I generally do not care to write much about social, and really domestic issues. While I used to be greatly invested in domestic (that is, American) politics, I have recently decided to take a step back from it. It is easier to remain objective writing about the politics and affairs of foreign countries as opposed to your own, in part because there is so much less one knows.

Furthermore, it is not like capital punishment is a major political issue one way or the other. General political trends indicate that capital punishment is declining. The Death Penalty Information Center states that just five states conducted a total of 16 executions in 2022 so far, with Texas and Oklahoma each executing five. This is down from 43 in 2012. Furthermore, politicians in general, whether Republican or Democrat, barely talk about executions. Trump rambled something about executing drug dealers when he announced his candidacy, but even the most rabid Trump supporter acknowledges that Trump says much he doesn’t mean. They attribute it as part of his brilliancy.

So why write about such a non-issue? Because a lot of the arguments in this discussion, and especially from the pro-capital punishment side, are nonsensical. There are reasonable concerns with the death penalty, and I can sympathize with the idea of limiting capital punishment. But the idea of abolishing it completely? It is self-deceptive and hypocritical for reasons that will be explained.

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