Moral justification for the execution of criminals of war?

[The Grand Nudger]

Indeed..mistakes happen all the time.  Why, 190 people have had their convictions overturned before we managed to kill them, since 1973, for example.  Seems like that would make for a pretty big wedding party.  Concerned?

Yes.  If a large enough portion of the population has feelings about execution being an unnecessary evil, and if the money saved is not a sufficient balance for innocent lives lost, then there's no particularly compelling reason to carry out the executions.

There is no money saved.  None.  No ifs and or buts.  None.  The population doesn't have to feel any way at all about it for there to be compelling reasons to end the practice.  Most of our governments cost saving measures actually fall into this category. We don't know about them, wouldn't give a shit if we did. However, as before, two things can be true, and there is compelling reason to end the practice, and we do feel ways about things.

I could probably be convinced to swing the other way-- to value time lived more greatly, and to expect a similar diligence applied to a life sentence-- which to me is very nearly as horrendous as an execution, especially a greatly delayed one.

I agree, it is very nearly as horrendous - and with that the game is up.  We've identified both things as horrendous.  The question becomes..why shouldn't a society of individuals gathered for their mutual benefit do things they consider horrendous to each other? Silly, because it answers itself, even if we disagree with that answer or what they believe to be of benefit, or to be horrendous.

I'm not that worried about the few lives lost by possible judicial mistakes, though.  Like I  say, probably tens or hundreds of thousands of medical patients die by borderline malpractice each year-- 190 is a pretty good wedding party, but America has a few yearly Hiroshimas that barely get consideration at all.  49,000 shot to death in 2021?  BAH!  Political posturing!

49,000 is a lot of 190s.  Do you, a gun advocate, toss and turn at night over those deaths?  Do you feel the society is losing its moral integrity every time a school gets shot up?

I'm a gun owner who..like most gun owners in the us, believes that we need common sense gun control.  Losing it's moral integrity?  What moral integrity?  The mere possibility of that went out the window at sandy hook. I had to have a conversation with the wife about whether we even wanted to put our kids back in school for high school - for that and obviously many other reasons in the current educational environment in the us. I know one place where my kids will not get shot, not accidentally, and not over a fuckin tv either. Some ridiculous home intruder scenario goes down (which it wont, because they don't) - imma make him breakfast and iron his fuckin undies if he gets him out of there with no shots fired. Take my car keys while you're at it. You see, this is the trouble with arguing against the boogeymen in your mind, rather than discussing things with the person right in front of you. I, personally, am done shooting at people. There are no clauses or exceptions to this...and I take a dim and very public view of people who believe that gun nut shit is somehow good for gun owners. All of this is, perhaps...not even remotely germaine.,.because I think we both understand that what is legal and what is moral are not interchangeable...at least not in the us, even by the us' own quixotic and often spotty moral views.