Statistics can obviously be useful in trying to understand and make sense of social phenomena. And it is certainly not wrong to use them to support an opinion. However, for myself, I have come to the realization that we can seriously be blown and tossed around into various perspectives if we are relying on statistics and their use by those in “authority” to give us underlying reasons for why would or wouldn’t support such a grave matter as the dealth penalty. Not that anyone who used statistics on this blog was doing that – but I just think it is important to understand that it is truly our underlying principles and values that we hold that should shape our opinions on these matters. So many people in our culture have not examined or tried to understand how their own principles/values have been shaped (and often misshaped) and how inconsistent one opinion we hold may be with another because they are so easily tossed and blown about by the media and the cultural elite. I had a friend in grad school who favored partial-birth abortion but was concerned about what cooped up chickens experienced. This was troubling.

I cannot support or justify the existence of the death penalty. It is wrong for humans to take the life of other humans. That is my underlying principle and I believe that anytime we justify killing human beings, we devalue human life. Abortion is wrong. Creating small human beings to kill them in order to have tissue to help other human beings is wrong. ( Violating the principle of the value of human life in order to “help” other humans really doesn’t “help” them. It degrades everyone’s humanity.) To value human life and hold it up as something to protect should not take away from valuing helping sick human beings – it should ever more convice us to work harder to find solutions where all life can be valued.

1. The death penalty is NO PUNISHMENT for the murderer. To be punished you have to know you are being punished. If it had a deterrent value in the South, people wouldn’t be being killed more that they are in the North East…

2. OK, Saddam never authorised the killing of anybody. Everybody else lied. As for WAR, well that’s just stupid.

3. I never made this point. Take your argument up with coreyclaytonlnp.

1. “The South accounts for over 80% of executions. The Northeast, which has less than 1% of all executions, also had the lowest murder rate.” Ofcourse this SHOULD be so. The higher the number of murders, the higher the number of executions would be, because an execution is the punishment for Murder. You just twist this around and say that higher execution corelates to higher murders and therefore it does not have a deterrent value

2. “Saddam Hussein was a very bad man” … Why? or compared against whom? Compared to the US president who ordered nuclear weapons dropped in Japan, he was a saint.

3. “If you look at the death penalty stats, 57% of executions since 1976 have been of white inmates, 34% black, 9% hispanic/other. (from DPIC)”…. This presentation of statistics has no value unless considered in conjunction with the distribution of the races in the country. What I mean is If there are 80% whites and 20% blacks in a country, but the executions are on 50%W and 50%B then obviously the rates for the B is high. The second piece of statistics by itself provides very little direction (eg by your argument the execution rates would be equal)

The debate apart — I liked the Brad & Phil comic:)

I really do believe that the real reason Hussein was executed has more to do with political expediency than any form of justice, however inept or evil. He was inconvenient for too many governments while alive; it’s the Noriega situation, in spades. In an election year, too.

Don’t tell me religion and/or religious ethics. Just don’t.

I get the feeling you could run a thread between this issue (as it relates to the first would countries) and the hanging-on of religion (as it relates to first-world countries) and see some level of congruency. What I mean by that is the US is one of the only modern countries left whose leaders seem to very seriously believe that morality is a product of the Bible and that religious precepts are an acceptable basis and belief system for its most esteemed leaders.

Not surprisingly, then, it’s no wonder we hang on to something as stupid and purposeless as capital punishment.

Great post, PD.

Jeff
Graceful Flavor (http://gracefulflavor.net)

http://richarddawkins.net/article,482,n,n

If you look at the death penalty stats, 57% of executions since 1976 have been of white inmates, 34% black, 9% hispanic/other. (from DPIC)

And in all crimes, the majority of crime is rooted in poverty-stricken regions. So that applies across all justice, not just in capital cases.

If there are problems in the South regarding unemployment, and other social issues, do you think it would be better to address those issues, or is the disproprtionate killing of the poor the only solution?

“But what about the deterrent value? The South accounts for over 80% of executions. The Northeast, which has less than 1% of all executions, also had the lowest murder rate.”… might I say “OF COURSE the northeast has a lower murder rate! The Northeast is OLDER! Look at median ages of the South. Look at declining birthrates in the north. Look at new job opportunities (Thus moving the working young & children) in the SunBelt. Look at Hispanic immigration (younger than U.S. median) to the south…. my point is that every culture in the world for all time has seen that YOUNG MALES are the most likely to murder. Bar none. So the younger you are and more married you are, of COURSE you have more murder.(this is like those ‘we dont look at the census’ arguments like “RED states have higher divorce..” Wow, sherlock, perhaps its because Blue States don’t have an OPPORTUNITY to get divorce, because so few of them get married to begin with. You can’t get divorced if you just ‘shack up’)

“The murderer will end up in Hell anyway”. Are you kidding? Every strain of Christianity believes that a deathbed conversion by Osama or Hitler is just as worthy as a lifetime of deeds by Mother Theresa. The ONLY thing that distinguishes Christianity from other reliigions is that man cannot “DO GOOD” to get to heaven… no matter how hard we try, so that everyone, from Osama to Theresa, isn’t “good enough for God”. (The answer to Christians is accepting Jesus as Savior)

“The government-sanctioned killing of any guilty person is no path to blind justice nor to reconciliation.” Maybe not, but his LIVING gives continued support to the Baathists, and promises the future ‘ESCAPE’/RE-RISE to power for Saddam. HE was a tyrant. And this is what happens to tyrants. You can’t have Hitler just running around, too inflammatory for his supporters.

But the most EGREGIOUS thing you missed, and I GUARANTEE you are one of these folks….. is that you feign DISBELIEF that ANYONE could support the KILLING of human life, but then I’ll bet you support allowing ABORTIONS to occur. Hmmm… so, save the rapist vs. murder the baby?

Look, i’m not getting into the abortion debate, I”m just saying, surely, that as I believe you probably don’t really get worked up about the 1,200,000 babies aborted each year, but DO get worked up by the 58 criminals executed each year, then SURELY YOU CAN SEE HOW OTHERS IN THE POPULACE CARE A GREAT DEAL ABOUT THE BABIES ABORTED WHILE SUMMARILY DISMISSING THE CRIMINALS LOST. The left does the same ‘meh’ attitude vs abortion all the time. So why is the right castigated for ‘meh’-ing the death of a rapist?

Anyone who wants to lecture me about the death penalty better be pro-life, or I will close my ears immediately.

One more point: look at the ‘blue’…. if you HONESTLY think that ANGOLA has a ‘safer’ justice system, you are joking. Sure, the deaths aren’t “REPORTED”, but there are govt. HIT SQUADS in most of the non-European blue countries. The Mexican govt. routinely slaughters the Indians for “crimes” in the Chiapas province, yet Mexico is colored blue! CAMBODIA is blue for crying out loud. Might want to have read some Yahoo!News before defending the map…. “WHAT WE SAY WE DO” vs. “WHAT WE DO” should be accounted for. America publicizes thier executions and do it in a painless matter. Other countries do not.

Everyone of us should thank the Lord we live in America where we can be SAFE.

****And a parting shot, DID YOU FEEL THIS REMORSE AFTER TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, A RACIST WHITE SUPREMACIST AMERICAN MALE? SO WHY DO YOU NOW FEEL IT FROM A DARKER SKINNED, NON-AMERICAN MUSLIM? …. oh wait, i just answered my own question. I discovered “Europe’s Rules of Judging!” LOL LOL LOL