The question of whether or not to use the death penalty to punish truly evil criminals used to be a non-starter. You can go back over 10,000 years in history, and you will find that, all the way up until about the 20th Century, the death penalty was considered a perfectly reasonable and quite justifiable punishment for those who commit real murders and are caught out for doing so.
In these more “enlightened” times, though, the death penalty has gone very much out of vogue.
Now, Dennis Prager may well be a neo-Palestinian, and as such, he lies through his teeth about those nonsensical “Judaeo-Christian” values, which do not exist and never have. Nonetheless, his points about the death penalty are well made and cogently argued:
The death penalty is not only justified, it is necessary.
To understand why, we must first ask ourselves why the very concept of punishment by death even exists.
The philosophical basis for the answer lies in the Problem of Evil. The existence of true evil in this world is axiomatic. It is so obvious that evil exists that the statement of its existence is pointless. We know it exists because it is all around us, because evil happens every day through the small and large actions of people all around us.
Evil is within each of us, because every one of us is flawed, Fallen, and broken. This, too, is axiomatic.
It is impossible to pretend that evil does not exist. It plainly does. It is also not possible to ignore its existence. Those who close their eyes to that which is evil, are every bit as stupid and as blind as those who go into a blizzard while wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and every bit as doomed.
The question, then, is what to do about evil.
If evil cannot be denied or ignored, can it be destroyed?
No. To do so requires destroying the entire human race – itself an act of evil that far exceeds anything that has come before or since.
Therefore, the only option left is to confront evil and stop it dead in its tracks.
Here we are again presented with a dilemma.
To confront and stop evil in all of its forms, at all times, requires the total elimination of human freedom to act. This is an act of evil exceeded only in scope by the genocide of humanity.
So we have to impose limits on human freedom of action that nonetheless permit those people who seek only to live in peace and not act sinfully, to do so.
This requires us to ensure that those who commit evil, pay a price commensurate with the evil that they do.
Humanity used to have a pretty unbalanced approach to doing this. If you look at the Hammurabic Code, for instance, if another man raped your daughter, it was your daughter that paid the price for the stain upon her honour. Under Old Testament law, adulterers would be stoned to death. And under Islamic law, anyone who steals so much as a loaf of bread gets his hand chopped off.
It is fair to argue that these approaches were more than a little excessive.
Ever since a certain Jew came along preaching an entirely new approach to the Law, though, things have been a bit different.
We now have a moral code and an understanding of morality that exceeds anything that came before – or since – and which tells us that to fight evil in all of its forms is our most important and sacred duty.
That moral code states that we must pray for those who do evil, and beg the Almighty to help them, and that if they attempt to attack us, we must stand firm without violence, to give those who do evil a chance to repent their deeds and renounce their sinful ways.
But that new moral code also teaches us that those who persist in their attacks, who take no heed of the warnings put in front of them, and especially those who hurt the guiltless and the young innocents in their sins, must be destroyed without mercy.
And that is where the justification for the death penalty comes from.
Is it justifiable for the state to put an unarmed man to death simply for trespassing? Quite obviously not. That is a ridiculous thing to do.
Is it justifiable for the state to put to death a man who invades a home in the dead of night, beats the husband half to death, rapes the wife, sexually abuses the young girls, burns the inhabitants alive, and expresses no remorse whatsoever for his crimes?
Absolutely. That is not a human being. That is a monster in human flesh and the world is far better off without him.
The only sensible objection to the death penalty is that giving the State the power of life or death over people is a very bad idea because it simply encourages the government to use it. And there is a lot of truth to that counterargument.
The most natural rebuttal is the fact that this power already exists in certain very specific situations, such as in the military, where an officer not only has the power to kill a man under certain circumstances – pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy, for instance – but is required by law to exercise that power.
Just because the government has a specific power or authority, does not mean that the government has to exercise it. And the single best defence against a government that wants to wield the power of life or death over law-abiding citizens is, of course, an armed and vigilant citizenry.
It is one thing for a government to be able to execute citizens for crimes. It is quite another for a government to try to execute citizens who can fight back. That, in and of itself, tends to be a damned good deterrent against government-sanctioned murder of its own citizens.
(Note, I said that it tends to be a good deterrent. In this day and age, given how spineless the citizenry tends to be, it is no longer such. The reality is that we have grown too weak, flabby, and soft to properly defend ourselves against our own governments. But the principle remains.)
At its core, the progressive’s hatred of the death penalty is rooted in a severe lack of understanding about the distinction between killing and murder.
The killing of humans is entirely justified under specific circumstances, and this principle has been well understood for centuries. Whether in war or while resisting a home invasion or standing one’s ground against an assailant, killing another human being, or many such, is justified under those circumstances.
That does not mean that there is no price to be paid. Killing a man is no easy thing and there is a terrible psychological toll to be paid by those who do so, no matter how justified they might be in their actions.
But that is a world away from murder.
To murder someone is to take his life with cold malice and dreadful intent, probably with the desire to inflict suffering upon others. To kill someone in self-defence or in war is an entirely different matter.
As stated above, those who murder, as opposed to those who kill, have to face a serious deterrent for their actions. The best deterrent that can possibly be devised is for those who take life maliciously and with intent, to lose their lives in turn.
The only serious, defensible, and powerful counterargument against the death penalty lies in the fact – and it is a fact – that a very small number of inmates sentenced to death for their crimes were actually innocent of those same crimes. And it is a powerful point. The Western judicial system revolves around the principle that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be wrongfully convicted, and that is a very good legal principle indeed.
But this principle does not change the fact that the vast majority of those condemned to death, are there because their crimes are beyond dispute and the evidence is overwhelming.
The infamous “BTK Killer”, for instance, confessed to his own crimes and described the murders that he committed in chilling detail – and showed no remorse whatsoever for what he had done.
Has he been put to death?
No.
Dennis Rader is serving 10 consecutive life sentences. He will die in prison, and thank God for that.
But, in reality, he deserves to die for what he did.
In my personal opinion, there are certain criminals who should be put to death even though they have not actually killed anyone – specifically, paedophiles who repeatedly rape and abuse young children. I would happily see such people either impaled or crucified.
But that’s me. What can I say – I happen to think that those who abuse and molest children are simply undeserving of mercy.
In conclusion, while the death penalty is an emotive and difficult issue, the reality is that it is a fully justified and sensible punishment, and even a necessary one. That does not mean that the government is under any obligation to use it – but taking it off the books completely, ruling it out, throwing it away, is simply idiotic.
1 Comment
Hammurabi's Code – 130: If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father's house, and sleep with her and be surprised [caught], this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.