House of Eratosthenes

Nobody ever reads this blog, of course, but those who might trip across it from time to time would notice we have a way of pointing out stories of depraved violence, specifically targetting anti-death-penalty folks for this information. It is they who are in a position to benefit from this knowledge. It is our position, here at The Blog Nobody Reads, that there is no logical reason to oppose the death penalty.

An important justification for this position is the Doctrine of Erroneous Absolutes. When two assertions are antithetical to one another, such that they both can’t be true — one’s an absolute, the other is not — usually, the one that is an absolute is defeated. If it prevails in discourse it fails in implementation. Now, there are exceptions to this. Think about it; there have to be exceptions to the Doctrine. If there are no exceptions, the Doctrine becomes an absolute, and given it’s nature it becomes an inherent contradiction. So to sum it up, if you say “always” or “never” or “all” or “none,” there isn’t much reason to inspect the other stuff you have to say. It’s usually wrong.

The Anti-Death-Penalty movement has enjoyed, around the world, spectacular success that is based on complete and insubstantiable falsehood: To support the death penalty is an absolute, to oppose it is the essence of moderation. They don’t use the word “moderation,” what they like to use instead is something having to do with “a civilized society.” Nevertheless, moderation is the idea they want to communicate. Let’s not push the button, because you can’t reverse that later. It sounds good. It sounds moderate.

But it’s not moderate, it’s absolute. “Do away with the death penalty” means to never use it. Never, never, no matter what, it is “off the table.” That’s an absolute. On the other hand, when someone like me comes along, and says “let’s keep the death penalty,” people look at us as if we’re the absolutists. That is logically untenable. Absoute would be, let’s kill everybody. Or let’s kill everyone who is arrested. Or let’s kill all the felons. Or anyone who is convicted of murder, kill ’em, without regard to any of the circumstances involved.

And I don’t know of any pro-death-penalty who are pushing anything even remotely similar to that. Support for the death penalty, is the essence of moderation. “Let’s keep it on the books,” as they say, as a tool…just like car insurance, you have it, you hope you never need it, but if it’s needed it will be there. It’s a sensible, moderate position.

And anybody who opposes it, is simply making public policy decisions based on wishful thinking about the human condition. Said wishful thinking is, again, absolute. “There is some good in everybody.” Why, it must be true. I saw it in Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader turned out to be not such a bad dude.

It’s a funny thing about humanity as a whole. As people are inspected across localities, cultures, various living conditions…there is no quicker way to destroy absolutes. Go ahead, just name something that “nobody” does. Then give me a million people or so, which is a tiny fraction of all the people on the planet. A tiny fraction. Let me sift through ’em, and I’ll find a bunch of people who do that thing you think nobody does.

Good in everybody? I wish it were the case.

“Some good in everybody” is not only a delusional absolute, it’s also off-topic. The death penalty doesn’t exist for us to execute people once they’ve been found to contain zero, zilch, nada, butkus, no good whatsoever. That really would be asking for trouble. That really would be investing an excess of power in our lawmakers and executives and judicials. That really would be imposing the flawed decision-making of man, upon the domain of God. It would be wrong.

No, the death penalty exists to protect the innocent from those who are incapable of honoring the implied social contract required for people to live safely among each other. Some people, for whatever reason, simply don’t give a damn. To expect them not to hurt somebody else, is like expecting a ferret to make timely installment payments on a loan and not let any of the checks bounce. They just aren’t wired for it. They’re not built for it. It’s not within their capacity.

So down they go. Moderate position. It doesn’t feel like one, because of course it’s irreversible. But much of what the justice system does, is irreversible. Tossing a guy in jail for a single night is irreversible. So “irreversible” is not absolute. To say “don’t ever do that” — that’s absolute. And it’s wrong. It fails to take into account the incredible diversity of the human condition; and I’m using the “D” word as a bad thing. Some people hurt other people, and can’t stop even if they want to. And a lot of them don’t want to stop.

Now having said that, I should add the separate issue of “reasonable doubt” is a significant issue. Some people oppose the death penalty because they insist, under threat of such a sentence, all doubt is reasonable and there must always be some. I think this point is somewhat more logical, although it doesn’t hold much sway with me because it’s simply unworkable. The threshold for “reasonableness” is a static thing; the ramifications of the prosecution overcoming it, don’t change where it is. Maybe we’d all feel good if such a thing were so, but that doesn’t make it so.

And where would that put us? A speeding ticket is one or two hundred bucks — so nevermind that the radar gun lacked the proper certification or that the arresting officer has a history of perjury. The penalty is light, so the burden of proof is negligible. On the other hand, if the death penalty makes a demand of proof that can never be satisfied, then penalties that are only a little bit lighter, must make demands of proof that almost can never be satisfied. Armed robbery with a deadly weapon, with priors? Gee, that could involve twenty years; maybe more. Better make it real hard to lock the guy up, even if you know he really did it. Why not? It’s the same logic. Once you’ve wasted two decades of his life, you can never give it back. Better just turn him loose.

And that would hold for all the really bad stuff. The violent stuff. Are those the people we want to turn loose, while the innocents who gee, maybe, just might have jaywalked, are unjustly fined?

Well…without commenting further on my reservations about this “reasonable doubt” defense, I’d recommend what’s above just as something to chew on. For our anti-death-penalty types.

While they read about this…

A former jail guard testified Thursday about how a husband and wife were killed by being tied to an anchor aboard their yacht and dumped into the ocean.

Alonso Machain said he was on a boat belonging to Thomas and Jackie Hawks when they were killed in late 2004. He said he watched as they were overpowered by two men, bound by duct tape, tied to an anchor and thrown overboard off Southern California.

Machain, 23, testified Wednesday for more than two hours in the trial of Jennifer Deleon, who is charged with two counts of murder and special-circumstance allegations of committing multiple murders for financial gain.

Machain has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and acknowledged he hopes for leniency in exchange for his testimony.
:
Moments before they were killed, Machain said, Jackie Hawks pleaded with her captors to release them.

“She said they just had a new grandchild and she just wanted to see him,” Machain said.

The bodies of the Hawkses, of Prescott, Ariz., have not been found.

I know, I know. People say all kinds of crazy shit in exchange for leniency. It just makes sense that they will, and the “wanna see my grandchild” bit reeks of a tidbit that might have been cooked up to sway emotions.

What’s disturbing is, when you think about it, there really aren’t too many ways to get rid of a couple of human bodies to make sure they are never found. Yeah you can think of a few based on the movies. But easy logistics are involved in only one method of which I know, when there’s a boat involved.

Doesn’t exactly stand out as one of the better ways to go, huh?

[…] For The Anti-Death-Penalty Types VII […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/11/2006 @ 23:39
Pretty much the way I feel, except put into words, and done pretty well.

“Beyond a reasonable doubt” — yeah, that’s good for 20 years.

Maybe a notch up for the death peanalty would be “beyond a sane person’s doubt” or something along those lines.

I definitely believe there are certain people who just need to be removed from the realm of functional protoplasm. And anyone who would do what that guy did — yeah.

I wouldn’t even be opposed to having the punishment duplicate the crime on that one.

But I’d settle for lethal injection.
- philmon | 11/12/2006 @ 00:10

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Saturday, November 11th, 2006