The supreme court has decided to outlaw the death penalty as a punishment for child rapists.
Today I have already seen a half dozen blogs lamenting the values of those liberal judges, or seething with indignation at the decision. Over the next few days, you will see a great number of outraged people who want with all their hearts to see pedophiles get the death sentence. A whole lot of these people will say that it’s immoral to let a child rapist off with his or her life. What kind of society are we living in when we can’t even kill the most gruesome offenders of the law? A just society.
The court’s statement afterward read that the justices felt that death was a disproportionate punishment for the crime of rape.
And people will cry out “How dare they!”
How dare they take away our right to vengeance.
Make no mistake about it. Those who are clamoring for the heads of sex offenders are not interested in justice. They are only interested in revenge.
Many of his victim’s familys showed up to watch Timothy Mcveigh being executed. One woman remarked after that she felt he went “too peacefully,” that he didn’t suffer enough.
There is no semblance of justice in that statement. It’s time that we got over our ape-like instincts for seeking vengeance and moved on. No man has the right to take another’s life. In my opinion, that includes drug dealers, rapists, terrorists, and tyrants. There is a fundamental logical fallacy at work here: deterring someone from an immoral behavior by implementing an even more immoral punishment is only going to keep us running in circles for all time.
It’s easy to call for revenge, especially against someone who robs a child of their innocence. But that doesn’t make it right. It’s hard to say that even a rapist’s life is worth something, but when we finally are willing realize it and protect it, then we’ll really be getting somewhere.
“Your compassion is not a weakness that your enemies will share.”
“That’s why it’s so important. It’s what separates us from them.”
-Batman
June 25, 2008 at 9:26 pm
This was the response I made to your comments at my blog, in case you never find your way back.
“Yes, actually it will prove they were wrong. I don’t believe any form of punishment helps prevention, especially in rape cases. Rapists rape because they are evil. Tell them they will spend the rest of their life in prison or they will be killed if they rape and they will still rape.”
Let’s just use worse case like Justice Alito uses in his dissent. A repeat offender who commits brutal child rape. What is a fair punishment for such an offender?
June 25, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Evil? Don’t pretend to divide people into good and evil when you’re calling for state-sanctioned murder. Rapists rape because they are deeply flawed, troubled human beings who need to be isolated from the rest of us.
A fair punishment is to give them a life sentence in the general population, so they can feel the pain that they put the child through for the rest of their life.
June 25, 2008 at 10:10 pm
The Supreme Court is right. 5-4 again (as for Guantanamo prisoners).
There is also a high risk of wrongful conviction in this type of case.
Thank you for your article.
June 26, 2008 at 1:17 pm
When I say kill child rapists it’s not because I want revenge it is what they owe. What’s really flawed is the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 8th “cruel AND unusual” there’s nothing unusual about the death penalty. In any case to each his own.
July 9, 2008 at 7:30 pm
[...] For my part, I believe that life begins at conception and that life should be protected by the law as much as any other. [...]
July 10, 2008 at 11:47 am
[...] For my part, I believe that life begins at conception and that life should be protected by the law as much as any other. [...]
July 11, 2008 at 10:20 am
[...] my part, I believe that life begins at conception and that life should be protected by the law as much as any other. I don’t want a single dollar of my taxes going towards ending an infant’s life. just like I don’t [...]
March 13, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Stop the death penalty