I try to be thoughtful. Certainly there are a few of my readers who believe me to be anything but, and there is nothing I can do to prove otherwise. I haven't the energy to presume infallibility, or eternal clarity. I can only aspire, to dream, even to hope. But today is an exception, or so I sense in my gut; for my thoughts are all scattered about.
It may be very much the case that Saddam Hussein needed to die. It has been a long battle with his obdurate spirit, with his intractable ways. Lord knows that had Mr. Hussein shown a smidgen of humility, had he simply opened his country -- without games and shenanigans -- to the West for free and unfettered inspections, the Invasion of Iraq would not have ever occurred. Lord knows that there were countless murders under his regime: he even committed murder in the street when he was young, well before he came to power. He murdered members of his own family though he had promised them no harm. He was anything but charming.
Considering all that (and there is much more to consider), it nonetheless comes as a shock to wake up to news that Mr. Hussein is dead; that he has been hanged during the Muslim call to morning prayer.
Surely my sentiments are born out of my being too Western, or too effeminate, or too squeamish for such news. Surely I am too weak, too soft and pampered, to accept this sad tale. But the fact is that I do accept it. I just don't do so with any sort of elation or any sort of repose. This news comes as a harsh fact. It comes as a sort of spiritual blunt trauma to the soul. One is not to rejoice at the death of one's enemies.
Some of you may recall my argument against the death penalty (at least as it would be enforced in the United States). Some of you may also recall my reaction to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Today, in the quiet of this morning, I am reminded of those somber thoughts. And I am also reminded of what an emergency room doctor said to me when I had an ankle injury (peroneal subluxation) she was misdiagnosing right before my eyes. She told me: "No, no, no. There's no tendon there. You're just getting old."
She was wrong about the tendon.
Peace, somewhere, for but an hour.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Death Penalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death Penalty. Show all posts
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Zacarias Moussaoui, Batman, And The Death Penalty
As the world watches to see whether America will issue the death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker", debate of the death penalty is once again center stage. Always eager for a good fight, I can't help but enter the fray. But in order to fully defend my position, I must invoke the help of the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman. In the end, you shall see that my position will be that we either must kill vicious criminals, or we should let them go. And all this from a person who opposes the death penalty. Hold onto your hats: The roller-coaster you are on is called Paradox.
Specifically, to begin our ride I must invoke the climactic scenes of the 1989 Tim Burton film simply titled "Batman". Please recall with me what that engaging comic-thiller revealed to us (besides the fact that Jack Nicholson was predestined to be the Joker); that the Joker had cruelly and dispassionately killed Bruce Wayne's (Batman's) parents when Wayne was but a child. The set-up is powerful and stark, without subtlety: We demand justice, and so does Wayne. A predictable showdown occurs between Batman and the Joker atop a tall building; a fight ensues, the Joker realizing the reason for Batman's wrath just before he (the Joker) plummets to his death.
But holy penquin feathers, Batman! We are disappointed! Why? Because there is an essential element of justice that is lacking in this all-important climax. What is missing is self-consciousness: The Joker does not know, as he falls to his death, that he has lost and Batman has won; that injustice dies and justice lives on! How do we know this? We know this because, as the Joker begins his fall, he cleverly pulls Batman down with him (though the Joker has quite a head-start). But the Joker hits the pavement before he sees Batman make a dazzling self-rescue; and we, as viewers, are roundly disappointed, because we NEED to know that the Joker KNOWS of his abject defeat. To the Joker, Batman loses as well; the Joker laughs in the face of death, darkly gleeful that Batman is going down with him. For the viewing outsiders––the survivors, if you will––this is all utterly intolerable. Justice demands that the punished always lose. And yet at the end of that climactic scene, we hear a toy laughing from the jacket pocket of the dead-though-still-smiling Joker. The joke is on us.
Let us state the two possibilities about the after-life experience: Either there is consciousness after life or there isn't. If there is no consciousness after death, then there is no after-life experience at all: Death is nothing. Illustrative of this nothingness is something I learned when I asked a friend who was born without an eye what he saw: Was it just darkness? I asked him. No, he said, for darkness is a sensation. It's more like trying to see through the bottom of your foot, or out your elbow or back. There is just nothing. In other words, death without consciousness is as interesting as seeing, hearing and tasting with your shoulder blade; it is what your life was like before you were born, when you were less conscious than a stone.
And if there is a life after death, then we must immediately admit that we have entered the realm of religion: Science can tell us nothing about the beyond. There might be a heaven, there might be a hell; or there might be some self-less state of Being or a trolley full of souls heading toward reincarnation. But if there is consciousness after death, one might conclude that such consciousness includes knowledge that one is indeed dead.
Now, there is a problem with all of this; nay, there are several problems. For if there is no consciousness after death, then an executed criminal can never know he has died; he can never contemplate his having lost. For the dead criminal there is just nothing; there is no fear or remorse or contrition, and there are no tears. But most certainly there is no sense of death; there is no moment of helplessness, no loss of control. There is just ________. (There is even less than that.)
Hence, to kill a person in order to bring about justice fails miserably, like it did with the Joker, if the executed person cannot know they've been executed, cannot feel the pain of being severed from the living; cannot reflect on life without life. The death penalty thus fails, for it severs the criminal from pain (which we want to give him), and it separates him from the possibility of pain. In short, sending a criminal to the void is a gift to him: He is free from everything.
Hence, if there is no after-life, the only worthy punishment, the only place for remorse and pain and guilt to work their power, is on this side of the grave. The punishment is keeping a criminal alive.
I have heard or read, perhaps countless times, survivors of vicious crimes invoke the death penalty, that they want to see nasty criminals "Burn in hell"; that they'd "Let God deal with them", or that "The monsters should prepare to meet their Maker". Of course, all this might very well be true; there might be a God who metes out swift and thorough judgment on the murderous and depraved. But this is a religious idea. In fact, it could be argued that any capital punishment in America enfused with the idea of an after-life breaches the barrier erected between Church and State: An after-life is a religious and not a scientific or even secular idea. Thinking that death is the proper place to reform a criminal is a religious thought, not a legal or secular one. In short, the death penalty, though declared constitutional, may in fact contradict the US Constitution's First Amendment.
Just Deserts
So. What can I conclude thus far? I can conclude that executing someone based on the assumption that there is no self-consciousness after death (a good secular idea) emaciates justice, for justice demands self-awareness of guilt and just deserts: Death without self-reflection is liberation from justice. I can also conclude that executing someone in hopes of justice finding them in the after-life, perhaps in the court of God, is a religious idea that may violate secular proprieties; and that sending someone to God might also be a gift, for God, like Moussaoui's alleged God, might reward the executed with paradise.
With what then am I left? I am left with keeping a vicious criminal alive to punish him with the very secular and real justice of being conscious, of being alive in order to contemplate his doom and abject failure; to feel the loss of control every second of the day. There can be no greater torture for a murderer than to actually be––forever––a murderer; than to sit in a cell reminded in every instant of his mark of Cain. Life at least ensures the possibility of self-reflection, as it ensures that the criminal is not given the privileged peace of annihilation or the rewards of heaven.
But alas, we ride a crazy roller-coaster, and we find ourselves traveling upside down, forward, and yet, curiously we are moving backwards. For even those who oppose capital punishment (like the Roman Catholic Church, that great defender of human life, which opposes the death penalty with true Christian zeal), nevertheless embrace the death penalty. For imprisoning a particularly awful criminal for life (without the possibility of release) is just a different form of execution: It is just the slow execution of confinement. The life-sentence is just death by captivity. In fact, death by life-sentence might actually prolong a criminal's life, for he may be killed, if he were free, in a bar fight or car wreck. Life imprisonment is merely given the appearance of humaneness because it is slow. But the outcome is the same as any firing squad or lethal-injection; the prisoner dies at the hand of the State (it's just that the shackles are looser and there is no blindfold). There is no such thing as being anti-death penalty and yet pro-life sentences, for the two positions are identical in the final analysis. Time is the means to both ends, and there is nothing inherently just or humane in killing someone slowly rather than quickly. Death is death.
It seems, then, that the way out of the paradox is to let Zacarias Moussaoui, and others like him, free. But maybe not just yet. But if America executes him or locks him up it matters not: he will still die a martyr at the hand of the State. Somehow we need to find a way that does not give him and his ilk the gifts they desire.
Perhaps we need to get science to really do something scientific: Maybe we should keep bad guys alive forever, tormenting them every hour. Of course, that would be cruel. Too much like hell. We better not go there.
Really, what is needed is a dose of humility: What we are debating is how quickly the death penalty should be delivered. That's all. Moussaoui, in my opinion, should be given all the time he needs to reflect on his future.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Technorati tags: Moussaoui, death penalty, Capital Punishment
Specifically, to begin our ride I must invoke the climactic scenes of the 1989 Tim Burton film simply titled "Batman". Please recall with me what that engaging comic-thiller revealed to us (besides the fact that Jack Nicholson was predestined to be the Joker); that the Joker had cruelly and dispassionately killed Bruce Wayne's (Batman's) parents when Wayne was but a child. The set-up is powerful and stark, without subtlety: We demand justice, and so does Wayne. A predictable showdown occurs between Batman and the Joker atop a tall building; a fight ensues, the Joker realizing the reason for Batman's wrath just before he (the Joker) plummets to his death.
But holy penquin feathers, Batman! We are disappointed! Why? Because there is an essential element of justice that is lacking in this all-important climax. What is missing is self-consciousness: The Joker does not know, as he falls to his death, that he has lost and Batman has won; that injustice dies and justice lives on! How do we know this? We know this because, as the Joker begins his fall, he cleverly pulls Batman down with him (though the Joker has quite a head-start). But the Joker hits the pavement before he sees Batman make a dazzling self-rescue; and we, as viewers, are roundly disappointed, because we NEED to know that the Joker KNOWS of his abject defeat. To the Joker, Batman loses as well; the Joker laughs in the face of death, darkly gleeful that Batman is going down with him. For the viewing outsiders––the survivors, if you will––this is all utterly intolerable. Justice demands that the punished always lose. And yet at the end of that climactic scene, we hear a toy laughing from the jacket pocket of the dead-though-still-smiling Joker. The joke is on us.
Let us state the two possibilities about the after-life experience: Either there is consciousness after life or there isn't. If there is no consciousness after death, then there is no after-life experience at all: Death is nothing. Illustrative of this nothingness is something I learned when I asked a friend who was born without an eye what he saw: Was it just darkness? I asked him. No, he said, for darkness is a sensation. It's more like trying to see through the bottom of your foot, or out your elbow or back. There is just nothing. In other words, death without consciousness is as interesting as seeing, hearing and tasting with your shoulder blade; it is what your life was like before you were born, when you were less conscious than a stone.
And if there is a life after death, then we must immediately admit that we have entered the realm of religion: Science can tell us nothing about the beyond. There might be a heaven, there might be a hell; or there might be some self-less state of Being or a trolley full of souls heading toward reincarnation. But if there is consciousness after death, one might conclude that such consciousness includes knowledge that one is indeed dead.
Now, there is a problem with all of this; nay, there are several problems. For if there is no consciousness after death, then an executed criminal can never know he has died; he can never contemplate his having lost. For the dead criminal there is just nothing; there is no fear or remorse or contrition, and there are no tears. But most certainly there is no sense of death; there is no moment of helplessness, no loss of control. There is just ________. (There is even less than that.)
Hence, to kill a person in order to bring about justice fails miserably, like it did with the Joker, if the executed person cannot know they've been executed, cannot feel the pain of being severed from the living; cannot reflect on life without life. The death penalty thus fails, for it severs the criminal from pain (which we want to give him), and it separates him from the possibility of pain. In short, sending a criminal to the void is a gift to him: He is free from everything.
Hence, if there is no after-life, the only worthy punishment, the only place for remorse and pain and guilt to work their power, is on this side of the grave. The punishment is keeping a criminal alive.
I have heard or read, perhaps countless times, survivors of vicious crimes invoke the death penalty, that they want to see nasty criminals "Burn in hell"; that they'd "Let God deal with them", or that "The monsters should prepare to meet their Maker". Of course, all this might very well be true; there might be a God who metes out swift and thorough judgment on the murderous and depraved. But this is a religious idea. In fact, it could be argued that any capital punishment in America enfused with the idea of an after-life breaches the barrier erected between Church and State: An after-life is a religious and not a scientific or even secular idea. Thinking that death is the proper place to reform a criminal is a religious thought, not a legal or secular one. In short, the death penalty, though declared constitutional, may in fact contradict the US Constitution's First Amendment.
Just Deserts
So. What can I conclude thus far? I can conclude that executing someone based on the assumption that there is no self-consciousness after death (a good secular idea) emaciates justice, for justice demands self-awareness of guilt and just deserts: Death without self-reflection is liberation from justice. I can also conclude that executing someone in hopes of justice finding them in the after-life, perhaps in the court of God, is a religious idea that may violate secular proprieties; and that sending someone to God might also be a gift, for God, like Moussaoui's alleged God, might reward the executed with paradise.
With what then am I left? I am left with keeping a vicious criminal alive to punish him with the very secular and real justice of being conscious, of being alive in order to contemplate his doom and abject failure; to feel the loss of control every second of the day. There can be no greater torture for a murderer than to actually be––forever––a murderer; than to sit in a cell reminded in every instant of his mark of Cain. Life at least ensures the possibility of self-reflection, as it ensures that the criminal is not given the privileged peace of annihilation or the rewards of heaven.
But alas, we ride a crazy roller-coaster, and we find ourselves traveling upside down, forward, and yet, curiously we are moving backwards. For even those who oppose capital punishment (like the Roman Catholic Church, that great defender of human life, which opposes the death penalty with true Christian zeal), nevertheless embrace the death penalty. For imprisoning a particularly awful criminal for life (without the possibility of release) is just a different form of execution: It is just the slow execution of confinement. The life-sentence is just death by captivity. In fact, death by life-sentence might actually prolong a criminal's life, for he may be killed, if he were free, in a bar fight or car wreck. Life imprisonment is merely given the appearance of humaneness because it is slow. But the outcome is the same as any firing squad or lethal-injection; the prisoner dies at the hand of the State (it's just that the shackles are looser and there is no blindfold). There is no such thing as being anti-death penalty and yet pro-life sentences, for the two positions are identical in the final analysis. Time is the means to both ends, and there is nothing inherently just or humane in killing someone slowly rather than quickly. Death is death.
It seems, then, that the way out of the paradox is to let Zacarias Moussaoui, and others like him, free. But maybe not just yet. But if America executes him or locks him up it matters not: he will still die a martyr at the hand of the State. Somehow we need to find a way that does not give him and his ilk the gifts they desire.
Perhaps we need to get science to really do something scientific: Maybe we should keep bad guys alive forever, tormenting them every hour. Of course, that would be cruel. Too much like hell. We better not go there.
Really, what is needed is a dose of humility: What we are debating is how quickly the death penalty should be delivered. That's all. Moussaoui, in my opinion, should be given all the time he needs to reflect on his future.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Technorati tags: Moussaoui, death penalty, Capital Punishment
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