death penalty news
August 14, 2005
USA:
Abortion Right, Death Penalty Wrong?
The legitimate attempt to establish justice through law is one
hallmark of enlightened civilization. All too often, however, the
reasoning used to advance that worthy goal becomes convoluted.
According to the ACLU, for example, "The death penalty is the
greatest denial of civil liberties." Yet the ACLU also fights for the
right of women to kill their babies before they are even born. Thus,
those self-styled humanitarian crusaders for justice, who claim they
want to protect one human life, also wish to end another unjustly.
If you ever studied logic, you should quickly see the fallacy of this
argument. What does an unborn baby in the womb have in common with a
murderer or a robber, a rapist or a child molester, a kidnapper or a
terrorist? The answer is absolutely nothing!
That child didn't ask to be conceived and that child didn't ask to be
aborted. That child wants to live. But the person on death row knew
the difference between right and wrong, and yet chose to commit the
crime that put him there.
Those on the left are hypocritical in their argument. They want to
protect the guilty, while saying it's OK to kill helpless victims who
can't defend themselves.
Now, our position on the right is logical: We are fighting to protect
the innocent while punishing the guilty killers and other criminals.
Wake up, liberals. Your logic, or lack thereof, is dangerous and
honestly, it's downright uneducated.
Most of the decent, honest folks who support the death penalty are
also pro-life, pro-gun and pro-God. They are not mean and brutal
people, but they see the death penalty as an unpleasant but necessary
component of an effective criminal justice system. These law-abiding
conservatives believe that there are three basic reasons why the
death penalty is both right and necessary.
First, on moral grounds, the death penalty is just because it
emphasizes the intrinsic value of all human life and it punishes the
enormity of the crime that wastes it. According to the Bible, God
established the death penalty for murder because mankind bears the
image of God. But whether one comes from the Judeo-Christian
tradition or from one of the world's many pagan cultures, capital
punishment has been used universally from time immemorial. That is
because all people instinctively understand that the one who would
unjustly deprive another of his most precious possession, life
itself, has no moral right to keep and enjoy his own life.
Second, as a pragmatic consideration, the death penalty does deter
some people from committing heinous crimes, simply because they stop
to consider the terrible consequences of their actions. True, the
fear of capital punishment will not deter everyone, but it will deter
some, and who can say how many innocent lives that basic fear factor
has saved throughout history? Those hardened criminals who refuse to
be deterred will also refuse to be rehabilitated and do not deserve to live.
Finally, as a practical economic matter, our society cannot afford to
support hardened criminals for life. These violent felons add nothing
to our common good and must be locked away to protect the public
safety, at a cost in excess of $22,000 per inmate per year, on
average. By what leap of logic should law-abiding citizens be
required to pay for these incorrigible criminals' food, clothing,
shelter and medical care, not to mention the cost of the guards and
maximum-security prisons needed to contain them?
I believe that capital punishment should be administered humanely,
fairly and only for the most serious of crimes. It may be true that
the death penalty is gruesome, and by some it may even be considered
evil. But if so, it is a necessary evil for the preservation of a
stable, civilized society.
(source: Nathan Tabor in Canyon News; Nathan Tabor is a conservative
political activist based in Kernersville, N.C. He has his B.A. in
psychology and his M.A. in public policy)
