Why anti death penalty libertarians make no sense to me

Author: TheUnderdog

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Their argument is, "We don't want the government to have the power to take someone's life."

It sounds pretty convincing until you realize the alternative, giving the government the power to steal $25.2 billion from the taxpayer and using it to fund the living expense of murderers and rapists.

Now this is when the talking heads of the LP say the following:

The death penalty is more expensive than life in jail
To which I respond: It doesn't have to be.  The cheapest way to do the death penalty is cheaper than the cheapest way to do life imprisonment.  The cheapest way to to life imprisonment is free food, healthcare, and shelter for 50 years, with expensive guards.  The cheapest way to do the death penalty is a bullet to the head 10 minutes after a guilty conviction.  Some innocent people will die, and from the AUP/leftist perspective, they don't care about taxpayer money, but from the libetarian perspective, they are willing to sacrifice a small number of binnocent lives to cut government spending.

So from the libetarian perspective, why would it make sense to be against the death penalty?  If they don't care about money, then how are they libetarians?  Wouldn't they be members of the green party (or the socialists if they really like guns)?
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It depends on who is getting the death penalty. I like some people more than others.
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Rapists should maybe get few months in prison.
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@Best.Korea
I would do death.  My taxes matter more to me than their lives, and if you are libertarian (not the green party or socialist, but libertarian), then you would agree.


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@TheUnderdog
If I had a son, I wouldnt want anything bad happen to him, no matter what he does.
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@Best.Korea
It's fine that you value the life of your son that much.  But society doesn't care if your son lives or dies.  They will pretend to if they are being nice, but they don't.  If you want him to get life imprisonment if he murders, then you should pay for it with your own money because society doesn't care about your son.
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@TheUnderdog
If my son did bad things, I would try to turn him into a better person instead of punishing him. If everyone did that to everyone, world would be much better, if everyone was like family member.
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@Best.Korea
If my son did bad things, I would try to turn him into a better person instead of punishing him. 
House arrest for your murderer son would not be a good idea because they can murder more people with minimal house security.

If everyone did that to everyone, world would be much better, if everyone was like family member.
This sounds very altruistic until it's put into practice.  You know what you are supposed to do for your children?  You are supposed to take care of them; house them, feed them, put up with them, etc.  The idea that you should be supposed to do this with someone else's kid is absurd.
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@TheUnderdog
If everyone was treated like family member, world would be closer to what we want it to be.

House arrest for your murderer son would not be a good idea because they can murder more people with minimal house security.
But if I had a son, I wouldnt want him to go to prison.
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@TheUnderdog
There's a fundamental tension within libertarianism over this question: is it justified to have a powerful state to prevent rights abuses by non-state actors (such as individuals)? And in a high-crime society like the US this is no mere hypothetical.

The cheapest way to to life imprisonment is free food, healthcare, and shelter for 50 years, with expensive guards.
Not true. In an ideally just society, the convict would have to pay back society for the costs of his/her incarceration by having to work (prison food, healthcare, etc. would not be free), with mechanisms in place to prevent conflicts of interest between the courts and the entities that benefit from said labor. Prisons would have companies bid for contracts to open factories staffed by inmates, or crews of willing inmates could otherwise be shuttled to workplaces away from the prison.

The cheapest way to do the death penalty is a bullet to the head 10 minutes after a guilty conviction.
Wrongful convictions exist, though. Death row inmates should be entitled to one appeal, albeit an expedited one that doesn't take years to be resolved.
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@Best.Korea
If everyone was treated like family member, world would be closer to what we want it to be.
But are you willing to treat strangers like your own family?  Meaning are you willing to adopt some stranger you don't even know?  If the answer is yes, then you are extremely rare here.

But if I had a son, I wouldnt want him to go to prison.
How would you punish your murdering son?


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@Swagnarok
In an ideally just society, the convict would have to pay back society for the costs of his/her incarceration by having to work (prison food, healthcare, etc. would not be free), with mechanisms in place to prevent conflicts of interest between the courts and the entities that benefit from said labor. 
You sure you would want some murderer doing hard labor (which has no guarantee to be profitable)?  The murderer is a hazard to any workplace; no company wants them; a lot of companies don't even want non-murderers working there.

Wrongful convictions exist, though. 
Wrongful convictions exist, and if you are a green party or socialist person, then you would not want them put to death and are willing to impose whatever taxes are necessary to keep innocent (and guilty) murderers alive.  The libertarian however, would be against this because they want to cut government spending (and this means cutting some program that keeps people alive).
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@TheUnderdog
How would you punish your murdering son?
I would just tell him that its not nice to kill people.

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@Best.Korea
You saying that would be pointless.  He will still murder.
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@TheUnderdog
Maybe he wouldnt, but nothing else I could do about it anyway.
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@Best.Korea
You can turn him in and the state kills it (I say it because murderers don't deserve human pronouns).
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@TheUnderdog
You can turn him in and the state kills
I wouldnt want for my son to be killed.

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@Best.Korea
But your alternative idea of you telling him to not murder anyone is totally pointless if he wants to murder.
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@TheUnderdog
There is nothing I could do there. I wouldnt want for my son to be hurt, no matter what he does.
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@Best.Korea
I wouldnt want for my son to be hurt, no matter what he does.
Society does not love your son to the extent you do.

But when you are a parent, you want your son to fear you more than to like you.  That is how they stay disciplined.  If I had a son, once they turn 13, I'm making them do 500 pushups a day (I've done 500 pushups in an hour and I'm not even in top notch shape; if a male cannot do 500 pushups in 24 hours, then he is weak).
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@TheUnderdog
I dont want for my son to fear me. If I had a son, I would let him do whatever he wants.
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@TheUnderdog
Death penalty is totally unnecessary with one exception.

But it certainly hasn't deterred offenders and would-be criminals.
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@Mall
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