One-Man Pro-Death Penalty Argument
By Callimachus | Related entries in Religion, The Politics Of Film, The War On Terrorism, The WorldAMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh confessed Tuesday, saying he was driven by religious conviction. “I don’t feel your pain,” he told the victim’s mother.
Mohammed Bouyeri stunned the courtroom when, in the final minutes of his two-day trial he declared: “If I were released and would have the chance to do it again … I would do exactly the same thing.”
“What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith. … I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet,” he said.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 and is filed under Religion, The Politics Of Film, The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 12th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
So I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I have to say that a person like this definitely makes me reconsider.
However, at the end of the day, the death penalty isn’t going to do much to deter people like this. A life in solitary confinement might.
July 14th, 2005 at 4:39 pm
I favor the death penalty’s continuance. To me, deterrance has little to do with it. In the end, what kind of sanction deters criminals? Jail seems not to work all that well (unless they’re locked up in it). To me, the death penalty is a way of saying out loud that certain kinds of actions are so abominable that we don’t want to share the planet with you anymore (except as a corpse or ashes). If life in prison is the worst we can hand out, what that means to criminals (and criminal-like cultures such as jihadi Islam) is that we don’t value ourselves, our fellows. And in the end, I think it sends us all the message that nothing is really worth killing over. Mohammed Bouyeri is just a plum of an example, as you say, a one-man pro argument. By refusing to off him, we may make ourselves feel morally superior (at least those of us who care to feel that way) but I think we damage our capacity for cultural survival. And my suspicion about this drive be “above” such barbarities as the death penalty is that it is not really about being superior; it’s about lacking the conviction that we and our culture are valuable enough to protect.
July 14th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
I understand your view, and my position on the death penalty has been tested recently with cases like this.
But it’s not about being “above” barbarity. It’s about innocent people being put to death every year. That being the case, the death penalty is broken system and we, as flawed human beings, can not pass final judgement on somebody. That’s up to a higher power.
In closing, the rest of the world has seen fit to deal with the guilty in other ways. I believe we should too.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:51 am
I see arguments for and against the death penalty. And I pose some points to both sides that may be a bit interesting to some of you and maybe even add some insight.
PRODEATH:
DOES the death penalty really work? If so…someone tell me what DOESN’T so that maybe I will understand why America has such a high crime rate, not to mention the highest violent crime rate in the world by more than 300%. when you think about it, that’s a staggering amount to be behind every other country being we’re so technilogically “ahead” so says Micro$oft who hasn’t a clue of what’s going on around them.
DOES a message get sent out with each person we send to their death? I think honestly the most CLEAR and most profound message that gets sent out is…”what IF?” What if that person that is about to take their last breath is innocent of the crime they are accused of? What if they are guilty and indeed deserve a more cruel and unusual punishment, considering the nature of their crime? What if their plea of insanity is INDEED genuine? What IF “God” is pissed at us for what we’ve made of ourselves in the ways of laws that we live by? What IF this guy/girl really was defending themself in a life or death matter?
PROLIFE:
ARE the guilty murderers really worth our tax dollars to keep them fed when there are underpayed teachers, police officers, and innocent, honest, homeless people out there with NO food, NO shelter, NO cable tv, NO workout gyms, NO basketball courts or 3000 dollar pool tables to call their own? for each GP inmate that the state of Oklahoma houses, it costs an average of 480 dollars per 12 hours to keep them behind bars. For every inmate on death row status it costs an astonishing 1250 dollars on average per every 8 hours to keep them housed and under lock and key. (Office of State Representatives in districts 12, 7, and 13 David Boren: D)
That is 3350 dollars per DAY…PER INMATE…multiply that by 352 1/2 and that’s alot more than any 10 teachers in Oklahoma (42nd on the list of top payed educators in the nation) make in any given 5 year span.
Where else are we to send our society’s convicted felons when there is no more room in our prisons and reformatories? Would you like to house them in your home? Would you like to see a convicted kill such as Allen Lee “Tiny” Davis http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/davis558.htm
WARNING: THERE ARE GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF HIS POST EXECUTION…NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART AT ALL!
Something I’d like to quote here: “There is no humane way to end a human life, but there is such a way to do such a thing that it causes as little pain and torment as possible” This is a double edged blade friends, Because I don’t think, when Allen Lee Davis was bludgeoning little 5 year old Katherine Weiler, her 9 year old sister, and their mother with a 357 callibre handgun, which had more than enough ammunition in it to kill the 3 of them instantly by the way, in such a manner that they were unrecognizable, then proceeding to discharge bullets into all 3 of them, had anything like that statement on his mind. In fact, I think what he was thinking was the furthest thing from that statement because he felt no sympathy for the 3 month pregnant Nancy, nor did he feel any of the agony that he put her two daughters and husband through with each blow. There was no adament reason to keep this man alive and walking the face of the earth if you ask me. ANYONE who willingly, and consciously harms a child, is a monster, and not human. And speaking as both a parent and a son, I don’t want 1 penny of anyone’s money to go toward supporting these abominations of the human form.
But something else I would like to state. I could not fathom the horror felt by the troubled minds of the criminally insane, nor can I fathom the pain their victoms have suffered. I feel that they are the exception from the rule. These are the ones who DO need to not be locked away, but treated as they are ILL. Those who can not help their conditions of mind or body should not be harmed in the way of executing or enforcing justice, to determine a manner of punishment for crimes committed in a state of mind deamed not sane, or stable. That being part of The United States Supreme Court’s ruling on adjudicating the grounds for Capital Punishment for all states and subsidial regions under the rule of the United States of America, Chapter 137, Amendment 12-14763-A. Under the Compendiums of Justices Clark, O’Connor, and Whitmann (Cleric of the court rather than Justice). People such as Albert Fish (just an example) who morally knew what he’d done, but mentally did not see the lidity of the charges and honestly, I feel he really didn’t understand why he was being executed because he lacked the stable mental capacity to think on a basis of morals, nor did he posess the ability to distinguish between right or wrong. He only knew what every human knows….BASIC PRIMAL INSTINCTS..but for him, like many creatures on earth, the first and foremost of those instincts was to kill, and eat what he had killed. I’m not justifying his actions but criticizing the means of addressing his actions with corrective measure.
I hope this adds some sort of insight or maybe even a point of reason to some of you. Thank you for your time
August 10th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
[...] One-Man Pro-Death Penalty ArgumentDonklephant - Aug 7, 2006… If life in prison is the worst we can hand out, what that means to criminals (and criminal-like cultures such as jihadi Islam) is that we don t value … [...]
September 23rd, 2006 at 12:29 pm
As a retiree from working 20 + years in a maximum security facility, I can assure you that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. What makes people think that just because a killer is incarcerated he stops committing crimes? They assault and rape other inmates and try their best to injure or kill custodial staff, successfully much of the time. I was injured more times than I can count, but never by an executed inmate.