August 7, 2006
EU Death Penalty Debate
Poland wants to reopen the death penalty debate within the EU.
The EU administration has firmly rejected the possibility any such discussion. Why are we still having this tired old debate? The death penalty does not satisfy the main aims of penal theory. It does not rehabilitate (for obvious reasons). It does not deter (or else the US wouldn’t need to keep injecting people with lethal drugs). Apart from anything else, it is so scary to live somewhere where the state has the ability, historically used arbitrarially, to kill people. How can a State tell people not to kill, when the same State kills people itself? It just doesn’t make sense.
I liked the caption – ‘Lech Kaczynski advocates traditional Catholic values’. The Beeb is not noted for its irony, so I can only guess it is unintended, but it is dripping with irony. When will some Catholics realise that ‘traditional values’ do not mean killing people? They mean ‘love thy neighbour’, ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Forgiveness is possibly the word I heard most in my childhood, yet people touting these ‘traditional values’ say in the same breath that State sponsored killing should be REintroduced.
Sometimes I wonder whether society has really progressed at all.
June 17, 2006
Only in the US
Could you see a headline such as 'Man Charged After Wife's Head is Found at Accident Scene'.
If you had cut off your wife's head, don't you think you would be careful not to drive around like a maniac, thereby killing another mother and daughter, and causing your wife's head to bounce around on the road.
I can't understand how tragedies like this could possibly happen. How sick can people be?
June 9, 2006
Hypocritical Murder
Can somebody tell me why it is ok for the American military to murder people, but it is not ok for those same people to murder people? Why is nobody reporting the irony in George Bush's comments, which ran something like 'this violent man will murder no more'?
Now, I am not pro-terrorist and I don't care about numbers or scale. Zarqawi was an animal, I am sure. What I can't stand is a group of people getting up and saying that by their own murder, they have acted virtuously in preventing the murder of others. Why should governments be able to assassinate people, then blow up their photo on CNN and denounce them as murderers?
Murder is murder, regardless of which person commits it. I would even argue that state organised and sponsored killing is much worse than murder by a private citizen.
The Law Thoughts 