The Capital of Punishments
There’s been constant back and forth debate over the State or Government’s right or ability to take a person’s life, execute a criminal. A deeper question would be, what exactly does life mean to the State and Government and what constitutes it, but that’s not this argument. My point is that the fifth Amendment, makes clear that the state or government does indeed have the right, even an implied right, to take a life because the amendment denies them this right without due process to the accused.
Most arguments against capital punishment revolve around the eighth amendment which prohibits cruel or unusual punishments. However the taking of life is unlike any other form of punishment. If the eighth or any other amendment were to prohibit the state or government from taking life, they’d say so. However only the fifth amendment goes near this detail and it itself imposes a limit on the why and how a government can act upon this power.
We also have to consider the times in which the United States Constitution was written. There was nothing unusual in any part of the world about execution. If anything our methods today are unusual in that they’re far more tame compared to what was at the time deemed warranted or acceptable. Lethal injection at the time would have been viewed as too lenient. Today we don’t draw and quarter people, behead, or hang.
The Founding Fathers were not fragile about the realities of life and thus governing a people. Life is what gives anything and everything its meaning, laws without teeth are just suggestions. Some argue that execution is itself a cruel and unusual punishment, but this would mean that the Constitution contradicts itself. If “life” can be taken with due process under the fifth amendment, it cannot simultaneously be unconstitutional to do so under the eighth.
Life itself is both liberty and property, but it is also thee greatest freedom.
The second amendment protects a person’s right to arms (weapons) to protect themselves, their property, their rights, their life. The Constitution itself is a document on life and the Bill of Rights and its amendments are about protecting life’s sanctity. But within this document too is express implications that life can also be taken, especially by the state. Consider that the state or government acts by the will of the people it governs; a people have a protected right to protect themselves. This extends to the state and its government but with strict limitations.
It may be such that for an individual protecting theirs, themselves, or another person that during this process the enemy, adversary, or otherwise antagonist may lose their life intentionally or not. When it comes to a state or government, such actions and outcomes cannot be arbitrary or unreasonable because the state government are an acting collective. There must be a process which is why we have these organizing systems and structures for this kind of power; because power is what the collective makes. Being a collective, the notion of taking life doesn’t go away, it comes more focused and precise.
Whatever the individual is permitted to do, so too is the state but with strict limitations, guidelines, and procedures as directed by its people. If the system in place cannot take life, then all law and order is meaningless and as I said, suggestions. To put our lives in the hands of a state or government, to be governed, is to put one’s life in the hands of each other. It is life that governs life and a state or government does not exist and is not an entity onto itself. It does not do as it wishes but rather as its people would, for its people; not for their greater good, but from it. As a collective we give up a level of individual rashness for a higher level of collective precision in the things we do.
This is what would otherwise be individual chaos being given collective order. We do not give up our rights as individuals when we come together as a collective. We give them power guidance and structure because what we’ve done by coming together is given them more power.
There are those who argue the morality of taking a life and thus believe that the rest of us have a responsibility to also abstain from such acts. But the reality is those moral objections are only valid at the individual level. The individual has a right to choose, the collective must act. If a person were being attacked and defended themselves via whatever means necessary or before they act, someone of the public steps in and neutralizes the situation. Loss of life is an unfortunate consequence but not the desired outcome. In such situations a pacifist is free to be beat to death if their morals demand it. But that in no way means the rest of society has to live by those standards.
It sounds extreme but death should be applicable to any and all crimes committed against another person. If such crimes when committed, the victim or bystander would have been justified in using lethal force to stop or prevent a crime in the moment. The State should have the same authority to apply such punishment after the fact via due process. This isn’t to argue that every crime must be punished via capital punishment, but it would mean that most crimes carry that weight if in the moment stopping or preventing it meant using lethal force.
This would also mean reclassifying most white collar crimes as well. Fraud is theft, and theft is a violation of personhood not just property. If a person was being robbed outright, they’d be within their rights to defend themselves and their property. An adversary dying as a result is not the desired outcome but an unfortunate consequence. Therefore, death for what is currently deemed “white collar” is not off the table. White collar may not be outwardly violent but it is the same inwardly devastating and traumatic; the absence of physical force is not the absence of harm. Such crimes are more devastating because they involve more strategic manipulation and deeper trust. It’s not breaking into a home and stealing but it is still breaking and stealing. Deception is not less evil than aggression, it’s just more subtle. At this opponents may argue cruel and unusual, but their position is invalidated because it comes from one of the means and not outcome. It is robbery via nonviolence but still robbery just the same.
Justice is about outcomes not optics. And too often it’s optics that are cited when people seek to limit justice. We only allow bad we worry about looking good. Moral obligations belong to people not systems.
My stance is only jarring to the naive and in denial about reality. A State can vote to not have capital punishment. But in those areas, the laws regarding individual action must also be protected if and when they must protect themselves. The views of the state cannot limit or put the governed in greater danger. When a state limits its own powers and authority, this does not and cannot limit or remove those of the individual. The rights of the individual supersede those of the state government. If you disagree with that, well the ninth and tenth amendment disagree with you. Restraint by the state is not a muzzle on its people, but it’s not a rubber stamp for violence, summary judgment, or vigilantism.
Both the mob and the state are one and the same; one is the other given structure, order, and form. The individual that makes up the mob is the same individual who makes up and empowers the state and its government. The State tempers the mob, the mob restrains the government, but neither is above or beyond legal consequence, or legal and moral scrutiny.
