Barbelith Underground > Switchboard

First things first.

Let's start at the beginning here - actually a large number of Europeans DO agree with the death penalty. Unfortunately (or fortunately) as a rule those that agree with it are the ones with the least political influence - they are generally working class, older and not well off.

On the whole though - no political party tends to play on these interests because they would alienate the fairly large middle-ground of people who would view talking about the death penalty as dangerously 'fire and brimstone'ish.

Of the political classes, and the ever growing middle-classes - I think the general reasons for the problems with the US Death Penalty is that America and (particularly the UK but also the rest of) Europe views the US as essentially 'One Of Us' - ie. essentially white, christian, western, capitalist countries. We UNDERSTAND the US much more than we do China or Korea or the Middle East. I think there's a tacit racism or alternatively respect for cultural diversity that says OBVIOUSLY we deplore human rights violations abroad, but some of these people are just SO DIFFERENT from us. America on the other hand is just like us only with a much more evolved religious right than almost any part of Europe and some bizarrely (for us) right-wing areas. It's like if your best friends and neighbours admitted to sacrificing goats to the dark one over dinner one evening. I mean, you imagine SOME people do it, but really... The Smiths?

[ Don't forget, Europe is also a large area that's no longer particularly comfortable with political extremism. We've had enough of that over the last hundred years, thanks very much. Which is essentially why, for good or ill, Europe has generally tended towards the centre ground of politics. ]

My personal opinion goes like this:

1) a state which has to kill people in order to maintain order is not in its heart a good state, a reliable state or a stable state. If it was, it wouldn't have to kill them.

2) Nor is it a suitable strategy to try and MAKE a good, reliable or stable state. If you are killing people to preserve law and order then you have failed before you begin.

3) It assumes culpability will never be challenged, which it often is.

4) A state with the death penalty is like a toddler with a gun. You can't honestly predict where they might decide to point it next, and so it's probably better that they don't have it at all. (For example, medical 'experimentation' on human beings wasn't illegal if it was for their own good a few decades ago, particularly in the army, which is why many gay people got electroshocked and hormoned to the brink or, or over the brink of suicide. State shouldn't be able to do that either - sometimes they might do a good thing - but the possibility that it could be abused is unconscionable).

And the rebuttals?

Killing an innocent may be seen to be good reason for the death penalty, but what if you're wrong? If even only one person in a thousand is put to death when they shouldn't be, then you've recapitualted the horror of the original crime - you've killed an innocent, and we all know what the punishment for that is...

The state has the right to take away certain rights from it's citizens at certain points - for example imprisonment. But all of these are REVERSABLE. Recompense can be given to the individual concerned. This is not true in the case of the death penalty.

Morality is such a vague area that it is clear that diffferent politics and morals mean that the same person might be killed in one state and not in another. Similarly they might be more likely to be killed if they were black or poor or both. These iniquities make a farce even of the principle behind the penalty in the first place - that there must be JUSTICE.

Execution USA