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IF it's wrong for us to kill...Why is it "right" for the State to?

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Just Blue

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? AZ

http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-inmate-dies-2-hours-execution-began-230855668.html
 


quincy

Senior Member
I do not support the death penalty, but for reasons other than the (botched) manner of death chosen for the Arizona man.

That said, I don't want to get into a death penalty discussion with anyone so I will bow out of this thread before saying anything else. :)
 

RRevak

Senior Member
I read this article and was so disturbed I almost couldn't finish it. I wasn't sure what disturbed me the most: the inhumane way in which this man was executed or the reaction of the family with whom the man murdered. Far too often we see the death penalty as a justified means of justice. But one death being more justified than another is something I can't seem to wrap my head around. I understand that bad people do bad things. We all agree on that. I also understand that families need to feel avenged and want to see the individual in the wrong be punished for his/her acts. But the line needs to be drawn that either murder is wrong or it isn't and killing someone simply on the basis that it appeases those injured shouldn't be enough justification to continue the practice. I got into an interesting debate a while back with a friend on the death penalty and his reasoning behind why he supported it. He told me that because he felt that a decision made by our peers was fair and just regardless of the outcome, that a decision made by the collective was infallible no matter if it was a decision to murder another or a decision to throw them in jail forever. I reminded him that a collective made the decision to murder millions of Jews during the Holocaust and not a single person in their right mind could justify those atrocities. So I asked him where the differences were. How did he draw the line between murdering jews and murdering criminals. Again his reasoning was that since the Jews had committed no wrongs, there were no reasonings behind their murders while criminals deserved whatever they got. But as history tells us, many many Germans believed that Jewish individuals were criminals, that they were financial drains, that they were attempting to take over the world and turn it to ash. In their minds they were ridding the earth of scum and making it a better place. Just as we feel when we execute a violent criminal. So were their murders then justified due to the collective feeling they were doing the right thing for society? If not, then why are the decisions to murder criminals felt by society to be the right thing?
 

RRevak

Senior Member
Killing is an acceptable action for both "us" and the state under particular circumstances.
Under what circumstances are those? Is it the killing of one person? The killing of many? How many people should it take to justify the removal of a human life? And why is it wrong for the murderer to remove life but right for the collective and the law? Murder is either wrong or it isn't.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Under what circumstances are those? Is it the killing of one person? The killing of many? How many people should it take to justify the removal of a human life? And why is it wrong for the murderer to remove life but right for the collective and the law? Murder is either wrong or it isn't.
Self defense comes to mind...

ETA: Ahh, you were referring to the state and not the individual...never mind.
 

Proserpina

Senior Member
I read this article and was so disturbed I almost couldn't finish it. I wasn't sure what disturbed me the most: the inhumane way in which this man was executed or the reaction of the family with whom the man murdered. Far too often we see the death penalty as a justified means of justice. But one death being more justified than another is something I can't seem to wrap my head around. I understand that bad people do bad things. We all agree on that. I also understand that families need to feel avenged and want to see the individual in the wrong be punished for his/her acts. But the line needs to be drawn that either murder is wrong or it isn't and killing someone simply on the basis that it appeases those injured shouldn't be enough justification to continue the practice. I got into an interesting debate a while back with a friend on the death penalty and his reasoning behind why he supported it. He told me that because he felt that a decision made by our peers was fair and just regardless of the outcome, that a decision made by the collective was infallible no matter if it was a decision to murder another or a decision to throw them in jail forever. I reminded him that a collective made the decision to murder millions of Jews during the Holocaust and not a single person in their right mind could justify those atrocities. So I asked him where the differences were. How did he draw the line between murdering jews and murdering criminals. Again his reasoning was that since the Jews had committed no wrongs, there were no reasonings behind their murders while criminals deserved whatever they got. But as history tells us, many many Germans believed that Jewish individuals were criminals, that they were financial drains, that they were attempting to take over the world and turn it to ash. In their minds they were ridding the earth of scum and making it a better place. Just as we feel when we execute a violent criminal. So were their murders then justified due to the collective feeling they were doing the right thing for society? If not, then why are the decisions to murder criminals felt by society to be the right thing?
Godwin's law - world record!

Be that as it may, I'm not quite willing to believe that the difference isn't obvious. It should be.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
Well, to start for the silly argument not being able to tell the moral difference between the Holocaust and putting to death a convicted killer, let's start with the difference between mala in se and mala prohibita. A convicted killer has done a thing all but the psychopath knows is wrong. A Jew, was, um...Jewish. A person convicted of murder has had this thing everyone knows is wrong codified in the law and then had the human right of due process followed in order to adjudge him guilty of the crime with a prescribed sentence. A Jew had a codification by a small group saying his very being and not what he has done is wrong and he shall be punished. The punishment was not prescribed at law and even the leaders knew the final solution was not going to be popular and hid it from the populace.

One proof of that is a photograph I cannot find with a quick look where the allies were showing former German soldiers and government workers films/photos on what was found at the concentration camps as a re-education of them. The horror on most of the audience's faces is palpable.

Rather than look to the moral equivalence between the millions murdered because of nothing they have done in one of humankind's worst pogrom and the few hundreds killed in the U.S. for crimes, one might better look to the millions of legal abortions that have occurred.
 
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I'mTheFather

Senior Member
One proof of that is a photograph I cannot find with a quick look where the allies were showing former German soldiers and government workers films/photos on what was found at the concentration camps as a re-education of them. The horror on most of the audience's faces is palpable.
This one is different from the one you described, but same idea:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/11/photo_german_soldiers_react_to_concentration_camp_footage.html
 
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