Thursday 21 November 2002

Pic of the day: Burn, bandits, burn! Have I played too much Dark Age of Camelot, or do we kill too few bandits in real life?

Draconian measures

I wrote a lengthy essay in praise of the death penalty (capital punishment). Yet I did not feel quite sure enough that I had thought it through. I hear about so much evil, it is hard to keep my emotions from clouding my thought. On the other hand, I hold very little respect for the liberal who lives safely in the suburbs while condemning the poor to live daily in the shadow of death, in the inner city slums where gangs roam the streets with no respect for law nor mercy.

I would pay more heed to movie critiques from the blind than when the well off defend the rights of criminals.

I consider it a choice between the human rights of criminals and the human rights of innocents. You cannot vigorously defend the weeds without hurting the wheat. That's the way I see it.

We are more than 6 billion people in the world, and would probably still be even if we killed all habitually violent criminals. And those that remained would feel much safer. It would once again be possible to walk through the cities at all times, or take a taxi without fear. Liberals want freedom, right? Liberty. Should not innocent people be free to live their lives without fear of men who have chosen to live like mad dogs?

That's not even mentioning that the most criminal 0.1% of the population destroy values equal to 4% of the country's production. Or, each of them destroys the works of 40 honest men. Should not these values be used better than that? The world economy is heading into a recession; the fastest way to stop that is to cut loose those who are dragging us down with both hands. But this is less important than the improved safety and freedom for the innocent majority.

Yes, sometimes an innocent is found guilty, and that sucks. But people die from honest mistakes every day: In the traffic, in workplaces, even at home. You are at the wrong place at the wrong time, and you die. This is sad, but a cost we are willing to bear in order to have cars, industry machines, stairs and bathtubs. Certainly we should be willing to take a smaller risk of death in order to eliminate a larger risk of death?

Am I missing something? How come some otherwise rational people don't want to kill off our habitually violent criminals? Do they know something I have forgotten, or do they just think criminals are more worthy of protection than innocents?