Friday, April 21, 2006

Execution & Co.

By Creature

Why do we want to be in this company? From Reuters:

China, Iran, Saudi, US main executioners: Amnesty
More than 2,000 people were known to have been executed around the world last year, the vast majority of them in China, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

Maybe one day we will join the civilized nations of this world and stop allowing our government the power to kill its citizens. You are judged by the company you keep.

"The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, because it contravenes the essence of human values, it is often applied in a discriminatory manner, follows unfair trials or is applied for political reasons," Amnesty International Secretary-General Irene Khan said in a statement.

Read more.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

posted by creature at 5:00 PM

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1 Comments:

  • Michael, that's a silly argument. Hitler was against cancer; does that mean we should be for it. There are prudential grounds for opposing the death penalty (ie, the irreversibility in case of error, etc.), but, frankly, I have trouble seeing the moral issue--at least for certain heinous crimes. Are you sorry that Timothy McVeigh is no longer alive. I'm not. I have no problem making a moral judgement that some people should die.
    Now, I'm not a big supporter of the death penalty. I think it is often used indiscriminately here. And I doubt it has much effect on crime. But just because China executes people doesn't, by itself, mean the death penalty is wrong.

    And, in fact, my understanding is that polls show that a lot of Europeans favor the death penalty but that the political elites oppose it. So, maybe Americans are not such moral monsters as we appear.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:34 AM  

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