The Case Against Death

I've blogged before about how much of a prat Michael Laws is. And he really is a complete and total failure of an individual, a poisonous blight on New Zealand's journalistic traditions. In New Zealand's marketplace of ideas, he's the deep fried Cicada in our McDonald's french fries, turning the already putrid stinking remains of the discredited carcass that is right-wing populism into a monstrosity of bigoted psycho-babble that is morally repugnant to all but the most bigoted echelons of New Zealand 'society'. By comparison, Travis the Chimpanzee is an eloquent, principled and reasoned individual. I'm always disgusted that apparently rational, right-thinking people gave him a newspaper column, a talkback radio show and err...the mayoralty of Whanganui. But there is some good to come from the columns of the Whanganui Whanker, in that just when I think that he has hit rock bottom, he comes up with a way of smashing his way to new, previously unplumbed depths. Recently however, he may have come up with his 'Mona Lisa'.

It's called, 'So this is Justice', and it follows much of Laws's traditional formulae. (A spoonful of assertion of the inherent violence within Maoridom, stirred with 2 cups of advocating for forced sterlisation, with a pinch of 'all criminals were born evil and brown' for seasoning.) But this particular display of self-righteous petulance had an extra-special sweetener, in the form of Laws's new shibboleth, advocating the return of the death penalty (or in his words 'the ultimate retribution'). And what were his arguments in favour of the courts (and presumably juries) having the right to end lives? There were twofold, 1) THAT it's what the public wants, and 2) It's justice on the cheap. Both these arguments are laughable, but that shouldn't detract from their repugnance.

With response to his first argument,lets assume that the people really do overwhelmingly support the reintroduction of the death penalty. Although we should be no means accept this as true, Laws bases his evidence on the fact many people have rung up and expressed this view on his talkback radio show. While talkback radio is the last refuge of the lonely, bigoted and stupid, 'an eye for an eye' remains an instinctively understandable response to a gruesome and wanton destruction of an innocent person's life. But regardless of the level of popular support, populist appeals to the wisdom of the voting masses, aka 'The 'people' want it, so lets give it to them' is never a good basis by which to conduct policy. Of course, in any good system of governance the general will of the public should be a highly relevant factor, but the general whims of a populace that at most will have a read of couple of newspaper articles on an issue should never become the overriding consideration. Governments have a duty to create a case for a policy based on both political philosophy (what ought to be done) and a pragmatic assessment of the socio-economic conditions (what can be done), not enact the tyranny of the majority. Just because everyone thinks something is good, it doesn't neccessarily entail that that thing is good.

Laws's defence of the death penalty as the most fiscally prudent approach is not only bizzarre, its truly cuntactular. He's actually talking about ending someone's fucking life with the same matter of fact attitude delivered by people who think government ownership of rail networks is financially improper. Sure, the prison system may cost a tonne of money for a system of punishment that creates more redictivist offenders than it does morally-upright candidates for sainthood, but surely that's an argument against incarceration in favour of more rehabilitive approaches to justice, not an argument for the electric chair. We're talking about the right to life here, it transcends fiscal boundaries. An attempt to take away the right to life from anyone requires a better argument than 'it's cheap'. (As an aside, the endless appeals that would be required under a system of capital punishment would in all probability balloon the cost of the justice system, beyond that which currently exists)

In order to justify the reintroduction of the death penalty, Laws (or the 'Sensible' Sentencing Trust) has to justify why the state should be the ultimate arbiter of who deserves to live, and who deserves to die. And that, to my mind, is an insurmountable obstacle. We expect that the state should keep us safe, but the right to life is inviolate, and an appeal to the safety of the greater good cannot be a justification for the killing of the few in any liberal democracy. Neither, should the state be prepared to slake a public thirst for 'vengeance'. It is one of the great shames of our time that a rehabilitive approach to justice has been wholly abandoned in a favour of an all-out emphasis on the punitive aspects. ( I blame Dukkakis) This creates nothing beyond a sadistic watercooler-discussion of how long was 'criminal X's sentence'. The state should ensure that the mentally ill criminal recieves adequate treatment, and that there is an attempt to rehabiliate the sociopath, not just 'be seen to be doing justice' by locking that sociopath away and forgetting about them. Finally, pro-deather's should be prepared to defend their systems of capital punishment as foolproof. Any justice system places a high burden on the prosecution to ensure that innocent people are not deprived of any rights. However, errors remain and innocent people have been (wrongly) found guilty and (wrongly) deprived of their liberty. But it is a different and dangerous ball-game to wrongly deprive people of their life. Again this is an insurmountable obstactle, as a foolproof system is impossible.

There can be no case for the death penalty in a liberal democracy. In reaching this conclusion, I have no doubt that Laws (unto) himself would deride me as 'swingeing namby-pamby PC homo' who just 'doesn't get it'. And maybe I don't get it. Maybe I am putting too much faith in the powers of restorative justice. But I'd rather be an idealist than a murderer.

Alex

(Just realised when I finished writing this, that this was our 50th post. Yey, go us.)