The death penalty in the USA

[bmyers]

Originally posted by Turbo
BMyers, you are sick to suggest that adultery is as trivial as jaywalking.

Actually, I didn't. Surely you have heard of such a thing as "hyperbole"?

The point is not that I "suggested" that adultery is as trivial as jaywalking, but that you suggested that it is as serious as murder from the point of view of our society (which would be the body responsible for handing out the punishment you're talking about). I for one would like to see you justify that position, somewhat beyond "it's in the Bible."

You may also recall at least one somewhat famous example of a convicted adulterer being forgiven rather than killed...

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by wholearmor
All theocracies are not created equal.

But all that have ever been implemented wind up the same, and for the same reasons. They get highjacked by this group or that group, which winds up enforcing their narrow view of what their particular religion is supposedly saying, and become oppressive and totalitarian. No, thanks; our country was set up specifically to avoid such an outcome, among others.

But don't just take my word for it - read some history. I don't think you'll be able to find a single example of a theocracy that anyone here would particularly want to live under.

 

[wholearmor]

Originally posted by bmyers
But all that have ever been implemented wind up the same, and for the same reasons. They get highjacked by this group or that group, which winds up enforcing their narrow view of what their particular religion is supposedly saying, and become oppressive and totalitarian. No, thanks; our country was set up specifically to avoid such an outcome, among others.

But don't just take my word for it - read some history. I don't think you'll be able to find a single example of a theocracy that anyone here would particularly want to live under.

And our Democratic Republic isn't being hijacked?

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by BillyBob
Yeah BM, that was pretty stupid. Jaywalking costs society wasted lives?

Why else would we have jaywalking laws, if not in the interests of pedestrian safety?

But please read the other responses before responding to this one, and let's try to get the thread back to a more serious discussion. Honestly, do you really think this example was meant to be taken literally? Or did you simply have no means of responding to the actual point?

 

[Turbo]

Originally posted by bmyers
Actually, I didn't. Surely you have heard of such a thing as "hyperbole"?

You said "jaywalking costs society far more each year in terms of needless deaths, wasted lives, etc.."

The point is not that I "suggested" that adultery is as trivial as jaywalking, but that you suggested that it is as serious as murder from the point of view of our society (which would be the body responsible for handing out the punishment you're talking about). I for one would like to see you justify that position, somewhat beyond "it's in the Bible."

Adultery is one of the most hurtful and destructive things one can do to one's spouse, one's self, and one's family. Furthermore, adultery often motivates people to commit other crimes like murder. If you aren't aware of that, then you haven't been paying attention to news reports about murders. People entering marriage enter a covenant in which they voluntarily vow to be faithful to their spouse. I don't see any reason why there should be no accountability for breaking that covenant.

You may also recall at least one somewhat famous example of a convicted adulterer being forgiven rather than killed...

So what? God has the authority to forgive men for their crimes. The government does not.

God has also forgiven murderers like Paul and David. Does that mean that murder should not be a crime?

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by Turbo
Adultery is one of the most hurtful and destructive things one can do to one's spouse, one's self, and one's family. Furthermore, adultery often motivates people to commit other crimes like murder.

By this logic, we should impose the death penalty on anything that one can do that is "hurtful," or that might motivate one to commit murder. You're going to be covering an awful lot of ground with those...

If you aren't aware of that, then you haven't been paying attention to news reports about murders. People entering marriage enter a covenant in which they voluntarily vow to be faithful to their spouse. I don't see any reason why there should be no accountability for breaking that covenant.

Sorry, but this thread isn't about simple "accountability" - it is about one particular form of accountability, one which (a) cannot be undone if error is found to have happened and (b) which must be judged and implemented by human systems of justice - which are, by definition, imperfect. It is for these reasons that we do NOT impose the death penalty for any but the very most serious of crimes, and even then (hopefully) when there is no doubt regarding certainty of guilt.

So what? God has the authority to forgive men for their crimes. The government does not.

Sorry, but you may recall that in the case in question, the "government" was prevented from carrying out its sentence. If this were just a case of divine forgiveness, that could easily have been granted without interfering with the execution. I continue to be amazed how often the obvious point of this story is missed.

God has also forgiven murderers like Paul and David. Does that mean that murder should not be a crime?

Again, we are not talking about what should and should not be a crime - we are talking about what constitutes suitable punishment FOR a given crime. Please try to stay on that subject.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by wholearmor
And our Democratic Republic isn't being hijacked?

And the relevance of this to the subject at hand is what, exactly? Oh, wait - perhaps I see. You're arguing that since you believe it's already being hijacked in one direction, others would be perfectly justified in hijacking it in another. The ever-popular "we keep piling on as many wrongs as are required to make a right" theory of government...

 

[Turbo]

bmyers,
Is capital punishment appropriate for convicted murderers?

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by Turbo
bmyers,
Is capital punishment appropriate for convicted murderers?

Yes, I favor maintaining the death penalty for the current classes of crimes for which it is an option.

 

[Turbo]

OK, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't trying to convince someone that adultery is worthy of death who doesn't even think murder is worthy of death.

 

[Turbo]

I split the discussion of Paul Hill's execution. It's now in the Current Events forum in a thread called Abortionist's murderer executed.

 

[taoist]

Thanks for the link, Turbo.

 

[Turbo]

You're welcome. I thought it would be best to start that conversation in its own thread, so it wouldn't be buried 10 pages deep. It a good topic for discussion, and I'm glad bmyers brought it up.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by Turbo
You're welcome. I thought it would be best to start that conversation in its own thread, so it wouldn't be buried 10 pages deep. It a good topic for discussion, and I'm glad bmyers brought it up.

Turbo, I appreciate that, but I REALLY wish you had not started that new thread with my post. I was pretty explicit in my statement that I didn't want this to turn into Yet Another abortion debate, and now it looks like I've started a thread which is exactly that. I seriously doubt that I'll be participating in that one - which is going to look very odd, since the thread is now (wrongfully) credited to me. In the future, I think it might be better if you used excerpts from a post, but started a new thread on your own, OK?

 

[Poly]

Originally posted by bmyers
Turbo, I appreciate that, but I REALLY wish you had not started that new thread with my post. I was pretty explicit in my statement that I didn't want this to turn into Yet Another abortion debate, and now it looks like I've started a thread which is exactly that. I seriously doubt that I'll be participating in that one - which is going to look very odd, since the thread is now (wrongfully) credited to me. In the future, I think it might be better if you used excerpts from a post, but started a new thread on your own, OK?

You mean you didn't really start that thread? I'd given you credit for coming up with such a great thread and here we see you didn't even start it.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by Turbo
You're welcome. I thought it would be best to start that conversation in its own thread, so it wouldn't be buried 10 pages deep. It a good topic for discussion, and I'm glad bmyers brought it up.

I'm glad you think it's a good topic, but I can't agree that it should be in its own thread. That new thread is rapidly degenerating into the abortion debate that I wished to avoid. So I would very much like to bring that discussion back here, since the intention WAS to discuss the death penalty, NOT abortion.

With that in mind, let me ask again:

I would be very interested in getting the reaction of some of those on both sides of this issue to an item that has been in the news the past few days.

This evening (Wednesday, Sept. 3), convicted murderer Paul Hill will be executed by lethal injection by the State of Florida. Hill was sentenced to death for the 1994 shotgun killing of Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard, James Barrett, outside a Pensacola abortion clinic.

Given that this has resulted in a good deal of commentary from those on both sides of the abortion issue - itself a highly-charged issue with strong ties to various religious perspectives - I have to ask if this particular case has any impact on opinions regarding the death penalty itself, for those on either side of this discussion.

(I would also hope that this could be discussed in a reasonably calm, rational fashion; it is certainly not my intent to stir up a lot of name-calling, or to have this thread degenerate into yet another debate on abortion rather than on capital punishment.)

 

[LightSon]

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I’m not sure how far this axiom applies to social and moral actions. Here’s another maxim. When the government fails to act justly, it gives impetus for its citizens to become criminals.

How moral is it to allow women to kill their unborn children under the guise of “freedom of choice?” I have no problem with people having control over their own bodies, but in the cases of abortion, there are now 2 peoples lives to consider. I can understand how people like Hill can get their emotions all enflamed and their spiritual center askew over this issue. I cannot understand how a mother could selfishly eviscerate her own offspring.

If someone were poised to murder my daughter, I would feel justified in using deadly force to stop them. What if someone was similarly about to kill my neighbor’s daughter? Same solution. I should be able to bring some force to bear to stop them. The one significant difference in the Hill story, is that the abortionist was not poised to kill anybody. Hill killed preemptively, without any immediate danger to anyone that he might otherwise be protecting.

Yes I can see how Hill got his thinking on this issue muddled. What he did was murder and his execution was appropriate, in my opinion. But Hill’s crime is an expected backlash to a government which has failed to protect the lives of the very weakest of us. I wonder who God will call on to give an account for the 10s of thousands of infanticides in this great US of A.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by LightSon
How moral is it to allow women to kill their unborn children under the guise of “freedom of choice?” I have no problem with people having control over their own bodies, but in the cases of abortion, there are now 2 peoples lives to consider. I can understand how people like Hill can get their emotions all enflamed and their spiritual center askew over this issue. I cannot understand how a mother could selfishly eviscerate her own offspring.

I can understand how Hill can "get their emotions all inflamed," but what he did is still both illegal and immoral, and I believe that his penalty was fully justified.

The question of "how moral is it...?" is actually irrelevant here, since the law is not really about "morality" per se, but rather about protecting the citizens of a given society and their rights. It most often aligns with the majority view of "morality," but that really is not the basis for law. And the fact remains that not all (and possibly not even the majority) of American citizens believe that there ARE in fact "2 peoples' lives to consider" at ALL times in this case. Hence the judgement that the early-stage fetus is not to be considered a citizen under the law, and hence the legality of first-trimester abortion. You can disagree with that opinion on moral grounds, and many do; I might even be sympathetic to the argument, at a certain point, on that basis. But simply being morally objectionable to a given group is truly not sufficient basis on which to establish law, nor has it ever been. Laws are in fact based on the demonstrated potential for harm to a society, sufficient to override the individual right of self-determination, and nothing else.

 

[LightSon]

Originally posted by bmyers
I can understand how Hill can "get their emotions all inflamed," but what he did is still both illegal and immoral, and I believe that his penalty was fully justified.

I agree. I hope that was evident in my post.

Originally posted by bmyers
The question of "how moral is it...?" is actually irrelevant here, since the law is not really about "morality" per se, but rather about protecting the citizens of a given society and their rights. It most often aligns with the majority view of "morality," but that really is not the basis for law.

I haven't studied law formally, but I have to think that there are some laws which are geared towards society's opinion of morality. If I am not mistaken, obscenty laws are specifically about the collective moral conscience of a community. Consider laws controlling strip clubs, wouldn't a table dance be a victimless crime? Yet communities support laws which say, "not in my neighborhood". I think the courts have generally supported such laws.

Originally posted by bmyers
... the fact remains that not all (and possibly not even the majority) of American citizens believe that there ARE in fact "2 peoples' lives to consider" at ALL times in this case. Hence the judgement that the early-stage fetus is not to be considered a citizen under the law, and hence the legality of first-trimester abortion.

If I am not mistaken, there are cases pending which would set a different precedent, that being that the fetus is a person and entitled to legal protection. This matter is not settled. Roe-v-wade is not set in concrete.

 

[bmyers]

Originally posted by LightSon
I haven't studied law formally, but I have to think that there are some laws which are geared towards society's opinion of morality. If I am not mistaken, obscenty laws are specifically about the collective moral conscience of a community. Consider laws controlling strip clubs, wouldn't a table dance be a victimless crime? Yet communities support laws which say, "not in my neighborhood". I think the courts have generally supported such laws.

Yes, but even here I believe that the "law as a preventer of harm to society" perspective can be argued. Such activities are legitimately prohibited, not because the community finds them immoral per se, but because they feel that it would be harmful to their children, etc., to be potentially exposed to them. Admittedly, it's a pretty fine distinction in this example. But I think the fundamental distinction between considering laws to be based on "enforcing morality" vs. "protecting society" is that the former would supposedly have as its primary goal restricting an individual from committing an "immoral" act regardless of whether or not it affected anyone else. In simpler terms, it would be the position of legally restricting what an individual may or may not do solely because it is "good" for them, not whether or not it would potentially impact another party.

If I am not mistaken, there are cases pending which would set a different precedent, that being that the fetus is a person and entitled to legal protection. This matter is not settled. Roe-v-wade is not set in concrete.

No law, not even the Constitution, is "set in concrete." And it is again not my intention to argue whether the Roe-v.-Wade decision is correct, etc.. The only relevant point with respect to this discussion is that neither of the persons Hill killed were in any way engaged in an illegal activity (so far as we know) at the time.