Monday, July 28, 2008

In which I attempt to commit the impossible....

I can recall with some pride as a Libertarian that this is what North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger said he would do first if elected:

First priority: I issue an executive order placing an immediate moratorium on capital punishment in the state. Then I commute the sentences of everyone on death row to life in prison without parole.

On the other hand, I read with emotions and thoughts that are difficult to describe the Question of the Day at Delawareliberal, Does not giving a crap if someone is dying and having nothing good to say about “said” dying person make you a bad person?, where I found comments like this:

[Dorian Gray] So everyone deserves our respect because they just so happen to have been born…like a blind compassion… now I understand why there are so many people who still believe this quaint religious shit.

[Joe M] I think it’s sad that a guy like Falwell died. Not because I thought he held any value as a human being, but for the pain of loss his loved ones will feel.

DV is restricting the question to compassion for the person who is dead/dying and I’m led to agree with him.

Sometimes the world is made better through the loss of someone.

[Sharon] "The point that DV is making is that compassion has to, to some extent, be earned."

The very essence of compassion is that it is unearned. But I guess if someone can’t understand that, then maybe it explains a lot of the comments.

[Joe M] Sharon, you are very much oversimplifying the idea. Consider LGs question: Do you have compassion for the death of Charles Manson (when it happens)? Jeffrey Dahmer?

I don’t mean compassion for whatever made them what they were, but simple compassion that they were humans dying?

How about Pol Pot? Would you weep for Stalin? Mao Tse Tung?

If not, then where’s your unconditional compassion?

[pandora] Unconditional compassion doesn’t exist. It’s just tossed out there when people criticize someone you like.

[donviti] oh ok Sharon,

so I get it, you get to be “sort of” a dick while you are alive and IF inflicted with some painful life threatening illness I can’t speak ill of you? got it, great. cool, it’s lifes equalizer.

being a dick + debilitating possibly life ending diagnosis = all forgiven

got it. Sweet. I’m hoping i get pancreatic cancer so you can say I was a nice guy.

And then I come to today's story of George W. Bush signing the first execution death warrant for the military that any President has signed since 1951.

And no doubt Spec 4 Ronald Gray is one of the scumbags of modern American history:




The court-martial panel convicted Gray of:




So I reached the decision a couple years back, based on both Libertarian philosophy and that quaint religious shit, that I oppose capital punishment.

There are plenty of people I think probably deserve to die, that the world would be better off without, and even some that I can sense in myself a quite visceral willingness to throw the switch.

But in a society that possesses the resources to confine Jeffrey Dahmer or the UnaBomber for the rest of his life, it is no more ethically acceptable to execute criminals than it is to order area bombing against a target of minimal military significance.

Which means, I think, that I am affirming the belief that even Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein was a human being worthy of unearned compassion. In my parish I have heard prayers offered for Saddam and for Osama, and I ascribe my difficulty in joining them wholeheartedly to my failings, not theirs.

I do not oppose the death penalty because it might take the life of an innocent person; I oppose the death penalty because allowing the State to impose boutique death along with mass mayhem diminishes us all.

I do not accept that the argument of the death penalty's effectiveness as a deterrent has anything to do with the morality of the death penalty.

Gouging eyes would also have a deterrent effect. (And please, don't start drawing the meaningless cruel and unusual distinction. It's not germane to the comparison.)

I realize that this is a somewhat (severely?) muddled post. The issue is a muddling one.

But when I come right down to it, I both agree and disagree with pandora (a position in which I too often find myself, dear lady), when she says, "Unconditional compassion doesn’t exist." She's right: it doesn't.

Yet it should--and I find it a worthwhile goal to strive for.

Executing Ronald Gray won't bring his victims back, and given that he was convicted twenty years ago, I have to face the lurking suspicion that all sorts of interesting political calculations went into finding a victim for the first military execution in half a century who wouldn't excite sympathy from anyone.

Except me, and the others who follow that quaint religious shit.

By the way: the military has also identified the second (and then presumably the third, and so on) person they want Dubya's approval to kill.

Things are apparently overcrowded at Fort Leavenworth.


Anonymous said...

I think it falls back to the question in Heinlein's "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" - When and under what circumstances is it moral and ethical for a government to do that which it is not moral and ethical for a citizen of that government to do?

My answer mostly boils down to "Never" - Your Mileage May Vary...

Thus I see no problem with capital punishment, WHEN it is applied by the would be victim, (or someone acting on his behalf) at the time and scene of the offense... (if anything this is good as it saves all sorts of hassles...)

OTOH, If it's wrong for the victim to chase down the crook and shoot him later, (arguments considered on this one, but I haven't heard any convincing ones yet) It should be wrong for the government to kill the crook later...

However I don't have an inherent problem with the victim requiring restitution / and / or prevention of repeat offenses, so I don't have a big problem with the gov't acting as an agent for this

(Note that I do NOT think the perpetrator owes ANY kind of "debt to society" - the debt is to the VICTIM, and should be repaid to the victim (w/ possible "administrative surcharge" going to the collecting body, which could be a free market entity) I am a big fan of "restorative justice"...)

In the case of the soldier in question, executing him does little good. Neither does simply locking him up w/ a not too miserable bed and three squares a day at taxpayer expense do much to restore the victims or their families... More useful, though probably would only be a token in this case, would be to say "You owe the victim (or her estate) $1M for each rape, $10M for each murder, to be paid pro-rata. Since you are a danger to the public, and don't have the money, you may hire out to any company that is willing to give you a job and insure that you do not offend again - w/ pay going to victims fund..."

Agreed this isn't going to cure all the damage he called, but it's more than the current system does!


Anonymous said...

Agreed, Steve.

I had a couple of short articles regarding lethal injection that lead to some interesting evidence that it may not be the humane process that people think it is.

dudleysharp said...

The penalty of death is provided for the same reason all other punishments are, that they are just and appropriate for the crimes committed.

Secondarily, the death penalty saves additonal innocent lives in at least three ways.

The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Although this is, obviously a truism, it is surprising how often  folks overlook the enhanced incapacitation benefits of the death penalty over incarceration.
That is. logically, conclusive.
A surprise? No.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of convicted capital??murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Full report - The Death Penalty as a Deterrent, upon request
(1) The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
national legal correspondent for The NY Times

copyright 2007-2008, Dudley Sharp
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Pro death penalty sites 


www(dot) (Sweden)

Steven H. Newton said...



Mr Sharp,

It is telling that in your first sentence you claim that the death penalty is "just and appropriate," but that the rest of your comment exclusively deals with the pragmatic issue of deterrence and innocence.

I didn't say that I don't believe the death penalty is a deterrent (even though there is serious room to challenge the methodology of all the studies you cite), I said it doesn't matter to me whether the death penalty is a deterrent. That fact cannot make it either "just" or "appropriate."

I intentionally picked a case to discuss in which there is no question of innocence and no question that the perp is somebody I'd personally like to snuff out.

The question is one of whether or not it is morally justifiable in a free society for the government to kill people.

The question is also one for me as a Christian is to whether or not it is justifiable for me to support a criminal justice system that kills people.

I am not a pacifist. I would do my dead level best, if it became necessary, to kill you if you broke into my house and threatened my family. I served 21 years in the US military and I have no trouble pulling the trigger in combat.

That's not the issue I'm raising. I am raising precisely the issue you raised in your first sentence, but never discussed thereafter: "just and appropriate." I submit that with respect to those two categories you asserted a conclusion rather than advancing an argument.

However, if you'd like to actually make such an argument from anything other than a strictly utilitarian or vengeance-based stance, I'm open to listening.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.

Steven H. Newton said...

Oh, and Art:

The one irony of MIAHM is that Prof is a rational anarchist who participate in the building of a State that, during its formation and the bombardment of Earth, engages as a State without any consequences (moral or otherwise) in the bombardment death of millions of innocent people.

I always found it problematic that Manny never shows a hint of regret about what he had to do with the big rocks or that Heinlein even placed a passing reference to the ethical problems creating by killing millions to "free" far fewer millions.

Anonymous said...

Unconditional compassion doesn't exist... but that doesn't mean I don't wish it did. We all have our imaginary "hit lists" - god, that sounds crass! But it's true. Every time a child molester confesses to hurting a child I could care less what happens to them. In fact, I know that they won't last long in prison and that's a big "oh well" in my book.

I'm uncomfortable in my statement, because I could never enforce the death penalty myself. Perhaps this makes me a coward, willing to let others carry out a punishment I could never personally inflict. Perhaps it makes me human. I'll let you decide.