Do You Support The Death Penalty?

[MaineWriter]

I just read an interesting statistic that October, 2007 was the first month in three years where no one was executed in the US.

Some say we are in the middle of an informal ban on the death penalty, pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on lethal injection.

For more:

http://www.slate.com/id/2176196/

[injest]

nor do I Janice....The people that say that are comparing a person yelling at someone cutting them off in traffic to someone that murders someone for $20...it is an invalid comparison to me.

[Dagi]

I just read an interesting statistic that October, 2007 was the first month in three years where no one was executed in the US.

Some say we are in the middle of an informal ban on the death penalty, pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on lethal injection.

For more:

http://www.slate.com/id/2176196/

That´s good news.

[Mikaela]

I bet most people on death row in countries with capital punishment - even counting only the ones on death row that actually committed the crimes they've been sentenced for, and did so while adult and of sound mind -  aren't in the league of Hindley, Dahmer, Bundy and their ilk - luckily there aren't many such around.

I can't really relate to the "evil" concept that is being forwarded here. To me as an atheist I realize  the "evil" term has no such clearcut meaning except as a word that various religions have chosen to use on certain people, societies, religions, acts, behaviour and so forth up through the ages. Including homosexuality, as far as I know. I certainly don't think anyone can be deemed evil or not by looking at their eyes. If it were that simple, for one thing, all those poor women who offered to help Ted Bundy into his car would probably have run away screaming from him instead....


Be that as it may, in meting out capital punishment to anyone, be it Ted Bundy or some drug addict turned robber and murderer, or any other person - society dehumanizes itself. That's the long and short of it, to me. It renounces basic human rights. That's the last tragic impact of people such as the above mentioned - that their heinous crimes make it easier for society and legal systems to turn to "an eye for an eye" as justice, turn to a system of revenge and retribution and consider it justified; - thereby losing some of our precious shared humanity in the process.... in addition to also making killers of the ones who are to administer the punishment.

I don't see why those in favour of the death penalty are so dead set on its continuation.  What harm to society is there in keeping even sadistical serial killers firmly behind lock and key - treating them humanely but certainly never letting them out into society again? When the very fact that they, even *they*, are treated humanly in prison serves to remind us all that society as a whole will and should demonstrably *not* sink towards their level in *any* way, shape or form: What they did in taking lives (not to mention the how and why and how often of it) was unconscionable and outside the realm of acceptable human behaviour, and the punishment in pointed contrast should be humane, though certainly not naive.  "An eye for an eye makes the world blind".

[Mikaela]

I thought this deserved its own post...

 I read "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time at the age of 14 (incidentally in the same year, and reading the same edition, as one Peter Jackson). It's been one of my absolute favourite books since, and I've re-read it many times. Now Tolkien was a devout Catholic and that shines through in many ways in the worldview, morality and ethical concepts in "Rings". Though I don't see eye to eye with the old Professor concerning his religion, I find that he nevertheless came close to describing my stance on the death penalty in this little passage from the "Fellowship of the Ring. This to me expresses a humane approach, and humility when it comes to taking it upon ourselves to "deal out death in judgment".  (Frodo and Gandalf are discussing the vile and treacherous Gollum - I suppose most here have read the book or seen the films or both).

"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”

“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

“I am sorry,” said Frodo. “But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.”

“You have not seen him,” Gandalf broke in.

“No, and I don’t want to,” said Frodo. I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least.

J. R. R. Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2

[Dagi]

I don't see why those in favour of the death penalty are so dead set on its continuation.  What harm to society is there in keeping even sadistical serial killers firmly behind lock and key - treating them humanely but certainly never letting them out into society again? When the very fact that they, even *they*, are treated humanly in prison serves to remind us all that society as a whole will and should demonstrably *not* sink towards their level in *any* way, shape or form: What they did in taking lives (not to mention the how and why and how often of it) was unconscionable and outside the realm of acceptable human behaviour, and the punishment in pointed contrast should be humane, though certainly not naive.  "An eye for an eye makes the world blind".

Wonderful post, Mikaela!

As for the eye thing: I can only shake my head in disbelief about that. You all are kidding, aren´t you? Please tell me yo are not speaking seriously.

Dagi

[delalluvia]

Sorry, but women don't get off the hook on any of these issues and problems. Who gives birth to all the men? And who raises them?  Who marries the men, often enabling them or looking the other way, or even actively supporting them? Who bears these men's children? Women are slightly more than half the species, and they fully participate in the human story, for both good and ill.

Women participate in the world, but who makes policy?  Who is actively in charge of our governments?  Our military machines?  Our 'captains' of industry?

For most women who have children - the majority are married.  Yes, they raise children, but they cannot keep their husbands from influencing their sons.  As soon as sons realize their gender makes a difference, they do not look to their mothers for role models, they look to their fathers.  A friend was living with her no-account boyfriend, father of her child, and was raising her two nephews because her sister got put in prison on a drug bust.  She was working full time, going to school and trying to raise these 3 little boys whle her boyfriend lay around the apartment doing nothing.  My encouragement to her to dump him was met with the very matter-of-fact "I need a baby-sitter" argument.  But she did say she was trying to be a good role model for the boys.  I responded,

"Yes, you are.  You are showing your boys that women do all the work and men get to lie around and play all day."

Another friend of mine is very fundamentalist and his wife stays at home with their two kids while he works all day...but of course, that makes him the leader, the independent one, the one who makes the money, the head of the household and as he put it the 'shepherd' of his family as per the Bible.  Regardless of what the mother does, the son is going to look to his father as a role model, not his mother. 

[delalluvia]

I think that it was abundantly clear that my comments were not meant to be offensive toward women.  So if you wanted to make your point, you could have done so without singling me out, and responding to me directly with your curt little aside.

Gary

Apparently not.  Now, I thought my aside was just a quickie 'oh and I'm sure you didn't mean humans" because I thought it was well-documented and common knowledge that men are much more violent than women, especially for someone as well read as yourself.  I simply thought you would acknowledge the fact of the matter and move on.  I singled you out simply because you said it.

[delalluvia]

In the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes of her observations of nature with the knowledge of a trained naturalist and with the passion of someone with deeply reflected faith.  You might expect her to write of nature in glowing terms, but she doesn’t always.  For instance, she might go on for pages describing in chilling detail how spiders sometimes eat their young, or how children will suffer while dying of cancer.  Dillard does not shy away from the darker realities of life.  She writes, “The universe that suckled us is a monster that does not care if we live or die – does not care if it itself grinds to a halt.  It is fixed and blind, a robot programed to kill.  We are free and seeing; we can only try to outwit it at every turn to save our skins.”

But this does not deter her faith, and this is made evident when she later writes, “I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along.  I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too.  I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I’ve come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty beats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them, under the wind-rent clouds upstream and down.  Simone Weil says simply, ‘Let us love the country of here below.  It is real; it offers resistence to love.’”

This is the world that’s been given to us, and, just like Dillard, I am in awe.  It may shock me at times.  I may not understand why it has to be so harsh.  I may tremble at the thoughts of people who would do us harm.  But whatever imagined perfection I have in my head it would be a pale and shallow replacement for this real place that dares to resist our love.

Gary

Annie Dillard was required reading in my college English class.  I gave out "Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek" to friends as gifts.  I urged my ex-boyfriend to read the chapter on "Fecundity", begged him to just read this one chapter - and he was hooked.  He kept my book.  I had to buy another.  He was a budding atheist and thought it very strange that despite Dillard's very rational, in-your-face view of the world, that she managed to hang onto her faith.

As the famous scientist says, "You may call the earth a mother, but she's not a doting one."

[delalluvia]

As for the you-can-know-a-killer-by-their-eyes argument.

My brother's little girl is maybe 3 years old and she has the eyes of a serial killer.  Just evil eyes.

I'll let you know how that turns out.