Monday, August 20, 2007
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Death Penalty Distortions Highlight Liberal Hypocrisy
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Posted by:
Michael Medved at
12:39 AM
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Liberals reveal their appalling hypocrisy when they proudly claim to oppose the influence of religion on politics, and then try to cite the Bible to argue against the death penalty..
In one typical expression of sentiment, just today I spotted a bumper-sticker declaring, “The Last Time They Mixed Religion and Politics They Burned People at the Stake.”
Nevertheless, opponents of capital punishment frequently resort to scriptural citations or faith-based arguments to try to make their case. The same “progressives” who react with horror at Christian, pro-life arguments when it comes to the issue of abortion, seem to welcome misguided Christian arguments against capital punishment.
This point came home to me with unusual force during synagogue services this last Saturday. The weekly portion of the Bible which was read out loud this week by all Jews, everywhere, included verses (Deuteronomy 19: 11-13) that leave little doubt as to the Old Testament’s insistence on the death penalty. Scripture declares that “if there be a man who hates his fellow, and ambushes him mortally, and he dies” then the killer cannot escape to one of the established “Cities of Refuge” intended for perpetrators of accidental death. With a pre-mediated murder, the Bible says: “Your eye shall not pity him; you shall remove the innocent blood from Israel; and it shall be good for you.”
Concerning this passage, the authoritative Twelfth Century sage, Maimonides, offers an explanation with haunting contemporary resonance: “The verse concludes that by executing the murderer, the nation will insure that it shall be good for you, because compassion for a murderer breeds further bloodshed, since it frees him from death and sets an example for others, who may be tempted to follow his example.”
In other words, misplaced compassion for a pre-meditated murderer brings cruel consequences for future innocent victims – as recent academic studies of the death penalty and its powerful deterrent impact very clearly indicate.
In response to the Old Testament’s direct (and frequently repeated) authorization of capital punishment, Christian opponents of the death penalty claim that Jesus replaced the harsh Mosaic law of justice with a new Gospel of forgiveness and mercy. They cite the famous Gospel injunction to “turn the other cheek” or the suggestion that “he who is without sin should cast the first stone,” without acknowledging that these exhortations apply to individual conduct and not to governmental authorities. In the New Testament, in fact, Paul makes clear in Romans 13:4 that believers should not expect society to abolish capital punishment: “But if you do evil, be afraid; for (the governing authority) does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister; an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”
Moreover, the same section of Matthew’s Gospel that includes the celebrated exhortations to “love thine enemy” and “turn the other cheek” begins with Christ’s unequivocal declaration (Matthew 5: 17-18) that he has no intention of abrogating properly interpreted Old Testament law: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
In this context, the early Church unhesitatingly endorsed the death penalty. Clement of Alexandria, the great scholar and teacher of the Second Century, declared that “if someone falls into incurable evil – when taken possession of by wrong or covetousness – it will be for his good if he is put to death.” In the Fourth Century, St. Jerome (venerated by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Lutherans alike) wrote that execution of “murderers, blasphemers and poisoners” is not “shedding of blood, but administration of laws.” Aquinas also strongly reasoned for the death penalty, and as recently as the Catechism of Trent (1566), the Catholic Church unequivocally affirmed that “lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent.”
Of course, the Church has changed its position in recent years (particularly since the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65), in most cases discouraging the death penalty as non-reformative and non-rehabilitative. In terms of religious authority, however, sacred scholars and teachers many centuries closer to Jesus and his message (not to mention closer to Moses and his law) affirmed and prescribed the death penalty with scant hesitation.
In short, the attempt by opponents of capital punishment to cite Biblical authority not only ignores the plain language of Old Testament and New Testament text as well as thousands of years of authoritative interpretation, but also highlights the hypocritical willingness of secular progressives to trot out religious arguments (no matter how specious) whenever it helps them to make their feeble case.
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Can justice ever be served for those that have been wrongly executed ?
If you were wrongly convicted of a crime and sentenced to death, would you consider the termination of your life a necessary sacrifice, or simply an injustice heaped on you ?
Far too many are mistakenly imprisoned and/or put to death.
I don't support abolishing the death penalty, but I
do support severely restricting the use of it to prevent an innocent from perishing under it. |
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Religion aside, what is justice for an athiest or humanist? Is it justice to allow a known killer to be freed after a certain time, free to commit more murder? Is it justice that a mother or father of a victim has to wake up every day, knowing the loss of thier child will not be avenged?
Yes, it is about vengence, it should be. Who pays for the spilled blood of that child, or the next one, when that killer is allowed to kill again, the judge, or defense attorney, or jury? Those who claim such a high value of a killer's life completely ignore the victim's value, as if, just because they are dead, it wouldn't matter anymore. And I say that a victim's life is so much more valuable than the life they seek to spare.
I would assume those here opposed to the death penalty have never known someone who has been killed in such a fashion. Such as abortion, we will never know the value of the victim, because those victims will never be able to realize it completely. Did a mother just 'get rid of' a problem, or destroy the cure for cancer? Ask Stephen Hawkins if, because he was malformed, he should have been aborted. Ask yourself, who were before the abortion fad, aren't you grateful that your mom didn't have that choice?
All the titles of intellectual, progressive, and humanist, talking about not killing the guilty, yet striking down innocents like it's just another day as usual. Where's the intellect, progression and humanity in that? |
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It's all about labels, isn't it? Well, as long as you're doing it. . . .
It may be correct to identify Michael Medved as a "religious right-winger", but it's also a pretty safe bet that neither he nor anyone else here -- and I include myself -- desires a justice system akin to that of Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, or Iran. As much of a fundamentalist homophobe as Michael IS, I'm sure that he does not support executing gays (as was recently done in Iran), or cutting off the hands of thieves or drawing and quartering adulterers (as is still done in Saudi Arabia) or the uncounted human rights abuses that occur on a daily basis in Zimbabwe.
We have no obligation -- morally, legally, or culturally -- to pattern our Republic from the template of "other western democracies". And there is no American obsession with the death penalty; not among conservatives, anyway. |
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Define "Justice", Ran. What does the word mean?
It's really not difficult. It's as simple as "E=MC2" and yet, "just" as profound.
The fact is that you both, Ran and Leo, don't really know what justice is beyond that it is a word card to be played wildly in the game of argument that you do not understand.
The improper use of words is an indication of ignorance and stupidity. Or that you're both 10 year olds. |
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Ran, liberls are alot like a box a chocolates, except every piece has coconut inside, most people don't like coconuts. |
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Twenty nations (38% of the total) on your list have Democratic forms of government.
In addition to the five remaining communist countries in the world, there are eleven former communist states on your list -- working to establish themselves as Republics. The majority of nations on the list have, or are working to create, some form of elected government.
There are 75 countries on the list; that's 39% of the world's sovereign nations (it's an even higher percentage, if you go by population). Yes, it's a given that communist countries and other nations that are repressive in nature are going to be on the list, but here's a question for ya: Do you consider the US to be a denier or a supporter of human rights?
The two countries with the highest percentage of gun murders, South Africa and Colombia, do not have the death penalty. Russia, Colombia, Mexico, and South Africa -- four countries that do not have the death penalty -- have a combined population 12% larger than the US, and have 86% more murders. Technically, Russia still has the death penalty but they haven't executed anyone since 1999; their population is 52% smaller than the US, and they have 56% more murders. Mexico has 1/3 our population and suffers twice as many murders. |
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"...but also highlights the hypocritical willingness of secular progressives to trot out religious arguments (no matter how specious) whenever it helps them to make their feeble case."
No Mr.Medved, this piece is feeble.
No who, what, or where regarding the liberals or secular progressives you claim are hypocrites.
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...in another context, you would probably post these countries a superior to the USA because of some perceived quality of "multiculturalism", "diversity" and/or "indigenous people". You can't have it both ways, Leo. If you hate the USA, and I see by your posts that you do, why don't you just get the hell out! Why do you stay? YOU, Leo, Can't make it better.
By the way, Leo, what are these countries records on "justice"? Or are you still having trouble with the definition? It's not complex. |
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Appalling hypocrisy? You never quite explain what's the hypocrisy regarding the stake burning bumper sticker?
Neverless (< I guess if you throw a neverless everything works), most people opposed to the death penalty do so because they have a full grasp of the inadequacies of our criminal justice system- be they progressives or convicted republican ex governors (see George Ryan).
Chris nailed it- and in a svelt less than 800 words. |
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Look it up, then get back to me and tell me what great company the USA is in. |
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i dont know ,for sure if the death penalty deters crime but its for sure anyone who has ever been executed has never killed anyone else,it silly for someone top sit on death row for 20-25 yrs,should be done fast 1-2 yrs tops.the last public hanging in the us was in owensboro ky in 1936,rainey bethea raped and murdered an old woman in april and he was dead(hung) by september, |
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I believe in the Biblical principle (Old AND New Testaments) that murderers should be required to exchange their life for the life or lives they violently snuff out. However, capital punishment AS IT IS ADMINISTERED in the U.S.A. bear NO resemblance to any Biblical entreaties on the subject.
The elongated, torturous appeals process that leaves murderers languishing on death row for decades is cruel to the perpetrators and even more cruel to the families of victims. No easy answers on this one. |
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... I did not say or infer "public hangings" at all. You did! I did not imply that all Biblical transgressions that suggest the death penalty be re-instituted, YOU DID! I did not suggest a return to the Middle Ages, you did!
What is did suggest is that when capital punishment is deserved by the act of 1st. Degree Murder, it should be carried out in the community that suffered the crime, not at some distant imposing institutional edifice as a state prison. I don't approve of public executions as well, because the press will make them a spectacle and justice is rendered crude by spectacle. So "FO" Leo.
BTW, speaking of "justice". Can you, Leo, define it? Just what is "justice", Leo? |
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I guess ignorance and idiocy are bliss for you? The death penalty is not primarily the tool for revenge, because another Biblical principle (which many liberals/secularists like to forget) is that vengeance is the Lord's, as stated by Himself. The death penalty was created because there was and always will be a method that governments have to use to control ultimate law-breaking. Your ignorance of the Scriptures blinds you from this fact. |
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...as it is practiced today. I am not against capital punishment for those who have killed another human being for gain. They have, indeed, forfeited their own individual life by their own individual act. The objection I have is with the location of the execution. It should be in the jurisdiction of the crime, not at some penal institution that is far removed from where the murderous, evil deed occurred. The word "justice" is the legal and social equivalent to the equal sign in mathematics. It indicates a balance of equal proportion. Executing a murderer at a distance from the crime deprives the community where the crime was committed its balance and its local example. Most county jails in this country have enough space to accommodate an execution room. "Death Row" prisoners can be accommodated in special areas of state prisons until all appeals have been exhausted and then transported to the county where the crime was committed for execution. |
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You say that the executioiner is actually engaged in an act of murder...and you say it, like it is indisputable fact. It is not. It is your opinion.
We can certainly agree that execution is killing, but to say that it is synonamous with murder is, again, your opinion. Is it murder for an individual to kill another individual in self defense? Is it murder when someone accidentally hits and kills a person with their car? Of c ourse these examples are different, but I am establishing that not all killing is murder.
Frankly, when it comes to the morality of capital punnishment, you and I have completely opposite views.
The men who raped, robbed, and brutally killed the Connecticut family recently come to mind when I think of this issue. You think it is immoral to execute these men, whereas I find it immoral to keep them alive. Their blood is on their own hands. I am sorry that I feel no mercy for such vile, despicable, and dare I say it, evil human beings. I don't want them tortured. I do not yearn to watch them suffer. But I absolutely believe that it is just and moral for them to die for the horrors they have committed on their fellow man. |
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By the way, if state-sanctioned executions are not murder, then are state-sanctioned abortions (such as occur in China) not murder as well? |
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KingsXrulz, I agree. Michael pens an 800 word essay that hinges on the idea of liberals using biblical justifications to oppose the death penalty, but never cites a single example of this occurring? If this were a high-school term paper, he'd get knocked down half a grade for that alone.
Michael, I will concede that there are liberals who will evoke the "thou shall not kill" commandment (and yes, I'm aware that it's 'thou shall not commit murder) when arguing about the death penalty. More often than not, though, its more an expression toward the idea of conservative hypocrisy in light of the so-called pro-life meme than it is an actual argument against the death penalty. In other words, the very hypocrisy you're accusing of liberals, many liberals accuse of a pro-life movement that includes a pro-death penalty stand.
A truer argument against the death penalty held by many liberal circles is the simple fact that the state can and has made mistakes, and innocent lives can and have been executed. Perhaps you can find a biblical passage that justifies this fact, but I really doubt it. The fact is that religion deals with absolutes, yet reality is rarely so clear cut.
Also, on a side note, the idea that the "thou shall not murder" commandment doesn't apply to state governments is really a tired argument. A state government is an abstraction. It does not exist in the physical sense. However, the executioner ordered by whatever authority is in charge is a real physical being. And when that executioner pulls the lever of the electric chair, or injects the needle into the arm of a prisoner, he is, as a man, committing an act of murder. How is it somehow more justified simply because a leader in a position of authority told him to do it?
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Michael, on this issue, I can agree with you. Your Scriptual references were right on, and I am truly impressed by it. Indeed, many of the laws that God gave man in the Old Testament were to be used for how a new Jewish nation would operate, with the exception of the Ten Commandments being for how individuals treated each other and how they obeyed the Lord. Yet, some Christians and many liberals use one verse of Scripture to bolster their argument, thereby convoluting the entire preface of the passage, especially with the death penalty.
Yet, what Scripture reference could be used to justify abortion? The logic of this astounds me and would do the same to most rational people. |
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That was quite a sermon, yet you never addressed the death penalty. Which has zero to do with salvation and everything to do with ridding society of evildoers, and teaching that as a society, murder is frowned upon. |
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R.I.B.S.
Which means
Really Ignorant Bumper Stickers
It's a booming business
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Michael ends this post writing about specious arguments, after beginning with one of his own. The bumper sticker he describes is clearly referring to 'separation of church and state' in the context of false charges and wildly excessive penalties. Is it anti-"religious conservatives in government"? Sure. Is it anti- death penalty? Not necessarily. It can be seen as a call for accurate charges and appropriate punishments, including the death penalty when applicable and justified.
The crux of Michael's argument is an opinion stated like a fact: "The same 'progressives' who react with horror at Christian, pro-life arguments...[on] abortion, seem to welcome misguided Christian arguments against capital punishment." Nothing wrong with stating an opinion; I'm pro death penalty and anti-abortion myself. But Michael says it like a fact, and it's factual-ish. No doubt there are some pro-choicers who "react with horror" when pro-lifers bolster their arguments with biblical passages; and, no doubt there are some opposed to the death penalty who quote scripture in defense of their position. The problem part of Medved's statement is: "The same progressives".
If you take him at his word you might believe that there are only a few pro-choice-anti-death-penalty-progressives who fall outside this description, when as far as we know, the exact opposite might be the case. There may not be that many hypocrites who accept scripture references selectively. They're still on the wrong side of these issues but Michael always seems to feel the need to amp it up. They aren't just wrong; they're wrong AND they're hypocrites, which makes them more wrong. He mentions things as if they are common knowledge when they are not, but the straight-forward, no-nonsense way in which he does it probably leads many people to give him a pass ("It sounds like it could be true so it probably is"). |
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As for the Jewish people who don't believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah that they have been waiting for since He was promised in Genesis 3:15, I would invite you to carefully consider all the prophecies regarding Jesus in Isiah and Ezekiel and any other Old Testament Books and compare the fulfillment of each one of them by Jesus Christ in the New Testament. True Biblical Christians love the Jewish people because their Messiah is the only One who can give salvation to this lost and dying world and they believe that Jesus Christ is that Messiah and that not to far in the future many Jewish people will realize it too. God bless all the Jewish people, even those who seem to hate democracy and want to destroy America and Israel.
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The Catholic Church is NOT based on a correct interpretation of the Holy Bible, but on the flawed ideas of one man claiming to speak for God, who calls himself the Pope. So much of Catholicism is man-made tradition just like the Sadduccees and Pharisees that were condemned by Jesus Christ in the New Testament for following the traditions of men and ignoring the God behind all things religious. The big difference between Biblical Christianity and the so-called christianity is that christianity is only religious postering and the following of rituals and traditions, whereas true Biblical Christianity is based on only one thing. That one thing is faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the way to Salvation as He say in John 14:6. "Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me". There is no mention there of baptism, goods works, tithing, following sacraments or rituals or anything that a person can DO. In fact, in Ephesians 2:8,9 the Holy Bible says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9)Not of works, lest anyone should boast". Therefore, anything that a person DOES in an effort to obtain their salvation is worthless because it is a "work". If I offer you something as a gift, and you give me something in return, it is no longer a gift, but a trade. The only thing you can do with a gift is accept it or reject it. Salvation is a gift to those who will accept it and those who don't accept it are condemned by their refusal to accept it "by grace through faith" as Jesus Christ Himself said in Ephesians.
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