Posted on 03/12/2005 11:15:22 AM PST by pageonetoo
...Fallacy #10: No Mercy
"Capital punishment is society’s final assertion that it will not forgive." (Martin Luther King)
"It is a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have." (Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Unforgiven)
Correction: The person opposing the death penalty on these principles opposes it from worldly reasoning rather than spiritual reasoning. The above statement by Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Unforgiven typifies this surprisingly common "religious" objection to capital punishment. The underlying assumption is that this world and this life is all that exists. It suggests that only a hateful and vengeful person would seek to take everything from anyone.
But it is not true that most supporters of capital punishment seek to take everything from the murderers. Thomas Aquinas noted in his Summa Theologica that "if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good." The death penalty for murderers, the Catholic Church’s most famous theologian argued, was a form of retributive punishment. He explained that this "punishment may be considered as a medicine, not only healing the past sin, but also preserving from future sin." Though life may be taken from a murderer, he will be better off with the punishment because "spiritual goods are of the greatest consequence, while temporal goods are least important."
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to dawn on proponents employing this faulty reasoning that perhaps a just punishment in this world would best prepare a criminal for the next.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Failure to exercise the death penalty where appropriate simply devalues the life that was taken. To keep the scales balanced, a life of equal worth must be forfeit. Since the only one available belongs to the wretch who committed the murder, it will have to suffice. Anything less values his life over his victim's.
Good question...I never really looked into it. I guess I need to read the book that discuisses the writing & discussion of the Bill of Rights in the 1st Congress, possibly? I wouldn't think the Founders would put the words "or Limb" into the Constitution w/o a reason. Thanx for asking.
What term would you apply to a cold-blooded coward?
We can look at deterrence from different viewpoints. Obviously if no penalties, or very minimal fines, were imposed for drunk driving or speeding, how safe would the highways be? More safe, the same, much more dangerous? We know that driving would become far more dangerous and deadly if drunk and or speeding drivers were only cautioned or had nothing done to them. The death penalty is a deterrent.
At lot is said about Capital Punishment perpetuating Vengeance.
Yet in the debate about the death penalty, I have heard a man who lost family members in the Port Arthur massacre argue he didn't want Martin Bryant killed, becasue that would be too easy, he wants Bryant to suffer every day rot the rest os his life.
Best answer to that attitude was a letter writer to TIME after the Okalhoma bombing and Trail, who wrote "for our own well-being we must forgive Tim McVeigh. And realistically, that will only be possible after he is dead"
I once believed in justice... it seems sorta ephemeral these days!!
An error now and then is acceptable to me in the way that innocent life being taken in war is accpetable. You have to judge the greater good.
Lastly, I believe the killing murders is in and of itself placing life on a high plain.
Maybe sentences are simply punishments and have no deterent value.
-A8
Technically that would be an "equal protection of the law" argument, not a "cruel and unusual" argument.
I sit corrected, although one could perhaps argue that if Ridgeway isn't going to be executed, it would be cruel and unusual to execute anybody else accused of (quantitatively) less heinous crimes.
Bump for later read.
...and subject to God's rule!
Gen 18:16-17:29-When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him."
20 Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD . [e] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare [f] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing-to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge [g] of all the earth do right?"
26 The LORD said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?"
"If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
29 Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
30 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
31 Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
32 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square." 3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."
9 "Get out of our way," they replied. And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
12 The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here-sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it."
14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry [a] his daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.
15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished."
16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!"
18 But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, [b] please! 19 Your [c] servant has found favor in your [d] eyes, and you [e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it-it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared." 21 He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar. [f] )
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities-and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD . 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
God's rubbish is human...
At risk of sounding like a broken record, again I suggest that all violent felons be dropped off on a rock in the Aleutians with only the clothing they are wearing, a knife and a blanket. Let nature (including their own) take its course.
I tend to agree with you. Getting rid of someone like that guy in Atlanta is satisfaction enough. I was just remarking about the deterrence issue. There are many anti-death penalty people who swear that the dp is not a deterrent. I feel that it certainly is. But I like the vengeance part of it too.
-A8
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