All we gotta do is sentence a handful of billionaires to death and watch the behaviour change when they realize they're not insulated from consequence anymore.
Yeah but what they are going to do is make sure they get those protections back. They aren't going to get better.
Then sentence more of them as necessary. Im all for sweeping changes but we're not getting them. Convincing America to kill someone seems way more likely to me.
You didn't hear it from me, but I heard that billionaire skipped the fare on the subway...
Shit, that's peanuts. Every single billionaire worldwide wakes up every single day, and actively chooses to murder people. I'm not being hyperbolic.
Imagine all the outrage from red state conservatives if we attempted this.
Or from blue state liberals because "we're better than them" or some shit.
It’s not like any of us want life to be made so difficult when we’re billionaires either
Two things America loves: billionaires and the death sentence. It has just never thought to combine them in this way.
I don't care for billionaires or the death sentence.
If we revised the system I could be okay with the death sentence in some situations but the way it is now makes absolutely no sense.
I am against the death penalty and would only give it consideration in the case of billionaires
Nice to see some good news for once
The amount of people in here pushing for the death penalty when it's used on people they dislike is sickening...
This is a penalty that needs to be abolished, not expanded or made exceptions for.
You're completely right.
However, I feel like I'd make an exception for people who massively contribute to an actual existential threat to humanity. Ie billionaires. All billionaires.
I'm not saying we should kill them. I'm saying we should use the possibility of that being on the table to make them pay their taxes. The entire planet is ruined by billionaires when we could literally everyone have enough to have our basic needs met while having an economy and industry which isn't on track to make the planet uninhabitable for us, seeing as it's the only planet known to support life.
Yes, all life is important. That's why all life should be protected by making sure the planet doesn't become one huge airfryer. If while doing that a few billionaires get guillotined, I'm honestly fine with it. I'd prefer they'd just actually help people instead of being selfish assholes, but if them being selfish assholes is putting everyone else in danger, then the choice is clear, no matter your views on the death penalty. (Which as you say, shouldn't be a thing.)
I dunno, reducing them to being not-billionaires and even not-millionaires would actually be a pretty just sentence IMO. I bet being reduced to a regular Joe would hurt some of them more than the death penalty
Revolutions aren't pillow fights.
True, but they’re demands of a better world. There’s a difference between killing in a revolution and a 60 year old communist government executing an embezzler instead of giving her life in prison
Why, though? The usual reasoning for abolishing the death penalty is the argument that we might make a mistake and mistakenly sentence innocent people to death. But what about crimes like this, where the crime is entirely on paper, fully documented, and with no risk that you're prosecuting the wrong person?
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted with no replies. I'm asking an actual question here, if you disagree why not state your opinion?
Nonsense. I oppose the death penalty for almost all crimes. It's just too easy to render an inaccurate verdict, and you can't undo an execution.
But we don't have any doubt about billionaires. They're verifiably guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt.
I also think they should be able to avoid the death penalty by giving up their wealth and living on minimum wage for a number of years equal to the number of billions they captured and withheld from society.
Seems to be a common mindset among americans. As european I don't understand it.
Any fans of George Carlin here? Remember his bit about the death penalty saying that he would rather have it be done not to poor violent criminals like gangsters and common idiotic murderers, but would rather have it done to the people who really and truly fear death... like major league white collar criminals.
Gang members live violent lives and often don't have optimistic views for the future, so they know that any day might be their last. A wealthy ass failson of super millionaires who prides himself on fucking over thousands of people every day and is almost pleased to see lawsuits coming in for stolen wages and sexual harassment, however, is confident that they will die free and wealthy and probably have some active organizations named after them.
So the death penalty for them, especially when are forced to spend their time awaiting it in some cold, damp and dirty cell with prison guards who were born in poverty and treat them no differently than some poor drug-addicted shoplifter, is a terrifying concept. Also what needs to happen is that ALL their assets are confiscated. I mean ALL of them. No loopholes for transferring that shit overseas or 'technically it's in my wife's/Son's name' bullshit. They get nothing. Their family gets nothing and will be, at best, a middle class family with middle class prospects going forward (no more failsons from that lineage).
This would be the best punishment for any billionaire. They die, get buried in a potter's field or prison graveyard like common thugs, and their legacies smashed.
I think this case is closely watched by the elites who it may concern. Especially the social reaction. I am waiting for them to spin it like "Communist Dictatorship Vietnam" in conservative media (if it gains mainstream traction).
returning $9 billion (three-quarters of the stolen funds)
You can keep the 3 billion and live?
reducing her sentence to life imprisonment.
but it has to be in jail?
You can keep the 3 billion and live?
No, as another comment pointed out, that isn't legal. The assets she has from her embezzled money aren't liquid; she doesn't have $12 billion literally sitting in a bank account. These have to be sold off for đồng, and especially if she's forced to quickly sell them off in exchange for her life (somehow another reason why the death penalty is stupid), she'll likely retrieve substantially less than she could otherwise by being able to wait for better opportunities to sell.
đồng
Teehee
She still deserves to be in jail. $12 billion is no small amount, and if she can pay back that $9 billion, or even if she can pay back the entire amount, she still had committed a serious crime and deserves to go to jail.
And don’t even think about her keeping that $3 billion. That’s illegal money that she still needs to pay back.
I don't support the death penalty, but I won't be terribly sad if a criminal billionaire gets executed by their own government.
I fully support it for the rich and powerful just because prisons can't reliably hold them. If they're not put in the ground, they'll worm their way out of consequences eventually.
Can I ask what's the cutoff? How much money/how high of a position qualifies you for the electric chair?
I'm against the death penalty. I have many objections to it. though if the person at hand is a billionaire all but one of my objections disappear.
the one remaining is that I'd rather not have the government have the power to kill its citizens. so I'm willing to accept life sentences and forfeiture of all assets instead. mind that the crime I'm talking about here is being a billionaire.
These god-damn violent tankies. Vietnam should have just fined her a much smaller amount than the corrupt practices made them, like how the West handles corrupt oligarchs.
Seriously. If she was born in the West, she'd be on the cover of Forbes and taking photos next to celebs.
This is the right way to deal with these ghouls.
I'm fundamentally against capital punishment. This could be an acceptable exception though.
Eat the rich!
She's a real estate profiteering billionaire who conned regular people out of their savings. I say let her pay 100% back and then fetch the guillotine.
So make it a one time only thing then? Next billionaire you have in the dock will know you can’t be trusted to keep your word (“return the money and your life will be spared“) and so will have zero reason to cooperate.
Cries in American
Ban wealth hoarding.
Oooh can we bring this system to the US?
This thread in a nutshell:
I'm against the death penalty, but/except/unless...
Well, then you're not against it, are you? People who are pro death penalty also have their limits from which point forward they believe death penalty to be justifiable. If you have an exception, you are pro-death penalty.
And to all the "revolutionaries" in these comments:
My Disillusionment in Russia, by Emma Goldman (Afterword):
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. (...) All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical. (...) Psychologically and socially the means necessarily influence and alter the aims. (...)
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved. (...) It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society. It is not a mere reformer, patching up some social evils; not a mere changer of forms and institutions; not only a re-distributor of social well-being. It is all that, yet more, much more. (...)
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone.
If you are a leftist that imagines/wishes a future with no government oppression, sponsored killing, and violence; and if you claim to be pro rehabilitation instead of punishment, you should not be celebrating capital punishment.
Gonna need a really good "Go Fund Me"
Do they offer this deal to regular, desperate thieves or just billionaires?
My personal take on the death penalty is a bit more nuanced than most people’s, in that I support it for desk-perpetrators who commit crimes against international humanitarian law (crimes against humanity, starting a war of aggression, …) or dismantle/overthrow democracies. Desk perpetrator here means that the person cannot just participate in physical action but has to be a decision maker using institutional power. This should ideally be handed out by the ICC and no other court.
If I use this model, it tells me that the death penalty here is not justified: I’m not convinced that the bank she led had enough power to qualify as giving her sufficient institutional power to qualify and even if it did, theft and bribery are not crimes against humanity.
But yeah, I’m not going to cry if they go through with it anyways.
This should ideally be handed out by the ICC and no other court.
The main problem with any type of capital punishment is that it relies on an unbiased court system with reaching powers. The ICC has a pretty well established history of really only being able to prosecute criminals from impoverished nations.
If the ICC did execute war criminals, it would be an "international" court that almost exclusively executed people of color.
Very cool
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