Governor Corzine And I May Have Different Hearts (Dennis Prager On The Death Penalty Alert)

Frontpagemag.com ^ | 1/15/2008 | Dennis Prager

[goldstategop]

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, in explaining his state's abolition of the death penalty, announced that he knew "from my heart and from my soul" that no murderer should be put to death.

As it happens, I know from my heart and from my soul that not putting any murderer to death is a cosmic injustice; it cheapens the worth of human life and greatly diminishes the revulsion society feels toward murder.

So, what does this mean? Does it mean two intelligent and decent people have very different hearts and souls? (This question assumes that pro-capital punishment readers will acknowledge Gov. Corzine's decency and that anti-capital punishment readers will acknowledge my decency.)

Here are possible explanations:

One is that our hearts are either not the same or operate differently.

I am mystified by the hearts of those who wish to keep all murderers alive. While I disagree with those whose values (as opposed to hearts) argue against the death penalty for murder, I can at least understand them. But I have no clue as to what type of human heart wants to keep all murderers alive. What type of human heart knows the pain and horror of murder and doesn't want the murderer to give up his life? It is a heart so different from mine that I admit a complete inability to relate to it.

Conversely, I presume that those whose hearts move them to spare all murderers' lives can't understand my heart. That is why I am convinced that regarding capital punishment for murder there is a gulf more unbridgeable than on almost any other issue. I understand the hearts of those who want the state to take over medical care, even though I oppose it -- my heart feels the same as theirs for those who cannot afford health care. I understand the hearts of those who want race-based affirmative action -- my heart feels the same pain over the historical injustices inflicted on black Americans.

But when it comes to murder, my heart is entirely preoccupied with the terror and loss experienced by the murdered and the endless pain of those who loved them. I therefore find incomprehensible the compassion for murderers, as expressed, for example, by anti-death penalty activists, when they have candlelight vigils at prisons but not at the homes of the families of those murdered.

A second explanation is that those who oppose and those who support the death penalty do indeed have similar hearts, but looking into one's heart is obviously not a good way to determine one's stance on moral issues. Hearts can lead us to any conclusion we want. If Gov. Corzine has a good heart and I have a good heart, the heart is not a particularly effective place to look for answers to moral questions. In fact, being guided by the heart may be one of the worst ways to live a good life. The heart is very easily moved in wrong directions.

A third possibility is that we have similar hearts but different minds. So while our hearts may feel similarly about murder and murderers, our thinking about them differs. The hearts of opponents of the death penalty may yearn for taking the life of at least some murderers -- such as torturer-murderers whose guilt is confirmed by DNA -- just as much as pro-death penalty hearts do. But the minds of the anti-death penalty people have concluded that the death penalty should never be applied -- even to mass murderers whose atrocities are beyond doubt -- for reasons that go against their feelings.

These people say they have rationally thought the issue through and concluded, for example, that the state has no right to take the life of anyone not immediately threatening innocent life. But this is not rational thought; it is an emotional statement disguised as rational moral declaration. The state is simply acting on behalf of the murdered. When people say "the state has no right," they really mean no one has the right. On purely rational grounds, it is very difficult to justify allowing all murderers to keep their lives. By every accepted understanding of the word "justice," it is unjust to be allowed to keep your life when you have deliberately deprived an innocent person of his life.

The fourth explanation is similar hearts but differing values. Some people's value system holds that it is wrong to take anyone's life, even that of a person or an army threatening the lives of innocent people. This is known as pacifism, a value system that denies good and evil and that actually increases murder and unjust suffering in the world. Others' value systems maintain that it is moral to kill in self-defense or defense of another innocent person, but never otherwise, such as when a murderer has been subdued and no longer threatens innocent life.

I suspect that this belief that it is wrong to kill any murderer, even one who has mass murdered and tortured, is at bottom really a feeling -- of revulsion at taking a human life. Pope John Paul II opposed capital punishment, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the horrific mass killings he saw as a young man in World War II Poland from his opposition to capital punishment. Likewise, the ancient rabbis of the Talmud essentially undid the Torah's laws demanding the death of murderers because of all the barbaric executions they witnessed among the Romans.

Nevertheless, whatever the ultimate source of opposition among some opponents of capital punishment, in the case of Gov. Corzine and many other abolitionists, their hearts are the ultimate source of their opposition to taking the life of any murderer. And in such cases, it remains fair to say that such hearts are indeed different from the hearts of those of us who feel equally strongly that keeping all murderers alive is a cosmic injustice, an insult to the murdered and an ongoing nightmare to those who loved the murdered.

[goldstategop]

I too, have a revulsion to the taking of human life. But unlike the abolitionists, I support the death penalty because of my respect for human life. I believe it is morally wrong to allow a murderer to continue to live after he has taken another human life. Justice demands the murderer be punished by having his own life forfeit for the crime. Above all, it is values, not feeling, that inform my support for the death penalty as a means of upholding my concern for the precious essence that is a human life - a small world in miniature as unique as the person's soul that inhabits that body as long as he is alive. The loss of every human being diminishes us all and moreso if that human being was murdered.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[nmh]

I support the death penalty too!

DEATH, capital punishment does DETER others. For the small exception that it doesn’t deter, so be it!

[pandoraou812]

I support the death penalty too & resent that it was taken away. We weren’t using it so I don’t see the need that it was taken away. Were we the people of NJ asked to vote how we felt?

[AuH2ORepublican]

goldstategop, I agree 100% with what you wrote. I, too, support the death penalty for murderers (and for rapists, but that’s another subject) because of my respect for human life.

[nmh]

That gets me too.

Why didn’t we vote on it?

Cozine is a dictator.

[hometoroost]

"he knew "from my heart and from my soul" that no murderer should be put to death."

Bold words from a man who has neither.

[Sans-Culotte]

I agree 100% with Dennis (as I usually do).

[pandoraou812]

I don’t know why either & it really upsets me. Corslime needs to go but wasn’t it that Cody who started this no death penalty issue in the 1st place?

[flowerplough]

Might not always deter others, but the death penalty sure does cut down on repeat offenders...

[jagusafr]

Agreed - as to your tag line, TO could have helped by actually having hands. Ditto Crayton. Shoulda let Barber and No 83, whose name I always forget, just take it all on. Argh.

[mojito]

If murderers receive compassion, pity, and leniency from the state, does any act remain forbidden? Do we tell killers that killing is wrong, but not so very wrong? And if killing is not so very wrong, what else must then go unpunished? Corzine’s “compassion” is really the nihilism of a moral relativist.

[ml/nj]

Were we the people of NJ asked to vote how we felt?

Were you asked about surrendering your vote in the Presidential election? I wasn't. They don't ask about anything. They just do, because they're so much f&^(@*G starter than we are. They run a government that doesn't do any more for its citzens than any State government did in the 50s when taxes were virtually non-existant. Now they ream us for thousands and thousands of dollars, and tell us they're bankrupt because they voted themselves humongous pensions but they want us to focus on ATM fees and the cost of gasoline. F&^( 'em. No wonder they don't want anyone owning guns.

ML/NJ

[rednesss]

I've long supported the death penalty in cases that warrant it, but my faith in the U.S. justice system has been seriously weakened of late with everything from Nifong, to the Kathryn Johnston case in Atlanta, to the long, long list of donutwatch articles posted here on FR. Also from following some of the cases on the Innocence Project site, http://www.innocenceproject.org/, I have to think that innocent people are convicted of serious felonies occasionally, and they shouldn't be executed because they didn't have Kobe Bryant's defense fund.

One of the other cases that comes to mind is that of Corey Maye who was at first sentenced to the death penalty but was later overturned and given a life sentence. He was the victim of a no-knock raid that ended in the death of a police officer. Who just happened to be the white, son of the town's police chief, Corey Maye is black. Maye had no criminal record and testified that the police did not announce who they were and he thought he was going to be the victim of a home invasion robbery. What do you think his chances at trial were???? If I was in his shoes and my back door was kicked in by person's unknown in the middle of the night, I would defend myself and my family too.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/36869.html

[Do the math]

Jesus did not complain about the death penalty while he was being crucified. When the man on the cross asked for Jesus to forgive him and that he deserved the his punishment, Jesus did not challenge what the man said, he forgave the man.

Ted Bundy has committed no more murders murders since his execution, and the world is a safer place without him. He escaped from prison more than once and killed again, but his execution has deterred him from killing ever again.

Why do liberals not want to kill evil murders, yet have no problem killing innocent children?

[pandoraou812]

. F&^( 'em. No wonder they don't want anyone owning guns.

Well put & I agree 100 %!

[ml/nj]

from the NJ Lottery Page tonight

Do you think anything goes to white males?

ML/NJ

[Nevermore]

The problem with this rationale is that it puts the onus on The Law. But there is always injustice, no matter what The Law is. The Law cannot do anything about that. The only solution from this point of view (Reductio ad absurdum) is to abolish The Law. A lot of good that would do!

If it's a bad law, then fine, revise it or get rid of it. But if the problem is that someone is corrupt in applying a good law, punish the corruptor, not everyone else by removing The Law.

[rednesss]

"The problem with this rationale is that it puts the onus on The Law."

Where it rightly rests.

It wasn't that long ago that the motto of the law and those who upheld it was summed up by William Blackstone.

"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.

And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake.

And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

[pandoraou812]

To be honest I think its gotten so out of hand that the whole system & the corrupt scummers need to be tossed out on their arses. Its depressing & everyone agrees but does little. Seems we get rid of one crook & another takes their place asap. I really think people aren’t sure what they can do. maybe we have just let them control so much that we are used to this BS. I wish I did know...