Subject:
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Re: Excellent news!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:07:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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1144 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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I agree with your assessments. I think that if certain individuals hadn’t
valued liberty more than life, our country wouldn’t have been formed, and
generally speaking, liberty for all isn’t possible unless there are those who
are willing to risk their lives on behalf of their society to maintain it.
But that isn’t really the direction I was heading (although a good one in and
of itself I might add)
If life is most precious, than can we conclude that the willful taking of an
innocent life is the most heinous crime one can commit, only exceeded by the
number of lives taken? If we truly value life (speaking as a society now)
as most precious, shouldn’t our intolerance of those who disregard life be
ultimate? If we do not say to willful murderers, “We regard life so
precious that the punishment for taking life is the ultimate one”, do we in
fact really uphold life as most precious?. Because if murder is only
punished by life imprisonment (loss of liberty), doesn’t that effectively
equate murder with other crimes such as rape, theft, drug usuage? The
penalty is the same, and in many cases, the same duration.
Indeed, is it not even offensive that heinous murderers are allowed to
retain that which is most precious when they didn’t afford the same to
their victims? Keeping them alive doesn’t uphold the value of life; ending
theirs does-- the precious lives of their victims.
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That’s an interesting argument. For me, the problem arises when we try to grant
one person the authority to kill another. A state-sanctioned execution, once
the prisoner has already been rendered harmless, seems to me no different
morally from a deliberate and willful murder. Two key elements of first-degree
murder are premeditation and malice aforethought; due-process executions are
certainly premeditiated, and if they’re permitted as a form of societal
retribution, then they also entail malice aforethought.
Since the SC handed down this decision, I’ve heard a whole bunch of voices
raised in outrage about “activist judges out of touch with the mainstream.”
Three of these have been
Justice Scalia, Gary
Bauer, and Pittsburgh radio host Marty
Minto.
Scalia, predictably, is all a-froth about the involvement of international
conventions in matters of US law (page 79). He’s also upset that the SC has
acted in the absence of a national consensus (page 65 and following).
Scalia’s second objection is baseless. The role of the Supreme Court is
not, despite Scalia, to act as a weathervane indicating the tides of
national sentiment. Instead, the Supreme Court is charged with interpreting
law, and that what has occurred here.
Regarding his first objection, here’s the central point:
Though the views of our own citizens are essentially irrelevant to the Court’s
decision today, the views of other countries and the so-called international
community take center stage.
This complaint is pointless. The majority did not say “We know our ruling
conflicts with the Constitution, but that’s how France is doing it, so we’ll go
along with them.” Rather, they ruled that the practice of executing juvenile
offenders conflicts with the 8th Amendment, and by the way, other nations also
find the practice abhorrent.
Bauer similarly rails against the lack of consensus, and he, like Scalia, seems
to think that civil rights should be established by referendum rather than
guaranteed by the Constitution, and Bauer quotes several passages highlighting
the involvement of international opinion.
Minto (the freshmaker?) runs an afternoon phone-in show in Western PA.
Yesterday he was discussing these terrible activist judges, when a young caller
offered a story of a (juvenile) friend-of-a-friend (of course) who vandalized a
number of cars while in Japan, for which his adjudicated punishment was a public
caning. The plucky miscreant returned to the States and committed a similar
crime, for which his adjudicated punishment was 20 hours of community service.
Minto was agog; how could our juvenile justice system be so ridiculously
lenient? Surely, Minto says, this will lead to an epidemic of teenaged
murderers. If only we acted more like Japan.
First of all, the Japanese caning story is almost certainly bogus. When a
similar event occurred in Singapore a few years ago, the US media was all over
it for weeks, yet I recall not a peep about the Japan story. But more
importantly, just moments after griping about international intrusion into US
law, Minto calls for greater intrusion of international law. Which is it to be?
Presumably, if the foreign law is brutal enough (even in a fabricated story),
then it’s welcomed into the US canon. But if the foreign law is too lenient,
then it’s anathema.
Okay. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. But here’s my question:
how do Christians reconcile this apparent hunger for capital punishment with the
biblical call for mercy? I don’t recall which section of the Beattitudes
demanded that seventeen-year-olds be executed, but I haven’t read them in a
while. Isn’t it sufficient to incarcerate the murderer until God takes him,
thereafter to be judged by The Judge?
I’m not asking this flippantly, and in this context I won’t rebut
intra-Christian beliefs with secular viewpoints. I just don’t understand how
the desire for capital punishment can be consistent with Christian grace.
Also, I’m not mocking Christians as a whole--I’m just holding up two
professors-of-the-faith as examples of a viewpoint I’ve heard from numerous
Christians in my life.
Thanks to any and all for their insights.
Dave!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Excellent news!
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote: <snip> (...) Surely you'd agree that the victims differ from the two cases of loss of life-- one "victim" is a murderer, and the other is an innocent. Therein lies all the difference in my view. (...) (...) (20 years ago, 4-Mar-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
| | | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) **snip** (...) Correction. Make that "Minto ran an afternoon phone-in show in Western PA. Seems that Marty couldn't figure out when to keep his hateful mouth shut. He opined on-air last week that the Pope probably isn't going to go to heaven, (...) (20 years ago, 14-Apr-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) Who told you that!?? Was it one of my jerk employees?[1] (...) I agree with your assessments. I think that if certain individuals hadn't valued liberty more than life, our country wouldn't have been formed, and generally speaking, liberty for (...) (20 years ago, 3-Mar-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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