Justice Demands Proportionality and a Reckoning: Strong Arguments for the Death Penalty
- gregorymaness
- Nov 22, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 20, 2024
The principle of proportionality also answers those critics of capital punishment who say they prefer mercy to revenge. First of all, "mercy," as these people use the term, means a negation of simple justice, for it allows the criminal to bear lower costs for his crimes than the harm he imposes on his victims. This sort of mercy actually encourages criminals, because they know that they can gain more from crime than any costs they will have to bear. In this respect, mercy (embodied in most "rehabilitation" programs) is utterly immoral. — Robert James Bidinotto in The Moral Argument for the Death Penalty
The brutal murder of young Laken Riley by José Antonio Ibarra has understandably shined a spotlight on the dangers posed by allowing unvetted individuals into the United States and has many people, including a Georgia state senator, demanding that the convicted be given the death penalty for his crimes. If any crimes can be considered worthy of capital punishment, Mr. Ibarra’s crimes against Miss Riley would certainly seem to meet the criteria. He has been convicted of murdering Miss Riley by savagely beating and asphyxiating her after he attempted to rape her.
As I have said before, it is not my desire to be political with this blog. I definitely have my thoughts on illegal immigration and unrestricted mass immigration into the United States. Likewise, I have some thoughts and feelings on the topic of capital punishment. Certainly one can quite reasonably assert that the argument for or against capital punishment is a “political” issue. Yet while I don’t wish to get into it here on this blog about the immigration crisis facing the United States, as well as many other countries in the West facing similar immigration-related problems, I can’t remain entirely silent about what is looking like a complete failure of the American criminal justice system. As it stands, José Antonio Ibarra has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. And that is not justice. It discounts the value of Miss Riley’s life while falsely and perversely elevating the value of Mr. Ibarra’s life. It is not just and it can hardly be considered justice.
Below are links to an essay on the moral justification for capital punishment and to a video on the topic. Both make a strong case for capital punishment for the most cruel and heinous crimes, particularly when there is no doubt about the guilt of the perpetrators.
The Moral Argument for the Death Penalty
“Is the Death Penalty Ever Moral?”
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