In light of the entire death of Bin Laden I have seen people over joyed about his death and people proclaiming that that killing of another man no matter what, is wrong. I am a strong believer in justice and the death penalty. I believe it absolutely has it's place in all societies. I believe our country is more than capable of using it in a fair manner.
Before you start hollering "Cruel and Unusual" punishment at me, lets take a look at those terms and their definitions.
The word "Cruel" is defined by Merriam Webster as:
disposed to inflict pain or suffering : devoid of humane feelings, cruel tyrant
I would say in our country we execute a person in a swift and painless manner. Executions are now done by lethal injection. It's done quick and painlessly. They even sterilize a fresh needle for the inmate. I would say this is having feelings for the last moments of their life. They are not crying out in pain, they are not cut up and left to bleed out. I believe we give them more respect at death than they probably gave their victim. In my eyes, the death penalty cannot be defined as cruel. It is done humanely.
The word "Unusual" is defined by Merriam Webster as:
not usual : uncommon, rare
Ok that doesn't tell us much, so lets look at uncommon and rare, shall we.
Rare: seldom occurring or found
Uncommon: not ordinarily encountered
So what this says is "unusual" means it's something that is not common, not heard of. Something you don't hear about. We have been executing people since 1608. That means we have records of execution for 403 years. The death penalty is not a new thing. Since it's not new, it cannot be uncommon.
I personally feel the argument of "cruel and unusual punishment" a moot point by definition. Now what is cruel is the fact the average time a prisoner will spend on death row is over a decade in solitary confinement. It is cruel that we don't just get it done in a timely fashion, not only for the inmate but Americans that pay taxes. On average it costs 50 thousand dollars per year per inmate to maintain them. There are currently 1,246 inmates on death row. That's $62,300,000 a year to maintain people that have been sentenced by their peers to die. Now remember that 10 year average....you can do the math I am sure. 34 of 50 states in our country allow a death penalty ruling.
Each of these people have gone to trial, evidence presented and convicted by a jury of their peers. Average Americans picked for jury duty. While I understand mistakes have been made and people are let out of prison after DNA had proved them innocent, these people have spent enough time there to prove their case in our technological age. Not to mention they will continue to have time to repeal because of how long they are forced to spend there waiting.
I do not under any circumstances rejoice, party, or feel happy when an inmates sentence is carried out. However I do believe many of the victims families are given closure to their great losses. And that's the way it should be. It will never bring back lost loved ones, but the criminal doesn't get the satisfaction of living when they took someone else.
Bin Laden was not tried, we as Americans were never shown actual evidence of his crime, only that "intelligence" was able to prove he was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. He was killed in a fire fight during an operation to capture him. It was more than likely not an "execution" so much as it was our forces protecting themselves as they are trained to do. Police officers in our country practice the same actions when being shot at. Just as with the death penalty, no one should be celebrating, cheering or rejoicing in the death of another human. Instead they should stop and wonder if justice was actually carried out in this case. And if the accusations are in fact true, we can feel a small amount of closure and hope for the end of this war.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
2 comments:
Since I know everyone ones my two cents....
I want to start by saying I am not against the death penalty. There are crimes for which the penalty of death is indeed fitting. And, from a pro-life point of view this can be defended because while a child (aka fetus) has committed no crime, an adult who takes the life of another in a manner that is pre-meditated or perhaps done in the commission of another crime has done so knowingly and a person of average intelligence would know that such acts are wrong.
That being said, I am hesitant about the death penalty because I do not trust our government to have power over life and death. One part in particulat is that there are no checks against the governments power to prosecute. By that I mean, in part, that there are no repercussions for corrupt prosecutors. Take the Duke Lacross "rape" case where to all observers it was obvious that there was no crime. Yet the prosecutor continued to press the case, imperiling the lives of numerous young men in exchange for some glory for the prosecutor. The website The Agitator is full of such cases. Also of note is the False Rape Society which documents many more cases of unchecked prosecution. Of particular relevance to this conversation is The Innocence Project who have exonerated 269 prisoners to date. I think its worth noting that imprisoning or killing the wrong person only harms society and worse, it allows the true perpetrator of the crime to go free, additionally harming society.
We need a way to be able to go after those who put innocent people in jail. If charges are trumped up or fabricated to get a conviction or in an attempt to get a conviction then the people MUST be able to go after those who do such thing. This includes the DAs office, Judges, and cops, as well as "informants." Until there is a way to prosecute the above (esp. prosecutors and judges) the power over life and death is just too dangerous to give to the government.
As for the rejoicing over OBL's death, its kinda sickening. I know that I am rather cynical about the who War on Terror, AKA Global Struggle Against Extremism (GSAVE), AKA anything BUT a war on Islam, but it seems to me that there is something just not right about rejoicing over death. Even as a Christian who looks forward to a better life in the next world, death is bittersweet at best no matter how it comes.
Some of my friends stated it well when they posted from the Scriptures:
Ezekiel 18:23 "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"
Prov 24: 17-18 "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn His wrath away from them."
Ezekiel 33:11 "Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’"
One must take care when fighting monsters that you not become that which you claim to hate. Some of our troops have failed in that and it would seem that the American people as a whole have failed in that as well.
Very well said. I think everyone should be doing everything in their power to be sure the person they have is the actual criminal. But anymore everyone is out for their own numbers and they don't actually seem to care what they are doing.
While I do not believe in a Christian God, I am happy to see you put something there that condemns these fools that are rejoicing in the death of another man. It makes me sick to see our country uniting in such a disgusting fashion.
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