0 comment Monday, November 17, 2014 | admin
Did you watch the '100 Days' press conference? Neither did I, though I've looked at the transcript just to see what was said. But the following question and the ambiguous answer given has me puzzled. At one point, #44 says that waterboarding was torture, and that it 'violates our ideals and values' but then he says he is convinced it was the right thing to do. However I don't expect logic or consistency from him or his administration; it looks like he is trying to have it both ways, predictably:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding in your opinion is torture. And torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?
MR. OBAMA: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do -- not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways -- in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.
I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British, during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "we don't torture," when the -- the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And -- and -- and the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people.
It corrodes the character of a country.''
I have not blogged about this waterboarding/torture issue, because it is rather a thorny subject with which I haven't concerned myself very much. On the one hand, I find little sympathy for terror suspects but on the other hand, I cannot and could not bring myself to share the Rush Limbaugh attitude that, say, the incidents at Abu Ghraib were 'no worse than a fraternity hazing', just no big deal. I remember when that scandal first broke I was still somewhat of a mainstream conservative in many respects, but broke ranks with the dittoheads on the subject of the War on Terror or the Iraq War specifically.
So is waterboarding 'torture'? I don't know. I don't have a clear-cut answer. I do see a danger of simply reacting, as most Republicans do, in knee-jerk fashion to the rantings of the left. In other words, if the Democrats are agin' something, we have to be for it, and not only for it, but rabidly so. If they think waterboarding is torture, we have to say it's not only not torture, but in fact a good and virtuous thing. I reject knee-jerk politics or partisanship.
Overall, though, this issue is not high up on my list of priorities. But here is an interesting discussion from What's Wrong With the World, where Lydia writes about the changing views among conservatives on the ethics of 'torture' and capital punishment.
The End of a Consensus
This post is going to be full of sociological claims about which I am uncertain. It's okay if you disagree with me about them, so long as you do so nicely.
First claim: Thirty-five years ago, most conservatives were both very strongly in favor of the death penalty and strongly opposed to torture, where "torture" would have included waterboarding, if they had been asked about it.
Second claim: This is no longer true today. Now, conservatives who are strongly in favor of the death penalty tend to be the same ones who support at least some forms of torture, and conservatives who are opposed to those same forms of torture tend to be, at least, uneasy about the death penalty rather than strongly in favor of it.
Suppose these are both true. What caused the change?'
There is a paradox here. I would say she is right that a generation or so ago, most conservatives were pro-capital punishment yet they would not have approved of torture, or of some of the 'interrogation methods' that are apparently being used in recent years. She asks why views have shifted among conservatives. It does appear that more conservatives now have misgivings about the death penalty, but there is also a much more cavalier attitude about 'torture' in interrogation. I found the approval of torture by many conservatives to be surprising when it first became apparent a few years ago. I wondered at the time why this was so; I always, even when I was liberal, had a picture of conservatives as being more gentlemanly and civilized than many liberals. I suppose the generation of 'conservatives' who were dittoheads or listeners to talk radio generally tended to be less genteel than the old-time conservatives.
This isn't your father's conservatism.
But why has there been a change, as Lydia asks?
Further down, she says:
There is something to my mind bracing and healthy about a person who recognizes, sternly, uncompromisingly, and forcefully, the importance of the death penalty, who takes a manly position also on self-defense, who is nowhere close to pacifism, but who views torture with unmitigated disgust and rejection. Can anyone imagine John Wayne torturing anyone? But I can certainly imagine him solemnly sentencing a murderer to death. And what about the Marine hymn? "First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean."
Regardless of what John Wayne would have countenanced, or more accurately, what his movie characters would have done, would, say, Robert E. Lee have approved of torturing anyone? Stonewall Jackson? Thomas Jefferson? George Washington?
Yet all of these men would, as Lydia says of Wayne, would have no objection to the death penalty where appropriate.
We live in a strange and inconsistent age; some of the same people on the right who support the death penalty for certain criminals are too squeamish to send illegal invaders home, or to close our borders, because that would be cruel and inhumane.
As far as the death penalty, this subject has come up here before. I notice something strange about the comments on Lydia's post at WWWtW: almost no one references or cites the Bible on the subject of the death penalty. Someone quotes G.K. Chesterton as an authority; I admire Chesterton as much as the next, and a quote of his adorns my sidebar. But he is not my authority on ethics and morals. Another commenter references C.S. Lewis; I would say the same of him that I say about Chesterton. But shouldn't a Christian look to the Bible to know God's will on that subject? Surely the absence of Biblical references is surprising on a site which espouses a Christian worldview -- or perhaps more accurately a Catholic viewpoint.
I think the question of the Church's teachings on capital punishment is an interesting topic which should be explored, although I won't attempt that here, as I am not a Catholic and I don't feel qualified to explore that. It's a subject for those who are Catholic or who are more knowledgeable about Catholic theology or doctrine than I. I do know, simply, that the Catholic Church used to favor capital punishment for certain crimes like murder, though I don't know how or why that position was reversed.
Even less do I know why Protestants, in some cases, are abandoning Biblical teaching on the death penalty. I was talking about capital punishment with a very conservatively-brought-up Christian recently, when we were discussing various crimes. This person told me that she was not sure about capital punishment because the Bible says ''vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'' I attempted to point out that this is in reference to personal matters, admonishing us not to take revenge on someone who has wronged us, just as with the 'turn the other cheek' admonition. But I fear it fell on deaf ears. She thinks capital punishment is revenge, and that it is a failure to show mercy and forgiveness. Again, I tried to point out that God is not only merciful but just and holy, not tolerating sin. She was unconvinced. And I know there are many more like her, who are now becoming more liberal and vacillating on issues like punishment in general. Many have been persuaded by years of exposure to the Oprah approach, and the emphasis on mental illness as the cause of crime, not human sin or evil. Punishment, according to that worldview, is backward; an enlightened society 'understands' and 'rehabilitates' its 'sick people'; it does not punish criminals. That is so 'medieval.'
Someone on the WWWtW thread opines that the tendency to favor harsh interrogation methods for terror suspects is driven by the tribal defense instinct; we feel under threat so we are willing to justify harsh measures to protect our own in wartime or other such extraordinary situations. I think that makes sense; perhaps it's why I am not inclined to feel sympathy for terror suspects or actual terrorists. I don't believe that the Islamic threat is a bogeyman created by the neocons or the media. On the other hand, neither do I see Islam as the primary threat, so I don't fit in with the mainstream right on this issue.
As for the capital punishment question, I think it will assume more importance as the ascendant far left tries its best to abolish capital punishment. They have been relentlessly working towards that goal for decades and they are sensing victory, so they will ratchet up their efforts to end it. And what with the liberalizing of many formerly conservative churches and denominations, I fear Christians will lose the will to defend the death penalty, and concede the moral battle to the left, probably feeling good about themselves as they do so. It's all part of the same phenomenon which causes the Christian 'conservatives' to reverse themselves on homosexuality, same-sex ''marriage'' or other such social issues. What's next?
Addendum
Here are some good defenses, from a Biblical point of view, of capital punishment. They do a very thorough job of examining many possible objections or questions from skeptics on the issue:
Stand to Reason: The Bible and Capital Punishment
by Gregory Koukl
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment and the Bible
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. You've said in the past that waterboarding in your opinion is torture. And torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?
MR. OBAMA: What I've said -- and I will repeat -- is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices.
I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do -- not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways -- in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.
I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British, during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "we don't torture," when the -- the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And -- and -- and the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people.
It corrodes the character of a country.''
I have not blogged about this waterboarding/torture issue, because it is rather a thorny subject with which I haven't concerned myself very much. On the one hand, I find little sympathy for terror suspects but on the other hand, I cannot and could not bring myself to share the Rush Limbaugh attitude that, say, the incidents at Abu Ghraib were 'no worse than a fraternity hazing', just no big deal. I remember when that scandal first broke I was still somewhat of a mainstream conservative in many respects, but broke ranks with the dittoheads on the subject of the War on Terror or the Iraq War specifically.
So is waterboarding 'torture'? I don't know. I don't have a clear-cut answer. I do see a danger of simply reacting, as most Republicans do, in knee-jerk fashion to the rantings of the left. In other words, if the Democrats are agin' something, we have to be for it, and not only for it, but rabidly so. If they think waterboarding is torture, we have to say it's not only not torture, but in fact a good and virtuous thing. I reject knee-jerk politics or partisanship.
Overall, though, this issue is not high up on my list of priorities. But here is an interesting discussion from What's Wrong With the World, where Lydia writes about the changing views among conservatives on the ethics of 'torture' and capital punishment.
The End of a Consensus
This post is going to be full of sociological claims about which I am uncertain. It's okay if you disagree with me about them, so long as you do so nicely.
First claim: Thirty-five years ago, most conservatives were both very strongly in favor of the death penalty and strongly opposed to torture, where "torture" would have included waterboarding, if they had been asked about it.
Second claim: This is no longer true today. Now, conservatives who are strongly in favor of the death penalty tend to be the same ones who support at least some forms of torture, and conservatives who are opposed to those same forms of torture tend to be, at least, uneasy about the death penalty rather than strongly in favor of it.
Suppose these are both true. What caused the change?'
There is a paradox here. I would say she is right that a generation or so ago, most conservatives were pro-capital punishment yet they would not have approved of torture, or of some of the 'interrogation methods' that are apparently being used in recent years. She asks why views have shifted among conservatives. It does appear that more conservatives now have misgivings about the death penalty, but there is also a much more cavalier attitude about 'torture' in interrogation. I found the approval of torture by many conservatives to be surprising when it first became apparent a few years ago. I wondered at the time why this was so; I always, even when I was liberal, had a picture of conservatives as being more gentlemanly and civilized than many liberals. I suppose the generation of 'conservatives' who were dittoheads or listeners to talk radio generally tended to be less genteel than the old-time conservatives.
This isn't your father's conservatism.
But why has there been a change, as Lydia asks?
Further down, she says:
There is something to my mind bracing and healthy about a person who recognizes, sternly, uncompromisingly, and forcefully, the importance of the death penalty, who takes a manly position also on self-defense, who is nowhere close to pacifism, but who views torture with unmitigated disgust and rejection. Can anyone imagine John Wayne torturing anyone? But I can certainly imagine him solemnly sentencing a murderer to death. And what about the Marine hymn? "First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean."
Regardless of what John Wayne would have countenanced, or more accurately, what his movie characters would have done, would, say, Robert E. Lee have approved of torturing anyone? Stonewall Jackson? Thomas Jefferson? George Washington?
Yet all of these men would, as Lydia says of Wayne, would have no objection to the death penalty where appropriate.
We live in a strange and inconsistent age; some of the same people on the right who support the death penalty for certain criminals are too squeamish to send illegal invaders home, or to close our borders, because that would be cruel and inhumane.
As far as the death penalty, this subject has come up here before. I notice something strange about the comments on Lydia's post at WWWtW: almost no one references or cites the Bible on the subject of the death penalty. Someone quotes G.K. Chesterton as an authority; I admire Chesterton as much as the next, and a quote of his adorns my sidebar. But he is not my authority on ethics and morals. Another commenter references C.S. Lewis; I would say the same of him that I say about Chesterton. But shouldn't a Christian look to the Bible to know God's will on that subject? Surely the absence of Biblical references is surprising on a site which espouses a Christian worldview -- or perhaps more accurately a Catholic viewpoint.
I think the question of the Church's teachings on capital punishment is an interesting topic which should be explored, although I won't attempt that here, as I am not a Catholic and I don't feel qualified to explore that. It's a subject for those who are Catholic or who are more knowledgeable about Catholic theology or doctrine than I. I do know, simply, that the Catholic Church used to favor capital punishment for certain crimes like murder, though I don't know how or why that position was reversed.
Even less do I know why Protestants, in some cases, are abandoning Biblical teaching on the death penalty. I was talking about capital punishment with a very conservatively-brought-up Christian recently, when we were discussing various crimes. This person told me that she was not sure about capital punishment because the Bible says ''vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.'' I attempted to point out that this is in reference to personal matters, admonishing us not to take revenge on someone who has wronged us, just as with the 'turn the other cheek' admonition. But I fear it fell on deaf ears. She thinks capital punishment is revenge, and that it is a failure to show mercy and forgiveness. Again, I tried to point out that God is not only merciful but just and holy, not tolerating sin. She was unconvinced. And I know there are many more like her, who are now becoming more liberal and vacillating on issues like punishment in general. Many have been persuaded by years of exposure to the Oprah approach, and the emphasis on mental illness as the cause of crime, not human sin or evil. Punishment, according to that worldview, is backward; an enlightened society 'understands' and 'rehabilitates' its 'sick people'; it does not punish criminals. That is so 'medieval.'
Someone on the WWWtW thread opines that the tendency to favor harsh interrogation methods for terror suspects is driven by the tribal defense instinct; we feel under threat so we are willing to justify harsh measures to protect our own in wartime or other such extraordinary situations. I think that makes sense; perhaps it's why I am not inclined to feel sympathy for terror suspects or actual terrorists. I don't believe that the Islamic threat is a bogeyman created by the neocons or the media. On the other hand, neither do I see Islam as the primary threat, so I don't fit in with the mainstream right on this issue.
As for the capital punishment question, I think it will assume more importance as the ascendant far left tries its best to abolish capital punishment. They have been relentlessly working towards that goal for decades and they are sensing victory, so they will ratchet up their efforts to end it. And what with the liberalizing of many formerly conservative churches and denominations, I fear Christians will lose the will to defend the death penalty, and concede the moral battle to the left, probably feeling good about themselves as they do so. It's all part of the same phenomenon which causes the Christian 'conservatives' to reverse themselves on homosexuality, same-sex ''marriage'' or other such social issues. What's next?
Addendum
Here are some good defenses, from a Biblical point of view, of capital punishment. They do a very thorough job of examining many possible objections or questions from skeptics on the issue:
Stand to Reason: The Bible and Capital Punishment
by Gregory Koukl
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment and the Bible
Labels: Capital Punishment, Conservatism, Creeping Liberalism, Crime, Death Penalty, Justice System, Liberal Christianity, Traditional Morality
0 comment Wednesday, October 29, 2014 | admin
It seems I've never written a post on this blog which is specifically about capital punishment. It's odd that I haven't because I feel strongly about it.
Every now and then, there is some mainstream media article attacking the death penalty, and making claims about our 'biased' justice system. Every now and then, like clockwork, Mexico -- Mexico, of all countries! -- has the colossal temerity to condemn us for executing criminals in our prisons, usually in Texas prisons. Well, if they only kept their killers at home, we might not execute so many of them, but that would not occur to them. Mexico, one of the most corrupt, dysfunctional, ramshackle countries in the Western Hemisphere, lecturing us on morality, and striking a superior pose. That really is humiliating.
This is something that really annoys me: the way the left uses the death penalty as an issue on which to lecture to us, from their moral high horse. I find it really rankling when countries like Canada or Ireland or France or wherever refuse to yield up one of our fugitive murderers, actually making said murderers into some kind of perverse heroes, as if they were political prisoners. Ireland and France, for instance, harbored the odious Ira Einhorn, whose girlfriend's body was found in a trunk in his apartment. To me, his guilt was apparent.
Why did some in other countries take up his dubious cause? To teach the U.S. a moral lesson, I think. We are so often seen as the heavies in the rest of the world.
For liberals, capital punishment is merely legal murder. We have quite a few American-born liberals who hold this opinion, but the reality is, most Americans are not opposed to the death penalty where appropriate. The rest of the world seems to be of a different mind.
Sarah, Maid of Albion writes an honest blog entry on the subject, confessing some ambivalence about it. I tried to make a case for it as best I could in a few short paragraphs in a comment, but it's near impossible to do so in a blog comment.
I respect that Sarah has written about her misgivings. I simply think that all too often, this subject is not discussed, and the media relentlessly presents only their side of things.
It seems that there is quite a rift between us and our British cousins when it comes to some of these issues like capital punishment and the right to bear arms. The difference is greater than in previous eras due to the greater influence of liberal/leftist ideas in Britain, and the weakened state of Christianity there. At one time, we were more of one mind with the British on such matters, but a wedge has been driven between us. Unfortunately, liberal ideas, and an increasingly enfeebled Christian establishment may soon cause Americans to lose our traditional perspective.
Fewer and fewer Americans are really conversant with their Bibles, though we still have a Biblically-based system of laws. The Bible lays out the reasons for the death penalty.
However it is now commonly believed even in America that the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' forbids the death penalty, and that the popular statement that 'all life is sacred' means that we must executing killers.
Really? Sparing the murderer denies the value of innocent life; the Bible clearly differentiates between 'shedding innocent blood' and shedding the blood of a mankiller, a murderer.
This distinction between innocent blood, and the blood of a murderer or otherwise heinous criminal, is something that few people today seem to grasp. Why is it so hard to understand? Somehow, in place of the old understandings, we have this new liberal nonsense about how ''all life is precious.'' Really? Where does that idea come from? The Bible makes clear that those who shed innocent blood, who murder, must forfeit their own lives. That is putting the ultimate value not on life per se, but innocent life.
There is a difference. The Bible, contrary to what Christian and secular liberals think, is all about discerning, making distinctions, dividing, separating, judging, choosing a side -- the side of justice and right. It is not about egalitarianism or moral equivalency or blurring differences into nonexistence.
Liberal egalitarian dogma insists that 'all life is sacred' (except, seemingly, that of the unborn); though killers' lives are put on a par with those of the innocents whose lives they take.
Here this website puts forth the usual liberal arguments against the death penalty, such as:
Value of human life: Human life has intrinsic value, even if a person has murdered another individual. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Live is so precious that nobody should ever be killed, even by the state.''
See above.
Other 'arguments' used to oppose death for murderers:
Unfairness: The mentally ill, poor, males, and racial minorities are over-represented among those executed. One pilot study of over 2 dozen convicted criminals on death row found that all had been so seriously abused during childhood that they probably all suffered from brain damage.''
Yes, and let's see some proof of this ubiquitous claim of abuse or 'brain damage.' Criminals always whine that they were themselves abused as children, so they can't help what they do. Never mind that many people who were abused in some way as children --- or as adults -- commit no crimes, and are law-abiding, decent people. Abuse does not guarantee a criminal career.
And again, I have an idea which will shock many post-moderns: criminals lie.
Is that so hard to imagine? Criminals are, as a group, guilty by definition of dishonesty or anti-social conduct. Lies are always part of their self-justifying, rationalizing, self-serving, narcissistic 'defense mechanisms.' They will, almost 100 percent of the time, try to deny everything, and when the evidence is against them, when they are backed into a corner, they try to deflect blame: somebody or something made them do it. They did not know what they were doing. They 'dissociated' and became temporarily insane. They had bad childhoods (which may be true, but does not excuse them), and they are often prone to blame their victims.
So nobody with an ounce of common sense should accept, at face value, unproven claims of childhood abuse on the part of criminals. They are prone to lie when it serves their needs.
But if it's the case that our justice system is so flawed, then let's scrap our whole justice system, by all means, because if it's not perfect we can't try or punish anyone, apparently. The ACLU and all other such criminal-friendly organizations are constantly bemoaning how blacks, I mean 'African-Americans' are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and punished at all levels. So they say. What is never considered, or even mentioned here, is that this may just be the case because blacks are more crime-prone (statistics certainly suggest this) and they simply commit more crimes. Yet the mainstream media perpetuate the idea of a 'racist justice system', apparently wishing us to believe that all races are 'equal' in the commission of crimes, which is absurd.
If anything, I would suggest that Whites, especially White males may be at a disadvantage. When a White man commits some heinous crime (which does happen; I don't deny that) there is no big media machine or racial advocacy apparatus that goes into overdrive to drum up sympathy and outrage over the 'unfairness' of his being arrested, convicted, or sentenced. There is no 'race card' to be played. There is no NAACP to march or to hold press conferences. There are no crying, hymn-singing, sign-carrying White liberals and black protesters when a White man is about to be executed. No, this only occurs when a person from a 'protected' group is convicted or sentenced or facing execution. So they have far more people advocating for them, at public expense ultimately, and they have a biased media on their side. Who is truly at a disadvantage here?
The website linked above even admits that there is a bias in favor of female criminals in general; it may seem surprising that they state this matter-of-factly, but not really, because race trumps all, even the feminist agenda:
Women convicted of murder are almost never executed; that is a penalty that is almost entirely reserved for men.''
I've mentioned that fact in a previous blog post. I am somewhat morbidly fascinated with women who commit violent crimes. I've followed many of these criminal cases, some involving women who kill, and it often seems as if they kill those nearest to them: spouses, children, siblings in some cases. Even parents.
Most of us still have a residual belief that women are the 'weaker' sex, the gentler sex, but there are always exceptions. The belief still persists, which makes many jurors think that surely something ''made'' the accused woman kill, because they ''know'' women would not do so without some extreme circumstance ''forcing'' her to do it, or 'driving her insane.'
So the justice system is imperfect. So is every human institution. It's an inbuilt thing. Does that mean we abolish courts, laws, and prisons because the occasional innocent person is accused, convicted, and in rare cases, executed?
And if there are a few innocent people convicted, I would wager there are many, many more guilty people who walk free, who suffer no punishment (because they have slick, shrewd, unscrupulous attorneys, or because a biased jury -- as in the OJ Simpson case -- gives them a pass). I am far more worried about the dangerous criminals who game the system being free to continue their crimes than I am about the few innocent ones being punished. It's absurd to expect perfection of our justice system, and I don't think we err on the side of harshness; just the opposite.
And why am I more concerned with the guilty ones being exonerated or getting obscenely light sentences? Because many innocent people suffer in some way at the hands of the guilty who go free. If an innocent man or woman is imprisoned, is there commensurate suffering? Certainly the wrongly convicted, and their family members would suffer, but how much worse is the suffering of an innocent victim of a murderer who should not have been free, and of course the suffering of the victim's family and friends.
I am more concerned about the fate of innocent people on the street who are prey to criminals than I am about possibly wrongfully convicting an accused. Of course we should try to minimize mistakes, but we are leaning far too much toward the lenient side, with predictable results. To fret and worry that we are executing innocent people while guilty and dangerous ones are running free is to have one's priorities upside down.
Here, I will recite the usual cliche that 'one innocent person convicted is too much', but when one guilty murderer or molester goes free, far more than one innocent person suffers, in most cases. And too often it is the most vulnerable who suffer.
One innocent victim of a wrongly-freed criminal is too much.
I think it is the stuff of Hollywood movies and of liberals' fevered fantasies to believe that innocent people, who have never done a wrong in their lives, are whisked off the streets, wrongly accused, railroaded by evil prosecutors, convicted by corrupt, biased juries and 'hanging judges,' and sentenced to death. I don't believe it's statistically likely that an innocent 'first offender' would end up on death row and be executed without a chance at justice.
If anything, the process drags on and on, as delays are sought, appeals are made, and years pass before a convicted murderer is executed, if ever. This process affords more than enough time for evidence to be gathered and presented to exonerate an innocent person, if he is truly innocent.
We hear so often, thanks to Hollywood's and the news media's bias, of some innocent man who is exonerated after years in prison, thanks to DNA evidence. But what of the cases in which the evidence proves the man's guilt after all? I suspect there are more of these cases, but the media plays these down.
Every prisoner claims to be an innocent victim. It's sensible to be skeptical of those claims rather than too credulous.
Another argument often made against executing criminals is that 'it's actually crueler to sentence them to life in prison; I would rather die than spend decades in prison, so we are letting them off easy to execute them." This argument has the advantage of trying to sound rather conservative, as if punishment for the murderer really is desirable, while paradoxically claiming that the death penalty is 'letting them off easy.'
If there were no chance of a killer serving life in prison escaping and victimizing others, which we know is not realistic, maybe there could be a case made for life in prison. But prisoners in maximum security prisons have escaped and have killed again. Think of the Texas Seven.
Others have managed to escape, or have been released by some bureaucratic incompetence or due to bad decisions by liberal judges, and have killed again. Google Kenneth McDuff.
No prison is escape-proof. Dangerous criminals whose lives are spared may one day be walking free and will almost surely do harm to more innocent people. When they do, whoever is responsible for their wrongful freedom should be held accountable for the harm they do.
And as for the supposedly harsher punishment of life in prison: maybe in the old days, the days of solitary confinement in a dank cell, fed on bread and water, or doing hard labor breaking rocks, this might, might have been true. Somewhat. Nowadays, prisons are generally not that bleak; prisoners have many amenities that some on the outside lack, such as cable TV, phone privileges, 'conjugal visits', gym equipment, and so on.
The idea that convicted killers spend time in a dark cell, alone with their supposed 'consciences', living out their lives tormented by remorse, is just straight out of a movie or a bad novel. Instead, the reality is the example of mass murderer Richard Speck in prison videotaping his 'parties' with his prison boyfriend. The videotape was shown, (the the least offensive parts, anyway) on national TV. Or think of Susan Smith, the mother who killed her children, seeking romance via personal ads while serving her sentence. Or Pam Smart, who had her husband killed, having liaisons with guards in prison. Or the Colorado 'black widow', whose name escapes me, who advertised that she would help an illegal get a green card via marriage, in exchange for companionship. I'm afraid that none of these people were sitting and repenting, weeping over their crimes, in prison. They were using and manipulating and having a good time, in many instances, at our expense.
We live in such a liberal age that even many who are in some respects conservative and who believe in being 'tough on crime', will shrink from approving the death penalty. We often hear things like 'if we kill criminals, we are just as bad as they are.' I think this kind of statement shows just how strong and pervasive liberal indoctrination is, and further, how far most people are from traditional understandings and interpretations of the Bible.
It is not just those "harsh" Protestant fundamentalists who traditionally supported the death penalty; the Catholic church followed the authority of Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine in approving of the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder.
If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgement. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Further, Thomas Aquinas also said that executing criminals 'protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on."
Surely this makes sense from a Christian point-of-view. If the criminal is truly repentant, I would think the pain of remorse, and the fear of doing the same things again, would make them prefer to pay the penalty.
One such criminal, who was a child-killer, requested the death penalty, and said
"I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone within the prison.''
Further, he said that he knew he would kill again, including killing prison guards, if he had the chance.
Predictably, liberals took this statement as proof that he was just a poor sick man who should be spared and 'helped.'
His statement contained another reason for execution: prisoners have killed, even in prison. Prisoners have been killed (remember Jeffrey Dahmer?) while in prison. Better, from the criminal's perspective, to have been executed than subjected to 'justice' at the hands of another killer in prison, surely.
The fewer killers in prison, the safer for those who work there, as well as for the less dangerous prisoners there. Why keep dangerous individuals alive indefinitely, where they can wreak more harm?
Those who are not Christians will not be persuaded by arguments from Scripture or from Christian scholars, but they should at least concede that our society, though it may have fallen away to some extent from its Christian roots, is centered on Christian morality. The weakening of Christianity, and the decline in familiarity with the Bible and our Western traditions, have meant that our society is becoming more incoherent, in the true sense of the word, every day. We can't just cobble together a crazy-quilt of do-it-yourself liberal 'morality' and expect our society to hold together, or to be a safe and stable place in which to live and raise our families. There have to be some agreed-upon values and standards, and liberalism has made that more and more difficult, as liberalism constructs a warped mirror-image of Christianity which even cites Scripture in the cause of some rather un-Biblical ideas.
Here's another thing which crosses my mind: the anti-death penalty forces often point the accusing finger at the United States as being a 'backward' country because of our (rather infrequent, in some states) application of the death penalty. They like to associate us with some of the more barbaric countries which still execute criminals. Guilt by association.
It's often said that America is the 'only first-world nation still executing people', or words to that effect.
Actually Japan still uses the death penalty, and I think they are actually more sensible about it than we are, though some would say they are too harsh also.
But if our rulers are to go through with this rumored shotgun marriage between the U.S. and Mexico and Canada, and if we ultimately move towards some kind of one world system, with the U.N. having some authority over us all, our justice system is finished. Mexico and Canada do not use the death penalty. We will be the red-headed stepchild made to conform to Mexico's and Canada's ideas of justice. The system of jurisprudence that grew up over the centuries in England and later here will not be part of any New World Order. It's one more part of our longstanding traditions that will be slated for extinction should we lose our sovereignty.
Our system is not perfect, but I don't see any other country as being a superior example to follow. Our forefathers took great care to give us our jurisprudence system and we should not jettison it lightly.
Every now and then, there is some mainstream media article attacking the death penalty, and making claims about our 'biased' justice system. Every now and then, like clockwork, Mexico -- Mexico, of all countries! -- has the colossal temerity to condemn us for executing criminals in our prisons, usually in Texas prisons. Well, if they only kept their killers at home, we might not execute so many of them, but that would not occur to them. Mexico, one of the most corrupt, dysfunctional, ramshackle countries in the Western Hemisphere, lecturing us on morality, and striking a superior pose. That really is humiliating.
This is something that really annoys me: the way the left uses the death penalty as an issue on which to lecture to us, from their moral high horse. I find it really rankling when countries like Canada or Ireland or France or wherever refuse to yield up one of our fugitive murderers, actually making said murderers into some kind of perverse heroes, as if they were political prisoners. Ireland and France, for instance, harbored the odious Ira Einhorn, whose girlfriend's body was found in a trunk in his apartment. To me, his guilt was apparent.
Why did some in other countries take up his dubious cause? To teach the U.S. a moral lesson, I think. We are so often seen as the heavies in the rest of the world.
For liberals, capital punishment is merely legal murder. We have quite a few American-born liberals who hold this opinion, but the reality is, most Americans are not opposed to the death penalty where appropriate. The rest of the world seems to be of a different mind.
Sarah, Maid of Albion writes an honest blog entry on the subject, confessing some ambivalence about it. I tried to make a case for it as best I could in a few short paragraphs in a comment, but it's near impossible to do so in a blog comment.
I respect that Sarah has written about her misgivings. I simply think that all too often, this subject is not discussed, and the media relentlessly presents only their side of things.
It seems that there is quite a rift between us and our British cousins when it comes to some of these issues like capital punishment and the right to bear arms. The difference is greater than in previous eras due to the greater influence of liberal/leftist ideas in Britain, and the weakened state of Christianity there. At one time, we were more of one mind with the British on such matters, but a wedge has been driven between us. Unfortunately, liberal ideas, and an increasingly enfeebled Christian establishment may soon cause Americans to lose our traditional perspective.
Fewer and fewer Americans are really conversant with their Bibles, though we still have a Biblically-based system of laws. The Bible lays out the reasons for the death penalty.
However it is now commonly believed even in America that the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' forbids the death penalty, and that the popular statement that 'all life is sacred' means that we must executing killers.
Really? Sparing the murderer denies the value of innocent life; the Bible clearly differentiates between 'shedding innocent blood' and shedding the blood of a mankiller, a murderer.
This distinction between innocent blood, and the blood of a murderer or otherwise heinous criminal, is something that few people today seem to grasp. Why is it so hard to understand? Somehow, in place of the old understandings, we have this new liberal nonsense about how ''all life is precious.'' Really? Where does that idea come from? The Bible makes clear that those who shed innocent blood, who murder, must forfeit their own lives. That is putting the ultimate value not on life per se, but innocent life.
There is a difference. The Bible, contrary to what Christian and secular liberals think, is all about discerning, making distinctions, dividing, separating, judging, choosing a side -- the side of justice and right. It is not about egalitarianism or moral equivalency or blurring differences into nonexistence.
Liberal egalitarian dogma insists that 'all life is sacred' (except, seemingly, that of the unborn); though killers' lives are put on a par with those of the innocents whose lives they take.
Here this website puts forth the usual liberal arguments against the death penalty, such as:
Value of human life: Human life has intrinsic value, even if a person has murdered another individual. The death penalty denies the sacredness of human life. Live is so precious that nobody should ever be killed, even by the state.''
See above.
Other 'arguments' used to oppose death for murderers:
Unfairness: The mentally ill, poor, males, and racial minorities are over-represented among those executed. One pilot study of over 2 dozen convicted criminals on death row found that all had been so seriously abused during childhood that they probably all suffered from brain damage.''
Yes, and let's see some proof of this ubiquitous claim of abuse or 'brain damage.' Criminals always whine that they were themselves abused as children, so they can't help what they do. Never mind that many people who were abused in some way as children --- or as adults -- commit no crimes, and are law-abiding, decent people. Abuse does not guarantee a criminal career.
And again, I have an idea which will shock many post-moderns: criminals lie.
Is that so hard to imagine? Criminals are, as a group, guilty by definition of dishonesty or anti-social conduct. Lies are always part of their self-justifying, rationalizing, self-serving, narcissistic 'defense mechanisms.' They will, almost 100 percent of the time, try to deny everything, and when the evidence is against them, when they are backed into a corner, they try to deflect blame: somebody or something made them do it. They did not know what they were doing. They 'dissociated' and became temporarily insane. They had bad childhoods (which may be true, but does not excuse them), and they are often prone to blame their victims.
So nobody with an ounce of common sense should accept, at face value, unproven claims of childhood abuse on the part of criminals. They are prone to lie when it serves their needs.
But if it's the case that our justice system is so flawed, then let's scrap our whole justice system, by all means, because if it's not perfect we can't try or punish anyone, apparently. The ACLU and all other such criminal-friendly organizations are constantly bemoaning how blacks, I mean 'African-Americans' are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and punished at all levels. So they say. What is never considered, or even mentioned here, is that this may just be the case because blacks are more crime-prone (statistics certainly suggest this) and they simply commit more crimes. Yet the mainstream media perpetuate the idea of a 'racist justice system', apparently wishing us to believe that all races are 'equal' in the commission of crimes, which is absurd.
If anything, I would suggest that Whites, especially White males may be at a disadvantage. When a White man commits some heinous crime (which does happen; I don't deny that) there is no big media machine or racial advocacy apparatus that goes into overdrive to drum up sympathy and outrage over the 'unfairness' of his being arrested, convicted, or sentenced. There is no 'race card' to be played. There is no NAACP to march or to hold press conferences. There are no crying, hymn-singing, sign-carrying White liberals and black protesters when a White man is about to be executed. No, this only occurs when a person from a 'protected' group is convicted or sentenced or facing execution. So they have far more people advocating for them, at public expense ultimately, and they have a biased media on their side. Who is truly at a disadvantage here?
The website linked above even admits that there is a bias in favor of female criminals in general; it may seem surprising that they state this matter-of-factly, but not really, because race trumps all, even the feminist agenda:
Women convicted of murder are almost never executed; that is a penalty that is almost entirely reserved for men.''
I've mentioned that fact in a previous blog post. I am somewhat morbidly fascinated with women who commit violent crimes. I've followed many of these criminal cases, some involving women who kill, and it often seems as if they kill those nearest to them: spouses, children, siblings in some cases. Even parents.
Most of us still have a residual belief that women are the 'weaker' sex, the gentler sex, but there are always exceptions. The belief still persists, which makes many jurors think that surely something ''made'' the accused woman kill, because they ''know'' women would not do so without some extreme circumstance ''forcing'' her to do it, or 'driving her insane.'
So the justice system is imperfect. So is every human institution. It's an inbuilt thing. Does that mean we abolish courts, laws, and prisons because the occasional innocent person is accused, convicted, and in rare cases, executed?
And if there are a few innocent people convicted, I would wager there are many, many more guilty people who walk free, who suffer no punishment (because they have slick, shrewd, unscrupulous attorneys, or because a biased jury -- as in the OJ Simpson case -- gives them a pass). I am far more worried about the dangerous criminals who game the system being free to continue their crimes than I am about the few innocent ones being punished. It's absurd to expect perfection of our justice system, and I don't think we err on the side of harshness; just the opposite.
And why am I more concerned with the guilty ones being exonerated or getting obscenely light sentences? Because many innocent people suffer in some way at the hands of the guilty who go free. If an innocent man or woman is imprisoned, is there commensurate suffering? Certainly the wrongly convicted, and their family members would suffer, but how much worse is the suffering of an innocent victim of a murderer who should not have been free, and of course the suffering of the victim's family and friends.
I am more concerned about the fate of innocent people on the street who are prey to criminals than I am about possibly wrongfully convicting an accused. Of course we should try to minimize mistakes, but we are leaning far too much toward the lenient side, with predictable results. To fret and worry that we are executing innocent people while guilty and dangerous ones are running free is to have one's priorities upside down.
Here, I will recite the usual cliche that 'one innocent person convicted is too much', but when one guilty murderer or molester goes free, far more than one innocent person suffers, in most cases. And too often it is the most vulnerable who suffer.
One innocent victim of a wrongly-freed criminal is too much.
I think it is the stuff of Hollywood movies and of liberals' fevered fantasies to believe that innocent people, who have never done a wrong in their lives, are whisked off the streets, wrongly accused, railroaded by evil prosecutors, convicted by corrupt, biased juries and 'hanging judges,' and sentenced to death. I don't believe it's statistically likely that an innocent 'first offender' would end up on death row and be executed without a chance at justice.
If anything, the process drags on and on, as delays are sought, appeals are made, and years pass before a convicted murderer is executed, if ever. This process affords more than enough time for evidence to be gathered and presented to exonerate an innocent person, if he is truly innocent.
We hear so often, thanks to Hollywood's and the news media's bias, of some innocent man who is exonerated after years in prison, thanks to DNA evidence. But what of the cases in which the evidence proves the man's guilt after all? I suspect there are more of these cases, but the media plays these down.
Every prisoner claims to be an innocent victim. It's sensible to be skeptical of those claims rather than too credulous.
Another argument often made against executing criminals is that 'it's actually crueler to sentence them to life in prison; I would rather die than spend decades in prison, so we are letting them off easy to execute them." This argument has the advantage of trying to sound rather conservative, as if punishment for the murderer really is desirable, while paradoxically claiming that the death penalty is 'letting them off easy.'
If there were no chance of a killer serving life in prison escaping and victimizing others, which we know is not realistic, maybe there could be a case made for life in prison. But prisoners in maximum security prisons have escaped and have killed again. Think of the Texas Seven.
Others have managed to escape, or have been released by some bureaucratic incompetence or due to bad decisions by liberal judges, and have killed again. Google Kenneth McDuff.
No prison is escape-proof. Dangerous criminals whose lives are spared may one day be walking free and will almost surely do harm to more innocent people. When they do, whoever is responsible for their wrongful freedom should be held accountable for the harm they do.
And as for the supposedly harsher punishment of life in prison: maybe in the old days, the days of solitary confinement in a dank cell, fed on bread and water, or doing hard labor breaking rocks, this might, might have been true. Somewhat. Nowadays, prisons are generally not that bleak; prisoners have many amenities that some on the outside lack, such as cable TV, phone privileges, 'conjugal visits', gym equipment, and so on.
The idea that convicted killers spend time in a dark cell, alone with their supposed 'consciences', living out their lives tormented by remorse, is just straight out of a movie or a bad novel. Instead, the reality is the example of mass murderer Richard Speck in prison videotaping his 'parties' with his prison boyfriend. The videotape was shown, (the the least offensive parts, anyway) on national TV. Or think of Susan Smith, the mother who killed her children, seeking romance via personal ads while serving her sentence. Or Pam Smart, who had her husband killed, having liaisons with guards in prison. Or the Colorado 'black widow', whose name escapes me, who advertised that she would help an illegal get a green card via marriage, in exchange for companionship. I'm afraid that none of these people were sitting and repenting, weeping over their crimes, in prison. They were using and manipulating and having a good time, in many instances, at our expense.
We live in such a liberal age that even many who are in some respects conservative and who believe in being 'tough on crime', will shrink from approving the death penalty. We often hear things like 'if we kill criminals, we are just as bad as they are.' I think this kind of statement shows just how strong and pervasive liberal indoctrination is, and further, how far most people are from traditional understandings and interpretations of the Bible.
It is not just those "harsh" Protestant fundamentalists who traditionally supported the death penalty; the Catholic church followed the authority of Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine in approving of the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder.
If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgement. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Further, Thomas Aquinas also said that executing criminals 'protects those who are undergoing capital punishment from the harm they may suffer . . . through increased sinning which might continue if their life went on."
Surely this makes sense from a Christian point-of-view. If the criminal is truly repentant, I would think the pain of remorse, and the fear of doing the same things again, would make them prefer to pay the penalty.
One such criminal, who was a child-killer, requested the death penalty, and said
"I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone within the prison.''
Further, he said that he knew he would kill again, including killing prison guards, if he had the chance.
Predictably, liberals took this statement as proof that he was just a poor sick man who should be spared and 'helped.'
His statement contained another reason for execution: prisoners have killed, even in prison. Prisoners have been killed (remember Jeffrey Dahmer?) while in prison. Better, from the criminal's perspective, to have been executed than subjected to 'justice' at the hands of another killer in prison, surely.
The fewer killers in prison, the safer for those who work there, as well as for the less dangerous prisoners there. Why keep dangerous individuals alive indefinitely, where they can wreak more harm?
Those who are not Christians will not be persuaded by arguments from Scripture or from Christian scholars, but they should at least concede that our society, though it may have fallen away to some extent from its Christian roots, is centered on Christian morality. The weakening of Christianity, and the decline in familiarity with the Bible and our Western traditions, have meant that our society is becoming more incoherent, in the true sense of the word, every day. We can't just cobble together a crazy-quilt of do-it-yourself liberal 'morality' and expect our society to hold together, or to be a safe and stable place in which to live and raise our families. There have to be some agreed-upon values and standards, and liberalism has made that more and more difficult, as liberalism constructs a warped mirror-image of Christianity which even cites Scripture in the cause of some rather un-Biblical ideas.
Here's another thing which crosses my mind: the anti-death penalty forces often point the accusing finger at the United States as being a 'backward' country because of our (rather infrequent, in some states) application of the death penalty. They like to associate us with some of the more barbaric countries which still execute criminals. Guilt by association.
It's often said that America is the 'only first-world nation still executing people', or words to that effect.
Actually Japan still uses the death penalty, and I think they are actually more sensible about it than we are, though some would say they are too harsh also.
But if our rulers are to go through with this rumored shotgun marriage between the U.S. and Mexico and Canada, and if we ultimately move towards some kind of one world system, with the U.N. having some authority over us all, our justice system is finished. Mexico and Canada do not use the death penalty. We will be the red-headed stepchild made to conform to Mexico's and Canada's ideas of justice. The system of jurisprudence that grew up over the centuries in England and later here will not be part of any New World Order. It's one more part of our longstanding traditions that will be slated for extinction should we lose our sovereignty.
Our system is not perfect, but I don't see any other country as being a superior example to follow. Our forefathers took great care to give us our jurisprudence system and we should not jettison it lightly.
Labels: Capital Punishment, Justice System, Media Bias, Western Civilization, Western Culture
0 comment Monday, July 21, 2014 | admin
First, the story being discussed here has been posted on a number of blogs and forums, and has occasioned a lot of discussion, most of it of the garden variety shock and outrage that accompanies -- and should accompany -- any discussion of such acts.
However, the linked discussion begins with a reasonable blog entry -- at least until I hit this sentence:
For that matter, while the possibility of the execution of an innocent man troubles me, I don't regard this consideration as very telling.''
Execution? Innocent man? I'm lost here, I confess.
First, there was no 'execution' in the legal sense. The man was stopped in the act of committing horrible violence on a child, violence which was real enough and serious enough to cause the child's death. He had to be stopped. As for his possibly being 'an innocent man' -- good grief; there were several witnesses to this thing, and it seems the police arrived on the violent scene in progress.
It would seem that there was little doubt about his 'innocence.' So I don't understand the blogger's mention of that as a possibility.
The discussion that follows degenerates into a 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' exercise in splitting hairs over capital punishment and whether it is or is not moral, or Christian, or fair, or whatever, and whether concern for 'potentially innocent' suspects should be given equal consideration alongside victims.
The exasperatingly pedantic tone of the discussion adds to the frustration it inspired in me.
Another thing: the discussion (and many of the news stories reporting the incident in question) made no mention of the name of the suspect. Just for the record, his name was Hispanic (Sergio Aguilar) and it may be he was illegal, but that is not the main point. His heritage and culture are not inconsequential, as far as I'm concerned. Why? Because culture plays a part in how we comport ourselves individually and in groups. And culture is linked with race. Certain groups are demonstrably more likely to commit violent crimes. That's something most oblivious 'I'm no racist' Americans need to understand; the fact that we are becoming a Hispanic country will not just mean more good Mexican restaurants. It will mean our country will come to resemble Mexico more and more, and this kind of thing is part of it.
But that's not the point of this post. I'm more troubled by the fact that even among conservatives, or 'conservatives', there seems to be a moral obtuseness that hints at how much liberal ideas have filtered into the conservative discourse. This fussing over whether the mad-dog individual beating the child was 'innocent', whether in a hair-splitting legalistic sense, or in an absolute moral sense, should not be taking place. At all. Especially not among conservatives.
30 years ago, maybe even 20 years ago, I cannot imagine those questions being raised and fretted over except among hyper-liberals.
Not so long ago, it was simply a given that should citizens or police come upon such an act happening, the attacker would need to be stopped, by whatever means worked, up to and including lethal force. The fretting about how someone could have stopped him without killing him is just decadent.
I suppose, in a way, this is a predictable side-effect of years of propaganda on the right about how ''all (human) life is sacred.'' Now, this line seems to have come into use as a weapon against the pro-abort crowd. However, the liberals, while not deeming unborn babies' lives to be sacred, certainly seem to think that all criminals (or suspects') lives are sacred. But was this idea of all human life being sacred a commonly-held idea in the old America? I honestly don't remember ever hearing it until after abortion became legalized.
Does the Bible say that 'all human life is sacred'? It certainly holds that all is created by God, and implies that all beings are created for a purpose. Since God is the Creator and giver of life, it isn't ours to decide arbitrarily to end a life, our own included, unless certain circumstances existed. The Bible commands capital punishment for murder. And here, the liberal will say, regarding the situation of the man beating the baby, that 'he hadn't been tried or convicted.' Yes, but under Biblical law, someone threatening innocent life is to be stopped from taking life, by force if need be.
The Bible always differentiates between shedding innocent blood and the blood of a criminal, or even someone in the act of harming another, who has not yet been 'tried and convicted'.
I have never been able to fathom the obtuseness of many liberals who cannot or will not see the difference between using lethal force to stop a dangerous attacker, or executing a killer, and taking an innocent life. It's as though most of our people in the West have become morally blinded.
Distinctions are important; how can we have reached the point where we seriously think that it may be morally wrong to kill a man committing such a heinous act? Can we no longer discern between killing someone for a valid reason, in extreme circumstances where a life is at stake, and wanton murder? Have we gotten too squeamish and too timid to deal with moral absolutes, and thus resort to shilly-shallying over life-and-death matters? I think we have, and I think this is manifest in many areas of our society these days. For example, our reluctance to defend our borders. Nobody wants to be unfair to these nice people who just come here to work and make a better living for themselves and their children. Like Mr. Aguilar, perhaps? Nobody wants to believe that among those nice, hard-working church-going, pious immigrants that there are some like Mr. Aguilar. We must always presume the best of everybody, the evidence notwithstanding.
We refuse to take tough stands and make hard choices. We would rather stand by and wring our hands and discuss fine moral points about the ethics of any possible action we might take to stop whatever evil we are up against. Sometimes, we just have to act and not stop to analyze and shilly-shally. (And by the way, that word comes from the phrase 'Shall I? Shall I?" The favorite phrase of the hesitant and the timid).
Sometimes we don't have the luxury of being timid and self-critical. Sometimes we have to 'act, act in the living present.'
But as for the question of killing a suspect, it's unfortunate, I think, that the English translation of the Ten Commandments uses the phrase 'thou shalt not kill' when the original phrase meant 'thou shalt not murder'. Hence the moral confusion of many about capital punishment. Every time some killer is executed and the bleeding-hearts gather around to protest and weep crocodile tears, the protesters carry signs saying 'Thou Shalt Not Kill.' And someone lectures us, saying that if we execute killers, we are 'no better than they are.' Such people are moral imbeciles.
As for the case of the man, Aguilar, murdering the child, I can only say that anybody who is not outraged and sickened by his actions does not deserve the label of 'civilized human being'. Anybody who wants to split hairs about whether or not he may have been 'innocent' has his priorities exactly backwards.
However, the linked discussion begins with a reasonable blog entry -- at least until I hit this sentence:
For that matter, while the possibility of the execution of an innocent man troubles me, I don't regard this consideration as very telling.''
Execution? Innocent man? I'm lost here, I confess.
First, there was no 'execution' in the legal sense. The man was stopped in the act of committing horrible violence on a child, violence which was real enough and serious enough to cause the child's death. He had to be stopped. As for his possibly being 'an innocent man' -- good grief; there were several witnesses to this thing, and it seems the police arrived on the violent scene in progress.
It would seem that there was little doubt about his 'innocence.' So I don't understand the blogger's mention of that as a possibility.
The discussion that follows degenerates into a 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' exercise in splitting hairs over capital punishment and whether it is or is not moral, or Christian, or fair, or whatever, and whether concern for 'potentially innocent' suspects should be given equal consideration alongside victims.
The exasperatingly pedantic tone of the discussion adds to the frustration it inspired in me.
Another thing: the discussion (and many of the news stories reporting the incident in question) made no mention of the name of the suspect. Just for the record, his name was Hispanic (Sergio Aguilar) and it may be he was illegal, but that is not the main point. His heritage and culture are not inconsequential, as far as I'm concerned. Why? Because culture plays a part in how we comport ourselves individually and in groups. And culture is linked with race. Certain groups are demonstrably more likely to commit violent crimes. That's something most oblivious 'I'm no racist' Americans need to understand; the fact that we are becoming a Hispanic country will not just mean more good Mexican restaurants. It will mean our country will come to resemble Mexico more and more, and this kind of thing is part of it.
But that's not the point of this post. I'm more troubled by the fact that even among conservatives, or 'conservatives', there seems to be a moral obtuseness that hints at how much liberal ideas have filtered into the conservative discourse. This fussing over whether the mad-dog individual beating the child was 'innocent', whether in a hair-splitting legalistic sense, or in an absolute moral sense, should not be taking place. At all. Especially not among conservatives.
30 years ago, maybe even 20 years ago, I cannot imagine those questions being raised and fretted over except among hyper-liberals.
Not so long ago, it was simply a given that should citizens or police come upon such an act happening, the attacker would need to be stopped, by whatever means worked, up to and including lethal force. The fretting about how someone could have stopped him without killing him is just decadent.
I suppose, in a way, this is a predictable side-effect of years of propaganda on the right about how ''all (human) life is sacred.'' Now, this line seems to have come into use as a weapon against the pro-abort crowd. However, the liberals, while not deeming unborn babies' lives to be sacred, certainly seem to think that all criminals (or suspects') lives are sacred. But was this idea of all human life being sacred a commonly-held idea in the old America? I honestly don't remember ever hearing it until after abortion became legalized.
Does the Bible say that 'all human life is sacred'? It certainly holds that all is created by God, and implies that all beings are created for a purpose. Since God is the Creator and giver of life, it isn't ours to decide arbitrarily to end a life, our own included, unless certain circumstances existed. The Bible commands capital punishment for murder. And here, the liberal will say, regarding the situation of the man beating the baby, that 'he hadn't been tried or convicted.' Yes, but under Biblical law, someone threatening innocent life is to be stopped from taking life, by force if need be.
The Bible always differentiates between shedding innocent blood and the blood of a criminal, or even someone in the act of harming another, who has not yet been 'tried and convicted'.
I have never been able to fathom the obtuseness of many liberals who cannot or will not see the difference between using lethal force to stop a dangerous attacker, or executing a killer, and taking an innocent life. It's as though most of our people in the West have become morally blinded.
Distinctions are important; how can we have reached the point where we seriously think that it may be morally wrong to kill a man committing such a heinous act? Can we no longer discern between killing someone for a valid reason, in extreme circumstances where a life is at stake, and wanton murder? Have we gotten too squeamish and too timid to deal with moral absolutes, and thus resort to shilly-shallying over life-and-death matters? I think we have, and I think this is manifest in many areas of our society these days. For example, our reluctance to defend our borders. Nobody wants to be unfair to these nice people who just come here to work and make a better living for themselves and their children. Like Mr. Aguilar, perhaps? Nobody wants to believe that among those nice, hard-working church-going, pious immigrants that there are some like Mr. Aguilar. We must always presume the best of everybody, the evidence notwithstanding.
We refuse to take tough stands and make hard choices. We would rather stand by and wring our hands and discuss fine moral points about the ethics of any possible action we might take to stop whatever evil we are up against. Sometimes, we just have to act and not stop to analyze and shilly-shally. (And by the way, that word comes from the phrase 'Shall I? Shall I?" The favorite phrase of the hesitant and the timid).
Sometimes we don't have the luxury of being timid and self-critical. Sometimes we have to 'act, act in the living present.'
But as for the question of killing a suspect, it's unfortunate, I think, that the English translation of the Ten Commandments uses the phrase 'thou shalt not kill' when the original phrase meant 'thou shalt not murder'. Hence the moral confusion of many about capital punishment. Every time some killer is executed and the bleeding-hearts gather around to protest and weep crocodile tears, the protesters carry signs saying 'Thou Shalt Not Kill.' And someone lectures us, saying that if we execute killers, we are 'no better than they are.' Such people are moral imbeciles.
As for the case of the man, Aguilar, murdering the child, I can only say that anybody who is not outraged and sickened by his actions does not deserve the label of 'civilized human being'. Anybody who wants to split hairs about whether or not he may have been 'innocent' has his priorities exactly backwards.
Labels: Capital Punishment, Crime, Justice System, Traditional Morality