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gungadin09 -> RE: Mental Health (7/21/2011 9:18:41 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
...States don't murder, they execute. Execution is legitimate and legal killing; murder isn't. But that was true of Nazi Germany - so, on that definition, the Nazis didn't murder people any more than the USA has, or the UK did in the past.
But there's a trick of words, here. Terrorists in Northern Ireland used to call their killings 'executions'. This made their killings 'moral', 'righteous' and 'clean', as far as they were concerned. They might well have talked of the their targets as not being the recipients of terrorist violence, but 'military law'. Their victims were just receiving 'consequences'.
This is why, when I see that trick being played, I always call on it. It makes no difference which 'authority' we're talking about or wherever it exists. Its legitimacy is always open to question.
Of course a law's morality is open to question. However, for the most part, we accept that the State, because it is the State, is entitled to do certain things that individuals are NOT. (i.e. wage war, levy taxes, make and enforce laws, sign treaties, etc.) And i don't see anyone (besides Hannah) claiming that the State does NOT have those rights. No one is saying, for example, that it's wrong for the Strate to imprison people, because it would be wrong for individuals to do it. You may or may not believe that capitol punishment is one of the things that a State has the right to do, if it wants. You may believe that the death penalty is so gross a violation of everything that's right, that the U.S, government has no right to enact such a law because it violates universal human rights. You are certainly entitled to think so.
But it's just as unreasonable to say that the State is never justified in killing, as it is to say that the State is always justified in killing because it is the State. If Hitler is a murderer for killing 6 million Jews, does that also mean that the Allied forces are murderers for sending soldiers to kill 6 million Germans? Or is State sanctioned killing, while always unfortunate and sad, SOMETIMES justified by the circumstances; at least justified enough to call it by a name other than "murder"?
This thread has made me question my reasons for endorsing the death penalty. i confess i always assumed, despite the absence of proof, that capitol punishment deters crime. That might not be true. i couldn't find any hard evidence to support the idea. Then again, i couldn't find any hard evidence that disproves it, and i don't know whether the fact that a different system works in Scandinavia, is a good argument that the same system would be effective here. The two countries are very different. Having said that, if anyone could prove that it would work, i would be happy to give it my support. In most cases, i think that vengeance alone is NOT a good enough reason to mete out death as punishment.
But perhaps even death as vengeance is not unjustifiable in all cases. Getting back to the beginning of the thread, i still say i have tremendous sympathy for both people. In fact, i would have had sympathy for Hitler, too, if he had stood before me for judgement, but i wouldn't have hesitated to sentence him to death. There are SOME offenses for which death is an appropriate punishment. And, under normal circumstances (i.e. NOT as a gross violation of human rights) i believe that the State is entitled to make that decision.
The question was asked earlier in the thread, whether it's also "wrong" for certain countries to execute women for infidelity. And while i don't LIKE it, while it violates my personal moral code, i still understand that other societies will have THEIR moral codes; and that while i'm entitled to my opinion about their laws, it would be a far worse to force my morality on them (That is, except when it's NOT, except when their law is so great a violation of what's right that i'm compelled to step in and fight for what i think is right. Everyone defines that line in a different place, i guess. i think the U.S. was right to fight against Hitler. i would not think it was right to declare war on Saudi Arabia because of their religious laws.)
i realise that endorsing the death penalty means that people's blood is on my hands. i have never attempted to deny it. And, up until now, i would not have hesitated to throw the switch if i had been called on to do it, as unpleasant as it might be. This thread has given me a lot to think about. But i have not asked the State to do anything for me that i would not have been willing to do for myself. And nothing that's been said on this thread has CONVINCED me that my position is wrong.
pam
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