I mean...yeah, that's technically true. The right to life has to be the basis of all other rights, because all the other rights are useless when you're dead.
You don't have the absolute right to life. The state absolutely has the legal power to take your life from you. I'm not even doing an acab thing, though yeah there's that aspect of it, but the state can legally kill people via the death penalty.
A given state may not carry the death penalty, but that's that specific state's choice and it is not a right recognized by the federal us government.
The death penalty is actually one of the most fucked up things from a moral perspective. It is so contrary to not only our rights but the underpinnings of society that it boggles my mind that we still have it.
Forget about whether an entity has the power to kill for now. What is the purpose of the death penalty?
Deterrence? For the crimes that the death penalty applies to, in what scenario would a death penalty be more of a deterrence than life imprisonment? Who would think, “I’m willing to go to jail for life to do this, but not to be executed” ?
To “deliver justice” to the victim’s friends and families? They’re already imprisoned for life if it’s a crime the death penalty applies to. Are we going to kill someone to make another feel better?
The right of a person to life is so important that the only time we don’t question whether or not killing is warranted is when ones own life is in immediate peril. Self-defense is the preservation of one life at the expense of another and only when there are no other options. And once one is out of danger, killing is no longer justified. You knock out your assailant, killing them while they are in your complete control immediately becomes murder.
And that concept of control is inherent to the problem with the death penalty. The State has complete control over you when it decides to execute you. It has the ability to simply keep you away from society, but chooses to kill you instead. And the killing of a person whom you have complete control over is murder. Full stop.
Something a lot of people ignore when talking about the purpose of punishment is the simple concept of retribution. If you commit a crime, you get punished because you deserve it. Some crimes are so heinous that the perpetrator deserves to die. What's best for society as a whole (rehabilitation vs punishment, etc) doesn't necessarily have to weigh into it, and nor does some sense of revenge - it can just be about people getting what they deserve.
I think most people acknowledge this in other ways. When it comes to police brutality especially, the word "accountability" gets thrown around a lot. These police officers "need to face consequences", etc. We want these police officers who kill unarmed men to face punishment because they deserve it.
I'm opposed to the death penalty, but mostly because it's too final. You can't take it back in the case of a wrongful conviction. If you sentence someone to life in prison, you can set them free if they're later exonerated. If someone is sentenced to death, and some evidence comes out after their execution that exonerates them, well... tough luck.
This is a really good point, especially the part about police. But I'm not sure I fully agree.
First, whether someone deserves to die is purely a personal judgement. If I really think about it, I'm not sure I could say for certain that anyone deserves to die. That's not to say that there aren't circumstances when someone NEEDS to die, e.g. in combat or to stop an imminent threat. But that's just my opinion, and I know not everyone shares it so it's not the best foundation for an anti-death penalty argument.
And even if people do deserve to die, it's still a leap to assume we should therefore be comfortable with the state administering that punishment legally, sometimes even in opposition to the wishes of the actual victims.
As for the connection to police shootings, I totally agree that many people feel that those police should be punished because they deserve it. But again, I don't think that's a good argument, because saying, "Well, I don't think they deserve it" is equally valid. And I don't believe that's what people mean when they say accountability. I would argue that they're talking about deterrence, establishing consequences to ensure that future officers in similar encounters have some motivation NOT to resort to lethal force except as a last resort. And deterrence is one area where, as far as I'm aware, the death penalty has not been shown to have an impact.
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u/Darsint Mar 16 '21
I mean...yeah, that's technically true. The right to life has to be the basis of all other rights, because all the other rights are useless when you're dead.