capital punishment is not peaceful

In a previous post I mentioned the death penalty as a deterrent to peace. The reason for this is simply really. The death penalty is a violent act carried out in the name of vengeance, under the guise of justice.

I have decided to forego throwing a ton of statistics at you, as I think it is important to talk about the rationality of capital punishment. If you think this is something better discussed with statistics and cold hard facts, then please, blog it and I come give you my take on it. For now, trying to gain an insight is all this is about.

Many people, be they religious or not, use the catch phrase “eye for an eye” when talking about capital punishment. For the most part we can take this to mean that if you kill someone, you will be killed.

It is interesting to me, however, that this is the ONLY situation in which this idea is an acceptable form of punishment. The penalty for punching someone in the face is not a punch in the face. The penalty for rape is not to be raped. The penalty for breaking someone’s window is not to have your windows broken.

Because these crimes are punishable by fines, community service, and/or jail time, and because people tend to accept them as valid forms of punishment, further proves that capital punishment is a form of revenge as apposed to justice.

Supporters of capital punishment say that a person who kills a child does not “deserve” to live. Therefore, they justify the use of the death penalty by saying that it is ridding the world of an evil person. There is no way that this can ever be an effective argument. The reality of it is, this case is based upon YOU, a human being, deciding who is worthy of life and death; is that not why murder is illegal, because we have decided that we are not the ones to make this decision?

A child murdered is indeed a sad thing. I could not imagine the death of one of my two kids at the hands of a murder, nor do I even enjoy entertaining the thought that it could happen. Children are innocent and undeserving of any such fate, without a doubt.

But imagine a world where this kind of logic justifies various acts.

Let me explain this with a hypothetical situation: Pretend that I am the ruler of the United States and a supporter of death penalty. Those of you who have known me for a while know that I am a vegan and firmly against animal testing because I believe it is the senseless killing of an innocent life, a.k.a murder.

Since I am now the ruler of the nation, anyone caught killing an animal is to be sentenced to death.

Is that right? My morality could justify my stance in this situation, if I was pro-capital punishment, but that does not make it right. To most of you this seems extreme, but to me, a life is a life, be it human or not.

It is clear that this kind of rationality simply does not hold up under closer examination.

You may be wonder at this point what all this has to do with Peace. Quite a bit really. I am sure if you have read the previous posts you already know what I am going to say; a change in thinking is desperately needed.

The death penalty is an act of vengeance. We could argue that all day long, but in the end, killing a killer is for the sole reason of making the victim’s family feel better. It is certainly not for the victim.

When people try to justify killing a killer they tend to look at the grief of the victims family, and somehow believe that revenge will make them feel better. I often wonder how the mother of killer feels. Is she to blame? Should she be forced to have her son taken from her?

This failure to recognize the guilty party as human, and as having a family and friends of their own, leads to much bigger problems on a much more grand scale.

Consider the acts of 9/11/2001. Americans, including myself, were absolutely outraged at the blatant disregard for human life. We each did our part to mourn the tremendous loss of life and think of the families of those victims.

Then, with no regard to the consequences, many, in fact the majority, in this country began to call for military action. Now, after the death of 3000 innocent Americans, a war based on what many call justice, but most are calling revenge, there have been between 74,000 and 81,000**.

This is because of the same mentality - the same vengeful ignorance – that keeps capital punishment legal in the United States and around the world.

Outlawing capital punishment, in my opinion, would, in the years to come, create a new way of thinking, especially within the youth. If killing as an act of justice is seen as wrong, immoral, and unjust, then perhaps war as an effective means of international problem solving could be seen in the same light as well.