Rulers are not given their power to shed blood so that they can use it to make themselves feel good, or seek to raise their poll ratings. They are given it so that they can protect their own citizens from peril and subjugation.(Quoted in The Daily Express 5 April 1999)
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Peter Hitchens
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We will present this article by
Peter Hitchens call: ‘The Civil Sword’.
14
April 2011 2:58 PM
The Civil Sword
'Bert' opines (in one posting): '
There’s nothing wrong with being squeamish'.
That depends what one is being squeamish about. Being squeamish about the careful use of force and violence against guilty persons convicted in fair trials to defend peace, order and safety is quite different from being repelled (as so few are, but I am) about blowing innocent German civilians to bits in their homes, or baking them to death in firestorms, because you can't make contact with the enemy's army.
Funny, in fact, that so many who are squeamish about the swift and humane execution of justly convicted killers are so relaxed about the mass murder, often by tearing them to pieces with metal instruments, of unborn babies, the bombing of Belgrade, Baghdad and Afghanistan (and now of Libya).
'Bert' continues: ' and just because you don’t think it’s right for the state to kill doesn’t mean that you don’t want to defend what is right.'
Well, yes it does, if you think it's fine for the state to kill, or license killing, for other purposes that suit you. Which is why people who support such policies always claim(though without explaining why) that the predictably lethal wars or predictably lethal transport policies they like are not in any way comparable to the existence of a death penalty. Not to mention the predictably lethal arming of the police, a direct consequence of the abolition of lawful execution in Britain.
And it also does if by disarming yourself you unleash much greater violence on those you are supposed to be protecting. And I have established here that greater violence has followed the abolition of the death penalty, something my emotional spasm opponents don't like discussing.
He then asks: ' As for your peroration, do you really think, in the cold light of day, that scrapping the death penalty is a “betrayal of civilisation”?'
Absolutely. The colder the light, the more I think it.
A civilisation that won't defend itself will soon cease to exist. QED.
'Curtis' submits: 'What about John's gospel, 7.53-8.11? A crowd asks Jesus if a woman, just caught in adultery, should be executed, by stoning. This was the law in Jerusalem then Jesus stops the execution by saying ‘That one of you who is faultless shall throw the first stone.’ This passage makes me think that if Jesus were around today, he would oppose the death penalty, on the grounds that no one is good enough to execute anyone'.
(A note in brackets: This provides an illustration of how much we have lost thanks to the discarding of the Authorised Version of the Bible, in which the words are rendered so much more memorably as : 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her'. (How is this hard to understand as it is? Or archaic? It only contains two words of more than one syllable, and they are 'without' and 'among'))
The incident seems to me to be too specific, to the sin of adultery, to allow of this interpretation. Also, taken in company with Christ's behaviour before, during (and, as it happens, after) his own trial and execution, it cannot be used to make such a point. Without the latter, it might serve. With it, it does not. He intervenes to prevent an act of gross hypocrisy and (as so often in his life and ministry) to take the side of a woman against male hypocrisy or dislike. Not to object to the penalty as such ( had there been a sinless person there, that is to say anyone who had not committed adultery himself, Christ presumably could not have objected if he had cast the first stone).
Mr Walker runs away from the argument thus :'You yourself were the person who started the emotional side of this debate. All that nonsense about 'wielding the sword of civil society' etc. Sounds good but is not an argument'.
I didn't offer it as an argument. I have set out my argument in detail in articles findable through the index, and in the relevant chapter in my book, which Mr Walker ( despite my urgings) has chosen not to read , preferring to get het up and then flounce off. Like so many abolitionists, he prefers self-righteous emotionalism to a cool analysis of the practicalities. He is, perhaps, afraid of losing in such a contest. The phrase 'The Civil Sword' is just an expression, used by persons as various as John Milton and Andrew Jackson to refer to the state's monopoly of violence. If it upsets or otherwise unsettles Mr Walker, I cannot help it.
The person hiding behind the name 'Scaramanga' thinks he is being satirical when he is in fact just being boring.
Mr Charles writes: ' "Strict pacifists can use the risk of innocent death as an absolute reason for opposing execution (provided they also wish to ban private motor cars)." This utilitarian nonsense could've been written by Jeremy Bentham.'
Really? If I were to advance the perfectly good Christian arguments for a death penalty, namely the greatly heightened chance of genuine repentance and remorse on the part of the killer, not to mention the large number of murderers who commit suicide, which is gravely distressing to a believer, Mr Charles and others would jeer at me for superstition and mumbo-jumbo. So I stick to the things they can understand, which are measurable on a materialist calculating machine (however desiccated) and are equally true. But people who would jeer at a transcendental argument cannot really, in all consistency, also jeer at a utilitarian one.
He continues: 'PH exhibits a massive failure of imagination in regard to what capital punishment does to society as a whole.'
He should be more specific. I am not sure what imagination I need to deploy here. I have myself witnessed two executions in a foreign jurisdiction. I grew up in a society with a death penalty, and it was chiefly different from today's in being more peaceful and less violent, and having an unarmed police force.
He adds: 'I would HATE to live in a society that was ruled by retribution. I aspire to something better. I'd refer him to my earlier post on this thread if he wants clarification.'
I still don't see what's wrong with retribution forming part of a criminal justice system. Indeed, I can't see how it could function or long survive without it. And I suspect Mr Charles doesn't have my experience of seeing inside several prisons. I have no doubt that long-term imprisonment is immeasurably more cruel than swift execution. But 'ruled' by retribution? Hardly. Though the anarchy towards which we are heading, as justice fails, will be ruled by vengeance and blood-feuds.
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