Actually I am not quite sure why we don't kill children except by virtue that we say they don't have the capacity to respect the nature of the crime.
Yet don't they gain that ability at around age 7?
America doesn't execute juveniles due to our weakening values. In
Thompson v. Oklahoma, it was ruled "cruel and unusual" to execute people under 16, despite the fact that children past a certain age know the consequences of their actions. The reason for the ruling was "evolving standards", when in reality it was because our system was growing soft. What makes a 15-year-old monster different from a 30-year-old murderer convicted of the same crime?
Wallachia under Vlad Țepeș' rule, Athens under Draco's laws
I can't believe you're actually using Vlad the Impaler (i.e. the historical basis for Dracula >_>) and the guy who gave us the word "draconian" in an argument.
Like... Yeah, you do anything and you're going to have a stick shoved through your anus so far that it exits through your mouth. But that isn't justice. That's disgusting.
Vlad's actions may be repugnant to us now, due to changing values, but it doesn't change the fact that it worked. He took control during a gruesome time of rampant corruption and constant invasions from the Turks. And he wiped out the cancer that was destroying his society. He eliminated the corrupt nobles and made death the penalty for most crimes. Not only did crime nearly disappear overnight, but the Turks were too terrified to provoke someone who would create a
forest of impaled corpses from his own
citizens. Unfortunately, his society returned to rampant corruption and crime when he died. The other societies I mentioned had similar successes. It may be hard for some to admit, but gory deaths deter crimes. I wished we televised executions and used more graphic methods of death, such as a return to electrocution or gas. All methods of execution can potentially cause excruciating pain, even lethal injections, so I see no problem with it.
Here is the thing. When do humans cease being human? when they do inhuman things? Why would a human do an inhuman thing unless by its very nature inhuman acts are within human ability?
Certain acts, when committed, make you irredeemable. Monstrous individuals deserve nothing, but disdain, and the same acts inflicted upon them. America has tried rehabilitation and it failed. And there's no point in housing more filth in our incredibly overcrowded prisons.