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... ce, a just reward, and nothing more. If there is a cure for murderers and rapists, and really criminals of any degree, it is to make sure that every child grows up in a loving and disciplined environment. We must never confuse these issues. The moral argument against capital punishment has not been effective in the United States despite the biblical injunction against killing. Religious supporters of capital punishment often invoke a presumed distinction between "killing" and "murdering", and avow that God forbade the latter but not the former.
Self-defense and just wars are cited as cases of morally justified killing. When cases of justified killing in self-defense or just wars are altered to include an element of delay, disarming, and premeditation, they too become murder. Since capital punishment clearly involves the elements of delay, disarming, and premeditation, capital punishment is murder in the biblical sense and ought to be abolished in any God-fearing society. (5) "Capital punishment should be abolished in this country because it is archaic and cruel. There are thousands of men and women on death row in this country awaiting execution. Capital punishment seems to be a political agenda and not the will of the public. Politicians have excited the public into frenzy, expounding that the death penalty must exist and be applied.
Politicians have stated it is deterrence. It has never been proven to be a deterring factor. Virtually every study has reached the result that capital punishment has no deterrent effect. Retribution is not constitutional according to our laws. " (6) In earlier times -where capital punishment was common, the value of life was less, and societies were more barbaric - capital punishment was probably quite acceptable. However, in today's society, which is becoming ever more increasingly humanitarian, and individual rights and due process of justice are held in high accord, the death penalty is becoming an unrealistic form of punishment.
Also, with the ever-present possibility of mistaken execution, there will remain the question of innocence of those put to death. Finally, man is not a divine being. He does not have the right to inflict mortal punishment in the name of society's welfare, when there are suitable substitutes that require fewer resources. I ask society, ." why don't we stop the killing?" (7) The argument of proponents is best summed up in this quote from a senator who spoke anonymously: "Opponents equate execution and murder, believing that if two acts have the same ending or result, then those two acts are morally equivalent.
This is a morally untenable position. Is the legal taking of property to satisfy a debt the same as auto theft? Both result in loss of property. Are kidnapping and legal incarceration the same? Both involve imprisonment against one's will. Is killing in self-defense the same as capital murder?
Both end in taking human life. Is rape and making love the same? Both may result in sexual intercourse. How absurd? Opponents' flawed logic and moral confusion mirror their "factual" arguments - there is, often, an absence of reality. The moral confusion of some opponents is astounding.
Some equate the American death penalty with the Nazi holocaust. Opponents see no moral distinction between the slaughter of 12 million totally innocent men, women and children and the just execution of society's worst human rights violators (DP. com, WWW). " Nineteenth-century English philosopher and reformer John Stuart Mill, stated: "Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property, or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable it is to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself and that while no other crime that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall. " Syndicated columnist Charley Reese made an interesting analogy while criticizing the way abolitionists typically behave when he wrote: When I think of all the sweet, innocent people who suffer extreme pain and who dies every day in this country, then the outpouring of sympathy for cold-blooded killers enrages me. Where is your sympathy for the good, the kind and the innocent?
This fixation on murderers is a sickness, a putrefaction of the soul. It's the equivalent of someone spending all day mooning and cooing over a handful of human feces -- -sick and abnormal. I favor a fair trial, one quick appeal and prompt execution. I don't think murderers ought to live much beyond 12 months from the day their victim is buried (and) As for not being able to correct a mistake, so what? Virtually all-accidental deaths are deaths by mistake. Why impose a standard of perfection only on the criminal justice system?
There are no perfect human institutions. Our system is, more than any other, designed to protect the rights of the defendant. The chance of a truly innocent person being executed is exceedingly slim. But, if it happens, it happens just as things happen to people every day. "Laws gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe seldom executed. " (8) Personally, as for convicted criminals, I see no wrong in imprisonment; or, for that matter, corporal punishment, including putting the criminal, in certain circumstances, to death.
What I do take objection to, is being a victim to criminals. Aside from taking all the personal steps I can, to lesson my risk of being a victim of a criminal - I would like to live in a community which takes a full set of steps to discourage criminal activity. Punishment is a one of these steps. As for capital punishment: I take the moral high ground: life is precious. However, that life is precious is no reason to object to capital punishment, -- indeed, this is the primary justification for capital punishment. A legitimate use of punishment is its use as a deterrent: so too, it is a legitimate use to satisfy the need, which the victim and his family have for retribution.
Thus, in this question of capital punishment, both deterrence and retribution play a role; but there is an additional reason: to permanently rid ourselves of murderers. Capital punishment must be the standard by which each and every state must abide by. If we cannot join together and defeat crime, it will most certainly take us over. We can no longer sit and let our lives be terrorized. No longer can we sit back and watch criminals be released and then kill again.
No longer must we draw the line on crime. We must make the world safe so that our children and we may once again live in a world without the fear of being senselessly killed or losing our loved ones. For a cold-blooded killer, capital punishment is the only true justice. In closing, let me say, after much study for and against, capital punishment is a hot topic of debate, a debate that reaches far back into history. In a moral perspective, abolitionists have a very strong case, but proponents have the stronger legal and fact-based case. Debate on capital punishment, and its constitutionality will rage unabated, with no foreseeable conclusion.
Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY (1) The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1948, Capital Punishment by George Bernard Shaw (2) "Capital Punishment, " Biblical Principles, (Plymouth Rock Foundation), 1984, p. 17 (3) Ibid (4) The Death Penalty: Pro and Con (Copyright 1986 Harvard Law Review Association), The Ultimate Punishment: A Defense, Ernest van den Haag, John M. Olin, Professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy, Fordham University. (5) A Non-Pacifist Argument Against Capital Punishment, Roy Weatherford (6) The Coastal Post - May, 1997, Abolish Capital Punishment, Rob Phillips (7) Grisham 404, Grisham, John. The Chamber. New York: Island Books, 1994 (8) Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, 1738.
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Research essay sample on Capital Punishment Cold Blooded
