Social Conservatism on Display
The pro-life position is riddled with contradiction –
Republican Rep. Larry Pittman, who was appointed to the District 82 House seat in October, expressed his views in an email sent Wednesday to every member of the General Assembly. […]
“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner,” Pittman wrote in the email. “If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”
Wow, lets stop the taking of life by well… murder by the state which is okay if its adult but not okay if happens to be inside someone’s body at the time. But of course, inconsistency is the hallmark of socially conservative thinking so we should, by now, be unsurprised by little gems shat out by the likes of Larry Pittman.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
3 comments
February 1, 2012 at 11:05 am
Rob F
If people truly, truly, truly believed that executing someone was a deterrent, they would be all for torturing someone to death. After all, if being killed by being injected with drugs, which I grant for the sake of argument is a relatively painless means of executing someone, made someone fear the punishment and therefore acted as a deterrent, then surely (say) having your limbs weaved around a breaking wheel and then being fed to the vultures would be consequently more painful and therefore more feared and therefore even more of a deterrent, right?
And if it was making the punishment fit the crime was the goal, then there would be multiple forms of executing someone. I think we’d all agree that simply shooting someone is far less brutal than slowly torturing and raping someone to death over the course of a week. But since there is basically only one method of executing someone, we don’t actually act like we believe the punishment should be proportionate to the crime.
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February 2, 2012 at 8:33 am
Reneta Scian
Well said Rob. I think as I am sure Arb does that the way we treat our criminals reflects on our morality as a culture. We treat them poorly and I feel that reflects poorly on us… Perhaps it is that cultural blood-lust for vengeance that is actually feeding the existence of criminals like those who would kill another human being. Food for thought.
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February 2, 2012 at 11:56 pm
The Arbourist
we don’t actually act like we believe the punishment should be proportionate to the crime.
Absolutely. The other avenue this argument can take is that does the deterrent effect of hideous executions lower the incidence of said crime. Throughout history the answer is generally no. Certainly in Thailand and Malaysia the harsh penalties for drug trafficking seem to be effective, but I believe this to be an outlier of sorts. It is preventative measures and societal measures to ensure that people are cared for that are the most effective way to combat a great majority of criminality, as opposed to beastly torture and executions.
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