Restorative Capital Punishment

Political Mavens ^ | 10/30/2007 | The Stiletto

[goodnesswins]

You must not know the difference between PCA and PCUSA when it comes to “orthodoxy”.....PCA is the ORTHODOX version of Presbyterian.....my friend.

[goodnesswins]

IN other words....PCUSA is just like the Methodists....PCA is more like a conservative Catholic Church.

[Billthedrill]

I honestly don't understand the moral confusion abundant in this sort of case. Putting to death people who tied up two children, sexually abused them, and then made them watch helplessly as their abusers pour gasoline around their beds and then torched them to hide the evidence does not make us just like them. Were we "just like them" we would be capable of raping and murdering innocent children. This is not that, and to pretend that it is the same thing is an outrageous insult to the memory of the victims.

Nor is it "vengeance." Vengeance would be for the family to exact personal revenge in the form of violence. It is retribution, a right accorded the State in the place of personal vengeance in the interest of social order and a respect for the law. There is nothing immoral in retribution. There is a great deal that is immoral in granting a criminal immunity from the consequences of his actions because the punishment is disagreeable. It's supposed to be.

[matthew fuller]

I must admit that I am very unfamiliar with the different terms and abbreviations in the Presbyterian Church. My basic understanding is that the OPC (Orthodox Pres. Ch.) is the branch that believes that abortion is in violation of the sixth commandment, unless done to save the physical life of the mother. The website that I used is: http://opc.org/GA/Abortion_GA39.html

Having rechecked my information, I now find that I made a very large mistake, by saying PCA when I meant PCUSA. OPC IS allied in "ecclesiastical fellowship" with PCA. I am very sorry, and will attempt to repair or delete this post. Thank you for calling me on this.

[goodnesswins]

That’s okay....I was raised a Presbyterian and only learned the differences in the last few years.....thanks for doing the research.

[Wuli]

“You’ve got to be extraordinarily careful that the person actually did the crime,”

Yes, that is the one essential caveat we need to apply. And, by social and technical means we have been less willing and able to do that, in the past, with as much due-diligence as we try to apply to these circumstances today.

But the errors in the means, the due-diligence means, do not refute the principal in the ends - some people have so broken and endangered their civil commitment to everyone else, that the socially moral thing to do is to rid society of them, with finality.

In many ways I am not really opposed to life imprisonment without any chance of parole, but the other mugwump side of me realizes that others use that approach to extend the possibility of, maybe someday............