Thinking about the death penalty (capital punishment to you wonks out there). We could easily pass these reasons off as barbaric and unnecessary…if they didn’t actually work. The crime rate gap between Singapore and the United States, for example, is rather vast; in fact Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. In a country where smuggling over 50 grams of heroin is certain to result in the same punishment as slaughtering another human being, obviously, a criminal has to decide if breaking the law at all is really worth their life.
1. Justice
2. Retribution
3. Deterrent to Crime
4. Religious Doctrine
5. Removal of a Threat to Society
6. The Fairness of the Death Row Process
7. Necessity - Under the law of most militaries throughout history, the crimes of murder, mutiny, treason, and desertion during a war time warrant a mandatory, (and even on the spot) death sentence. However, during a time of war, where survival of an army and even the civilization that army is represents is at stake, death may be the only reasonable punitive tactic to employ. Under full abolition of the death penalty, some of the criminals who would see lives lost through their lawlessness or cowardice would have to waste the time of those fighting the war through the lengthy judicial process, and in war, time and manpower makes all the difference.
8. Cost - awful, but it IS a consideration. Incarceration costs can reach into the hundreds of thousands, PER prisoner.
9. Life Imprisonment Changes - you can be pardoned, reduction via appeal or government intervention.
10. More Humane than other Forms of Punishment - Compared to “incapacitation”, which is a kinder phrase for lobotomy, or sentencing a criminal to solitary confinement for the next 25-50 years, executing a criminal may seem like a more humane option. A criminal sentenced to life without parole will never again see daylight, and will have to consider the consequences of their crime until the day they die.
But the real reason, IMHO, has nothing to do with these. The real reason has to do with the rights of the STATE (meaning, the nation-state framework). It has to do with the “slippery slope” argument. It is cold, but rational and logical.
Consider this - if you remove the State’s right (in the US, the People are the State, as the recent election demonstrates) to take life (under very strict guidelines - due process for example), what is next? The States right to - levy taxes? What are the consequences to that? How about provide for the common defense? Anti-war folks LOVE that one. Want to remove that? How about the right of the State to --- do anything? How about eliminating the State period? Anarchists and those who truly understand Marx would love that one. After all, Marxs’ final compelling point in “Das Kapital” was the withering away of the State - not a super-powered, uber-nation.
Once the right of the State to legitimately murder (because, after all, that’s what I’m talking about) it’s citizens, albeit under strictly defined, strictly controlled circumstances, is taken away, you have established a dangerous precedent.
The precedent that the State has no absolute rights at ALL.
Just another bizarre rambling of a fully blown mind - what say you?
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