Yeah this approach has definitely worked in Saudi Arabia, where public beheadings draw a crowd and people sell mementos of the occasion. Their people are famously anti-death penalty now - they even stopped sentencing children to death in 2020 by royal decree, very progressive. Though they haaave been increasing executions significantly over the last five years, even though up to two thirds of their executions are for non-violent crime. Hmm.

Public opinon polls are very rare in SA so let’s check in on some opinions from SA redditors…

https://www.reddit.com/r/saudiarabia/comments/qsbbew/whats_your_opinion_on_the_death_penalty/

🤔

No, ‘China bad’ because many many examples of China bad. Such as the topic of this post.

The whole “you can’t criticize China because you’re from a country that also does bad things” is logically worthless. It’s the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy.

Not sure if you realize this but China is also ruled by a kleptocratic billionaire class that loots the working class even moreso than the US, so i’m not sure why you look up to them - China has more billionaires and a much larger wealth divide than the US. Actions speak louder than words and while Xi and the CCP often talk about cracking down on thier ultra-wealthy, they don’t really do much - couple billionaires might disappear occasionally though if they don’t praise the party line publically. One thing is for sure - I don’t see any elite CCP party members that are not also very wealthy. And it’s everyone else that’s propagandized 🤔