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Death Penalty: Let’s Be Honest
Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece today on the dishonesty of the opponents of the death penalty. He highlights two points: (1) opponents create the situation (costs of litigation and associated administration) which they argue should be a basis for discarding the death penalty, and (2) they call it “unconstitutional” when the death penalty is actually written in the constitution (see 5th Amendment). They also point to the numbers of individuals on death row that have been determined to be innocent prior to their delayed executions. That is not an argument against the death penalty unless you really believe we cannot do a better job in investigating and adjudicating the innocence or guilt of people. Is it better to house an innocent person in jail for the rest of their life than to execute them? After all, eliminating the death penalty may actually reduce support for post-conviction innocence proceedings.
One can have a principled argument against the death penalty — but none of the ones put forward are actually that. The real question in my mind is one of relative value: Is the accused’s life of more value than the victim’s? If your answer is “no” you cannot be against the death penalty. You can be for better investigative and prosecutorial rules — eliminate practices that evoke false confessions, make the prosecutors focus on justice instead of political favor — you can be for limiting the penalty to those cases only where a life is taken, and you can be for quick and relatively painless executions, but you cannot be for the eliminating the death penalty altogether.
Remember that the alternative to a broken criminal justice system is not a more humane justice system — it is a system of private revenge and self-help. So if you break the system with unprincipled arguments you get private action. You cannot consistently value the life of the killer over that of the killed and maintain a justice system that is the sole purview of the state.
Published in General
I haven’t written a post. I once wrote a story about it, but it’s so dystopian that I’ve never showed the draft to anyone. I sympathize with the desire of those whose poor health, mental or physical, makes it difficult to silence the voice, “Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you died?” I sympathize, but emotional sympathy is not the same thing as permitting yourself to think it’s right.
But yes, it is a terrible thing, the knowledge of how much you cost others, when you cannot possibly repay.
This seems curious to me. The underlying assumption to the story is that the captain became invested in Karla Faye and could not stand that he had a part in any way in her execution. But presuming they actually had a relationship one would think that she would be comforting him and reminding him that she was going to a better place, to a freedom beyond that which she could experience on earth. But if that is not what happened, then the relationship did not exist and there has to be some other reason aside from his perception of injustice to Karla Faye that lies at the bottom of this story.
Easy. She was sorta/kinda cute. It’s always harder to kill the cute ones. That’s why aesthetically pleasing sociopaths rack up the numbers that they do.
I think it transpired differently.
Here is the interview that Fred Allen gave to Werner Hertzog.
I leave the rest to you.
Thank you, @instugator, for that video. My take after viewing it is that the captain was already struggling with his role in state sanctioned executions and that Karla Faye — as the first woman — brought that internalized struggle to the surface. The captain seems to have been a conscientious and chivalrous person. And it was his bred in chivalry that forced him to confront feelings that he had buried in order to do his job conscientiously.
That participating in state sanctioned killings could have profound effects on executioners is not surprising. Like soldiers and cops, just because you are doing something for or authorized by your country does not in and of itself inoculate you against feelings of sorrow or revulsion. But, in my viewing, executioners are necessary just as are soldiers and cops. We do not cease the activities in which they are engaged simply because it is hard and difficult. We support them in whatever strategies can minimize their stress and trauma.
Incessant litigation and deferral of executions drive up costs to society of the death penalty. Similarly the more “righteous” the claims of death penalty opponents the more personal stress is internalized by the executioners — just like BLM campaign against cops and anti-war targeting of vets. Resistance to pressure creates more pressure until something gives. We would like to believe that whenever one side “gives” it was because the right thing was triumphant. But we know it doesn’t work that way.
@hypatia : IF a Christian, then yes, you must acknowledge that God condones the death penalty, which makes it moral as God is the author of morality. Again, only if you are a Christian. If not, then you very well may come to a different conclusion.
Genesis 9:6- “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed.”
Like I said, earlier in the thread, I am not morally opposed to the death penalty, however the unacceptable error rate exceeds my limits and I am almost to the point that I cannot accept it as currently constituted.
That being said, KFT was unquestionably guilty of the crimes to which she was convicted. I do not think her sentence was unjustified.
I regret that mercy wasn’t shown to her.
You left out the first part: Genesis 9:5 – And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Really shouldn’t take these verses out of context. The punishment for taking an innocent life is that his own life is to be forfeited.
@kayofmt : I didn’t take anything out of context. Genesis 9:6 condones the death penalty, and Genesis 9:5 explains why that is the case. Both of these verses prove that for the Christian, the death penalty is not immoral because God sanctions it.
I would also suggest it doesn’t just “condone” but with the word “shall”, demands the death penalty. And the reason given by God for the death penalty is because man is made in the image of God.
Because we are a humane, decent society, we demand that humane, decent people take lives.
That takes a toll. A hard, ruinous toll on the decent people that, for the State, take lives. I’ve known (on the soldiering side), many good men who said “I can’t do this anymore” and stacked arms. It’s an honorable decision.
Thank you, Captain Allen.