as a good kill.  Humanism is not interchangeable with pacifism.  I'm a humanist..notably not a pacifist - but I do have reservations about execution.  Not the killing itself, but who's doing it, and why.  I don't think it should be the business of a state to kill it's own people.   We can safely leave that to other states, who will never run out of reasons to do so.  Ultimately, an answer to your question is found in this.  It's believed by better than half of us that executions do something to prevent some greater harm.  I disagree, but that's the gist of it.

I think there’s a pretty wide gulf between just killing people qua killing people and judicial executions.

Morally, no country is justified in pointing at another and saying, ‘You’ve killed people! Be ashamed!’ People killing other people is ubiquitous, always has been. But when a country convicts someone of a particularly heinous and decides that sentencing that person to death is somehow fitting, most countries today view that as a moral failure. The person is locked up, society is protected - what further justice is accomplished by executing that person?

This is where the damage to the US legacy as a moral and humanistic leader enters the picture. How can they expect to lecture the world on morality when the world views this action as immoral? 

Boru