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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Wed, 4 Jan 2006 18:23:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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1921 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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Of course not! The execution of a person who has been rendered harmless is
indistinguishable from coldblooded murder.
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I reject your equivocation. In one case, the victim is an innocent, and in
the other the “victim” is a coldblooded murderer. Being rendered “harmless”
does in no way make a person “blameless”.
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I see that you are rebutting my “equivocation” with a straw man. Nowhere do I
claim that the murderer is blameless, but I don’t equate his “blamefulness”
(sorry about that malapropism) with some “right” to execute him. And the person
(or entity) who does execute a harmless individual is likewise hardly blameless.
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My point in linking to those
articles (one of which now appears unlinked, alas) is to show that the
execution of potentially innocent people is nothing like the “it never
happens” assertion put forth by advocates death penalty.
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No system is perfect. To criticize otherwise seems unreasonable.
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But when we’re dealing in executions, I’d think you’d want a better standard
than “nobody’s perfect.”
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And even if we eliminate the accidental(?) execution of innocent people, the
death penalty is still an ugly throwback to our not-so-distant barbaric past
and should be abolished as the savage, government-sanctioned murder that it
really is.
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Listen, as long as people barbarically take the life of innocents, there
should be an “old-school” punishment for their efforts. It is simply not
“enlightened” to keep murderers alive.
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If I’m reading this correctly, you’re therefore saying that it is
enlightened for society to act barbarically. If that’s your intent, do you
see the contradiction? If it’s not your intent, can you rephrase it?
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What about the fate of a man who kills 5 women and children during a
botched bank robbery where he is captured at the scene. Presumably, then,
you feel comfortable enough to execute him?
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Of course not! If he’s rendered harmless (ie., he’s captured, then there
is no justification for murdering him. Well, other than raw vengeance,
which is no justification at all.
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Vengeance doesn’t enter in to it. It is about justice to the victims and
preserving the sanctity of life for society.
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Explain to me why “justice,” a nebulous concept at best, outweighs a person’s
life. I reject the phrase “sanctity of life” here because I don’t accept that
you really believe it, at least not as an inherent property or attribute. I
don’t mean that as an insult, but rather as an observation that you seem
comfortable with the deaths of some innocents, so it seems that “sanctity,” like
those pseudo-inalienable rights I mentioned elsewhere, isn’t all it’s cracked up
to be.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) I reject your equivocation. In one case, the victim is an innocent, and in the other the "victim" is a coldblooded murderer. Being rendered "harmless" does in no way make a person "blameless". (...) No system is perfect. To criticize otherwise (...) (19 years ago, 4-Jan-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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