- It is profoundly hypocritical for "pro-lifers" to be so pro-death with regards to the death penalty.
- Conservatives seem to think that government is terrible at everything except killing people.
It occurs to me that each of these arguments is vulnerable to a simple inversion from the other side of the debate. I think it is worth pointing out why such reversals would not be potent.
A death penalty advocate (the sort that might, for example, cheer at the mere mention of executing 234 people) might ask "How can someone be against the execution of a cold-blooded killer but for the murder of innocent babies in the womb?" This sounds like a valid question. It is not. Here's why: Opposition to abortion is rooted in a mystical belief that a spiritual being is created the moment egg meets sperm and that only God Almighty has the right to take the life of that being. This explains their concomitant opposition to euthanasia, but leaves open the question of why mortals are permitted to make an exception in the case of capital punishment.
Some of us are not burdened by such otherworldly gobbledy-gook. (I won't get into a protracted argument about the ethics of abortion here, but if you're interested, you are invited to read a paper I recently wrote for a course in Biomedical Ethics - The Inherent Mysticism of Arguments Against Abortion.) While there are certainly those who oppose the death penalty on spiritual grounds, one need not have any religious belief to oppose the practice. In the case of Troy Davis, opposition was rooted primarily in concerns about justice. There was simply "too much doubt," as to whether Troy Davis had actually committed the act for which he was ostensibly being murdered by the state of Georgia. Note that in the case of abortion, there is no question of justice. No claim is being made against the fetus that may or may not be true.
So while it may be incredibly heart-wrenching to consider the possibility of Troy Davis's innocence, legitimate opposition to his execution can be as mechanical as a procedural concern about the functionality of our justice system - or even a selfish desire to protect oneself from a similar fate. One cannot protect oneself from abortion retroactively. One can, however, work to protect oneself from ultimate injustice by opposing the imposition of death by a capricious and fallible system.
The second argument is simpler. A death penalty advocate might wonder "If liberals think the government is so perfect, why don't they trust it to execute murderers?" Whereas today's conservatives argue that government is uniformly incompetent and oppressive, liberals simply believe that government CAN do good. We no more believe that government is perfect than that all corporations are uniformly evil. Government gets lots of things wrong - and we want to fix those things. Corporations do a lot of things well - and we think that's just great. We have no orthodoxy dictating universal truths to us. We just want things to work well and fairly. Many individuals have been convicted of crimes for which they were later exonerated. Some of them have been on death row. Yes, the death penalty takes a life. More importantly though, it eliminates the possibility of righting a wrong.
So while it may be incredibly heart-wrenching to consider the possibility of Troy Davis's innocence, legitimate opposition to his execution can be as mechanical as a procedural concern about the functionality of our justice system - or even a selfish desire to protect oneself from a similar fate. One cannot protect oneself from abortion retroactively. One can, however, work to protect oneself from ultimate injustice by opposing the imposition of death by a capricious and fallible system.
The second argument is simpler. A death penalty advocate might wonder "If liberals think the government is so perfect, why don't they trust it to execute murderers?" Whereas today's conservatives argue that government is uniformly incompetent and oppressive, liberals simply believe that government CAN do good. We no more believe that government is perfect than that all corporations are uniformly evil. Government gets lots of things wrong - and we want to fix those things. Corporations do a lot of things well - and we think that's just great. We have no orthodoxy dictating universal truths to us. We just want things to work well and fairly. Many individuals have been convicted of crimes for which they were later exonerated. Some of them have been on death row. Yes, the death penalty takes a life. More importantly though, it eliminates the possibility of righting a wrong.
Well although the left side of my heart definitely agrees with you, I recently saw something that put me right back on the fence about the Death Penalty.
ReplyDelete2 men recently went on a home invasion in Connecticut (google it for whole story), they tied up the children, molested and raped them, then set the house ablaze while they were tied up to be burnt alive naked.
Now, these two men fled and were caught at a roadblock. These men both admitted to raping, murdering these people very straight forwardly.
Now. Should we spend 54,000 dollars a year (probably more in Connecticut) of tax money to keep these gentlemen alive? I mean wheres the line? Did Hitler deserve the death penalty?
For every left side argument against the death penalty, I can only think if someone raped and burnt your family members alive, how would you feel about fighting for their rights to live?
In my mind, if someone admits to doing a gruesome murder and is caught red handed, isn't it justified?
http://kamikazeearth.blogspot.com/
~Andy