The Scum of the Earth

Consider the worst of humanity; those individuals who, for whatever reasons, contribute virtually nothing to anyone else, and whats worse actually do significant harm to others.

This includes everyone from historical monsters such as Hitler and Genghis Khan to serial killers to particularly brutal pimps. It also includes the relatively sympathetic destitute, illiterate, callous young man who understands the world only in terms of what he can get away with.

What ought to be done with these people? Certainly, there is potential in almost every case for their redemption; there does exist the possibility that they could see the error of their ways and improve themselves. However, this is often very difficult, and costly in terms of time and resources. Given that there is no shortage of humans themselves, nor is there any likelihood there will be for a very long time, would it not be more expedient to simply exterminate these individuals and replace them with new humans, who have a decent chance of becoming, well, decent.

There are some definite problems with this method that are more important than the initial gut reaction that "it's horrible". Killing the scum of the world is not too practical, simply because it requires both effective definition of what constitutes such an undesirable individuals and means of identifying said individuals. And then, of course, there is the question of how ethical such a policy would be, even if these requirements could be fulfilled (not considering the ethics of defining these people, but rather

For the first problem, that of definition, we can see the most obvious pitfall is to choose too broad a definition, as did Draco in declaring anyone who violates any law was to be killed. So let us sidestep this blatant error and be at least reasonable by choosing only the absolute worst of the worst; I would argue these are the murderers, which is at least the popular opinion.

And now we have stepped from the arena of speculation into actual policy. We do eliminate these individuals. The question I pose to you is how much farther could we go? How many murderers, and violent, worthless individuals that simply haven't killed anyone yet could we dispose of, and how would we be worse off if we did?

To clarify, I am not talking about instituting actual policy changes; the greatest argument against the death penalty is that the government is not responsible enough to have legal power over life and death. What I ask is if it were possible to eliminate the worst of humanity, should we? And how would you define them?