Monday, March 07, 2005
"Because The B**** Seen My Face"
I first read about the Romer case in this little blurb via a link at Dime Store Guru. Sounds like we're in pretty awful company with the juvenille execution thing.
Then I listened to Dennis Prager on the way to work a couple days later. What he read was so disturbing to me, I could hardly get any work done for the next couple of hours. This is directly from the Supreme Court decision:
When I was in 6th grade, I was in a program where I had to do some debating. The topics and positions were assigned by the teacher. I got the "con" Death Penalty. (Can you imagine the little Count reading through issues of Newsweek and Time reading about carjacking, pistol-whipping and armed robbery? Ah, the days before Prop. 13 and political correctness.)
In short, even a 6th grader could see that the way the death penalty was applied seemed unfair. I remember one case in particular where a guy was beaten with a pistol by some "freinds" and forced to drive a getaway car for a robbery where a homicide was committed. The driver got the death penalty. The shooter didn't because he plea-bargained or some crap.
This case isn't like that though. Not in the least.
I struggle with what is justice in this case.
My friend Tim seems not to, although he hasn't probably seen the details above. He asks "Wouldn't a more consistant pro-life position BOTH uphold the sanctity of life for the prisoner created in God's image AND ALSO uphold the Sanctity of Life of possible future victims by just prison sentencing?" Later, he adds " When you grant the Federal and State government the right to be in the killing people business, I can't see how that doesn't water-down the sanctity of life into some "sanctity-of-only-innocent-life."
The appeal of this position seems to me to be its ease of formulation: killing people is always wrong.
(Sigh)
This seems to me to be such a gross oversimplication of the facts, even a perversion of the idea of equality. As Dennis Prager often says, the Left values Equality, and the Right values Freedom. This profound difference is the root of a lot of disagreement in the world, and I think the root of much moral confusion among people of good will.
Tim, and many of my friends find the appeal of this approach in the radical equality given to all life. The vicitim had a life, and the murderer has a life. To take either away without consent is evil and unfair. But the fact is the victim had a life, and it was taken away from her in a cruel and wanton fashion. Would it not be more fair to put the murderer to death, thus equalizing their states of being? Even then, the death administered by law would be far more humane than the abject horror that woman was put through. The old "Eye-for-an-eye" way of looking in the world is harsh not because it is unfair, but because it is all too fair. We are all sinners and worthy of death. Grace comes when we are spared. And we are spared often.
Thus, perhaps you could view the graciousness of a society by how many muderers are spared of death, not it's cruelty by how many are put to death by the state for crimes which they are unquestionabl guilty of.
It's at least worthy of question, which is why I believe this issues should be left to the states, and not to the courts. This decision may very well be an opening towards outlawing the death penalty all together by finding it unconstitutional. At the same time, the court has relyed on International law in creating this decision. To all that would applaud the direction the Court is going on this, I ask you to pause and consider how you would feel if it were a decision you were morally opposed to. That 9 unelected judges can overturn the will of State legislatures at will and refer to extra-constitutional sources to make their case is disturbing.
I remain somewhat divided on the issue of capital punishment. I am not opposed to it in principle, but it seems that in practice it is sometimes fraught with inconsitencies and injustice. But I have seen the face of this young man above, and I think lethal injection would be better than he deserves, a form of mercy if you will. Do you need a whole lifetime to repent? How about the length of a capital trial? I assume this is the only reason anyone would want to keep someone like this alive. Which is merciful. But the equitable thing would be death.
Then I listened to Dennis Prager on the way to work a couple days later. What he read was so disturbing to me, I could hardly get any work done for the next couple of hours. This is directly from the Supreme Court decision:
At the age of 17, when he was still a junior in high school, Christopher Simmons, the respondent here, committed murder. About nine months later, after he had turned 18, he was tried and sentenced to death. There is little doubt that Simmons was the instigator of the crime. Before its commission Simmons said he wanted to murder someone. In chilling, callous terms he talked about his plan, discussing it for the most part with two friends, Charles Benjamin and John Tessmer, then aged 15 and 16 respectively. Simmons proposed to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim, and throwing the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends they could “get away with it” because they were minors.
The three met at about 2 a.m. on the night of the murder, but Tessmer left before the other two set out. (The State later charged Tessmer with conspiracy, but dropped the charge in exchange for his testimony against Simmons.) Simmons and Benjamin entered the home of the victim, Shirley Crook, after reaching through an open window and unlocking the back door. Simmons turned on a hallway light. Awakened, Mrs. Crook called out, “Who’s there?” In response Simmons entered Mrs. Crook’s bedroom, where he recognized her from a previous car accident involving them both. Simmons later admitted this confirmed his resolve to murder her. Using duct tape to cover her eyes and mouth and bind her hands, the two perpetrators put Mrs. Crook in her minivan and drove to a state park. They reinforced the bindings, covered her head with a towel, and walked her to a railroad trestle spanning the Meramec River. There they tied her hands and feet together with electrical wire, wrapped her whole face in duct tape and threw her from the bridge, drowning her in the waters below.
By the afternoon of September 9, Steven Crook had returned home from an overnight trip, found his bedroom in disarray, and reported his wife missing. On the same afternoon fishermen recovered the victim’s body from the river. Simmons, meanwhile, was bragging about the killing, telling friends he had killed a woman “because the bitch seen my face.”
When I was in 6th grade, I was in a program where I had to do some debating. The topics and positions were assigned by the teacher. I got the "con" Death Penalty. (Can you imagine the little Count reading through issues of Newsweek and Time reading about carjacking, pistol-whipping and armed robbery? Ah, the days before Prop. 13 and political correctness.)
In short, even a 6th grader could see that the way the death penalty was applied seemed unfair. I remember one case in particular where a guy was beaten with a pistol by some "freinds" and forced to drive a getaway car for a robbery where a homicide was committed. The driver got the death penalty. The shooter didn't because he plea-bargained or some crap.
This case isn't like that though. Not in the least.
I struggle with what is justice in this case.
My friend Tim seems not to, although he hasn't probably seen the details above. He asks "Wouldn't a more consistant pro-life position BOTH uphold the sanctity of life for the prisoner created in God's image AND ALSO uphold the Sanctity of Life of possible future victims by just prison sentencing?" Later, he adds " When you grant the Federal and State government the right to be in the killing people business, I can't see how that doesn't water-down the sanctity of life into some "sanctity-of-only-innocent-life."
The appeal of this position seems to me to be its ease of formulation: killing people is always wrong.
(Sigh)
This seems to me to be such a gross oversimplication of the facts, even a perversion of the idea of equality. As Dennis Prager often says, the Left values Equality, and the Right values Freedom. This profound difference is the root of a lot of disagreement in the world, and I think the root of much moral confusion among people of good will.
Tim, and many of my friends find the appeal of this approach in the radical equality given to all life. The vicitim had a life, and the murderer has a life. To take either away without consent is evil and unfair. But the fact is the victim had a life, and it was taken away from her in a cruel and wanton fashion. Would it not be more fair to put the murderer to death, thus equalizing their states of being? Even then, the death administered by law would be far more humane than the abject horror that woman was put through. The old "Eye-for-an-eye" way of looking in the world is harsh not because it is unfair, but because it is all too fair. We are all sinners and worthy of death. Grace comes when we are spared. And we are spared often.
Thus, perhaps you could view the graciousness of a society by how many muderers are spared of death, not it's cruelty by how many are put to death by the state for crimes which they are unquestionabl guilty of.
It's at least worthy of question, which is why I believe this issues should be left to the states, and not to the courts. This decision may very well be an opening towards outlawing the death penalty all together by finding it unconstitutional. At the same time, the court has relyed on International law in creating this decision. To all that would applaud the direction the Court is going on this, I ask you to pause and consider how you would feel if it were a decision you were morally opposed to. That 9 unelected judges can overturn the will of State legislatures at will and refer to extra-constitutional sources to make their case is disturbing.
I remain somewhat divided on the issue of capital punishment. I am not opposed to it in principle, but it seems that in practice it is sometimes fraught with inconsitencies and injustice. But I have seen the face of this young man above, and I think lethal injection would be better than he deserves, a form of mercy if you will. Do you need a whole lifetime to repent? How about the length of a capital trial? I assume this is the only reason anyone would want to keep someone like this alive. Which is merciful. But the equitable thing would be death.
Who Would Jesus Bomb?
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
A Sign of things to come?
In a bizzarre twist of fate, 25,000 protesters took to the streets of Beirut to peacefully protest their government, while just miles away, historic elections have taken place in Iraq.
But here's the truly amazing piece:
This looks really, really good. But I wonder what the Arab street thinks of it. Oh, wait it is, the Arab street. They must be Halliburton shareholders!
But here's the truly amazing piece:
"We will be here every day until the last Syrian soldier withdraws from our land," one activist said through a loudspeaker. The crowd, blowing whistles, chanted back: "Freedom, Sovereignty, Independence."
They sang in rhyming Arabic: "We are all, Muslims and Christians, against the Syrians."
This looks really, really good. But I wonder what the Arab street thinks of it. Oh, wait it is, the Arab street. They must be Halliburton shareholders!
