Originally Posted by driveway
The ultimate reason I oppose the death penalty, and I've said it before and I'll say it again - probably in every death penalty thread we ever have, dancing fatas be damned - is that it allows for the rationalisation of murder.
I used to be pro-death penalty. I thought that certain crimes deserved it, that it was an earned punishment, a just one, and it made economic sense. Then I had this concept explained to me and it really clicked.
All situations in which one human, or group of humans, takes a life is murder - be it in a fit of rage, for religious reasons, as punishment for a crime, in self-defense or in war. Admitedly, within these categories there are shades of murder. However, I feel that it is imperative as a society that we set the bar for acceptable homicide as low as absolutely possible.
If we accept that in certain circumstances we can take a persons life in cold blood, which is what the death penalty is, then we raise the bar above zero. If the bar is not set at zero, if there is any possible gray area, then there is room for individual interpretation about what is and is not acceptable murder. This should not be allowed to happen.
For example: A confessed brutal killer, who would be executed by the state, goes free because their confession is inadmissable in a court of law. Is it justifiable for a private citizen to take this persons life? If it is justifiable for the state, which in a democracy represents the will of private citizens, why not?
This example can be carried further. If the death penalty is legal in a democratic nation, it is one act of legislation away from being applicable to crimes other than murder. From there it's possible - in a democracy - for the scale to slide further and further. We have seen, within this past century, that humans, people who are exactly the same as you and me in every way that matters, have an almost infinite capacity for cruelty.
What concerns me is the moral and philosophical principles behind capital punishment. When one considers that in every single belief system, ethical framework or moral convention that humans have ever created, murder has been a taboo, it seems strange that it's even a question. Since we all seem to be able to agree that the taking of lives is a bad idea, why can't one of the most advanced, free, democratic, and civilized societies that have ever existed at least make the attempt to live up to its own standards?
Humanity advances itself in several key ways, among these are technological development, political organisation and moral action. We can't allow ourselves the easy outs, we have to be demanding of ourselves if we are to have any claim to being moral entities.
This is why I am so very grateful that I live in a nation that has gotten rid of capital punishment.
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