So I take a couple week break from blogging, 2006 turns into 2007 and I cease being an ordinary person and have been magically transformed into a "liberal elite". Great, I can't wait for the entitlement cheques! Why, you ask. Because I do not support the death penalty, even for a world class tyrant like Saddam Hussein. Well, at least according to Barbara Kay.
OK, I know that Ms. Kay is speaking about me personally and I do not take it personally but I do not agree with her logic on this one.
...Instead of asking what might be an appropriate, objective public gesture to address the outrageousness of the crimes themselves, we are taught to ask instead: Could I personally hang Saddam? Oh no, I would feel "cruel and barbaric," the most commonly applied trope to the death penalty. Nobody wants personally to seem cruel. But then we have to justify our failure to mete out justice by giving paralysis of will a moral gloss. So we cheat and take a shortcut. We simply agree that while bad people like the Taliban and Saddam shouldn't do what they do, all killing by the state is equally wrong and equally immoral, and that retribution in kind is always "sinking to their level." This makes no sense, of course: If all killing by the state were immoral, no wars would be "just" and our soldiers would be criminals unless they waited to be shot at before killing declared enemies.
What if I've asked myself what is appropriate and have determined that hanging a man, nobody how hideous, who has been arrested, put in jail and is no longer a threat, is not on the list of appropriate actions? And why must it be that owning this position that I must equate all killing by the state as equally wrong and immoral. Sure, I do think they are both wrong and immoral (in this case) but what Saddam Hussein did was several orders of magnitude worse. I am no moral relativist and opposition to the death penalty does not make me one. And, as such, I reject the last statement as well.
Comments (3)
It is funny how Kay and her ilk equate opposing the death penalty with doing nothing. I think keeping Saddam in a small room, alone, until he died, with pictures of all the people his regime killed plastered on his walls, would be a much better punishment. It’s a neat little trick she pulls by equating fighting wars (by the way, Support the Troops!) and the death penalty. Cute that.
Posted by Greg | January 2, 2007 11:18 AM
Posted on January 2, 2007 11:18
Wow, I debated both sides of this topic in high school.I can see where the debate will probably still be raging if my great grandchildren decide to join the debating club one day. There is and always has been logical and coherent arguments for both sides of the capital punishment debate.We’ve all heard them countless times.
There are a couple of major differences on this one though… We are talking a completely different culture here,one whose sense of morality is based on a vastly different system from the west.Who are we to criticize if they want to allow a little revenge into their definition of justice?For a man directly responsible for the murders of countless of thousands others,I say a little revenge is entirely appropriate.Actually,he should have been subject to a much slower death,with someone showing him pictures of his victims as he felt his own life drain away….IMHO.
It is indeed funny,how we can justify the horrors and innocent deaths of war to protect our society yet we refuse to take the lives of even the most savage killers living amongst us to acheive the very same end. Neither soldiers nor hangmen are murderers….they both perform a dirty,yet neccessary service for their fellow countrymen.At least in countries that employ both…
Posted by Canadian Observer | January 2, 2007 1:45 PM
Posted on January 2, 2007 13:45
I don’t like the death penalty either, and the whole business left me feeling pretty uncomfortable.
I’ve rationalized to myself that it was the right thing in this case for a few reasons:
There is a culrural difference here that should be respected. The death penalty is routinely imposed in countries like Iraq for far less serious offences than those Saddam was convicted of. It would be odd, to say the least, if his sentence were anything but death.
In a war, which this was/is, it is pretty typical that the leader of the losing side won’t survive. That’s just reality. In this case he has a form of a trial. it is far more than most leaders in his position have ever had before being executed.
I recall on the first day of this Iraq War that the USA had shot a cruise missile into a safe house where Saddam was thought to be and for several hours it was believed he might have been killed then. At that time I was hoping they had got him, as it might have shortened the conflict.
Posted by peter | January 2, 2007 5:05 PM
Posted on January 2, 2007 17:05