Under L sez on morality in politics:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think too often these days politics is affected by a simple unwillingness to either see or to face up to the factors that mark it for what it is in a crude, effective pattern.

Politics is governed to ol' Under L by a simple, crude, harsh dictum: whoever provides the most efficient application of force, his (and it's generally been a he, politics is only recently accepting that women have after all been just as good at leading states into war as men have. The 18th Century and before warmongers who were women who ruled states generally get short shrift in that discussion but this isn't the space for that) is the determining arbiter of what is acceptable/good, and unacceptable/evil.

Politics as such amounts to dressing up evil in such a fashion that it becomes not good but acceptable to a sufficiently large number of people. It is this that is ultimately behind such hypocrisy as declaring the extermination of most of the Native Americans and the reduction of their survivors to poor, impoverished minorities regardless of how numerous they actually are or not, and it is also this that's why things like the Atlantic Slave Trade and Trail of Tears are held to be things that peoples affected by them should get over, where the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities should never be forgotten. The deeds themselves, the sheer death toll involved, is irrelevant. What matters is the degree to which the atrocities are deemed to affect those people who "matter." The Holocaust, I should emphasize, truly is unique and outside the scale of other genocides insofar as it was an industrial process, taking the bureaucratic process of the state, taking the industrial process behind the rise of the West, and making both turned to producing quantities of corpses. Other genocides are more sporadic, and while well-planned, do not show the particular Hitlerian emphasis on bureaucracy as their modus operandi, relying on things like radio networks and privately hiring people to do things like exterminating the local pesky Aborigines when they're not exactly helping the cause of Manifest Destiny (see: Tasmania. This was, incidentally, a major inspiration for the War of the Worlds).

Under L also wishes to emphasize that in saying this, Under L is absolutely not endorsing this. I would not go into politics for just this reason, with this kind of viewpoint I would not make an effective leader in any sense other than making myself rich at the expense of others by making money hand over fist, working within an evil system to perpetuate it. Going into politics would be a Bad IdeaTM for me for just this reason.

At the same time, I am increasingly convinced that the only law that unifies societies across time and space is that force is the arbiter of all things, a savage, brutal, cruel arbiter whose very savageness goes far to explain the half-steps and clumsy stumbling that makes up so much of the change in human history, as well as why the elites that made and wrote the definitions of and shaped societies are invariably violent. I would also like to emphasize, related to the paragraph above this, that this is why I say that those who worship force the most are those least equipped to use it well. The converse that force is the ultimate arbiter of all things is that it is possible to indeed resort to force, but to fuck it up so badly that the people who do this are deservedly on the garbage dump of history. In this category belong people like the leaders of the Confederacy, Nicholas II, Franz Josef (every single time, no less), Adolf Hitler, Yasser Arafat, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, Solano Lopez, and a great many other monsters of  history. Yes, I call them monsters, and it's because they took the step to unleash all the horrors of force, and provided great terror and destruction with no "redeeming" aspects of it altogether.

At the same time, I should finally emphasize that for all this I am no pacifist. War and its attendant horrors are certainly necessary at times. Reality being what it is, this will always be the case. But to bring war on a false premise, in any fashion, is however the most disgusting and vile act a leader can engage in to me of any state. Nixon, Johnston, Bush, Wilhelm II, they are all to me examples of this kind of leader. *Because* reality is determined by force, it must be used only wisely, not for a lark or for the purpose of force in itself. To do otherwise is the action of those who scar bodies, who mangle minds, who harm limbs and extremities for the purposes of their own egos. And that act to me no-one of conscience can condone.

And it is for that reason I also oppose capital punishment, as it to me is the irrational use of force, where the state is concerned. A state that indulges in the death penalty is given power that it should not have, unless there is a damned good reason for it having it. In a modern society that reason does not exist.

Comments

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

It can certainly be better than a 21 year sentence.

[paft.livejournal.com]

nmg: It can certainly be better than a 21 year sentence.

And if it turns out the person convicted was innocent?

What then? A nice wreath for their gravesite?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Even in the case of a guilty perpetrator, the death penalty does little beyond satisfying a thirst for revenge.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Sentencing to death is not punishment, it's revenge. Pictures above make that clear. You hate people like Timothy McVeigh and want them to suffer. That doesn't sound like the providence of any fair and just society.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds on the subject.

Part of me agrees with you. I'm rather uncomfortable with the concept of state sanctioned murder in the first place, partially because (as you say) the crimminal justice system is more often about revenge, than anything else.

On the other...

In my mind there are people (like Manson) who are no better than rabid dogs and should be put down as such.

The question as always is, how does one make that call?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Serial killers, serial rapists, mass murderers, cattle rustlers, spies, etc. commit crimes that are publicly accepted as so horrendous that punishment of confinement for life doesn't seem appropriate (let the punishment fit the crime).

I don't believe the state should have the authority to carry out executions in a just society. We know investigations can be bungled and evidence can be misinterpreted or even planted. If we can trust the state to do it's job thoroughly and correctly then we should trust the state to incarcerate a felon indefinitely. But we know The state screws things up. Issei Sagawa (the infamous cannibal killer) remains a free man on a technicality! So given the imperfect justice system how do we trust it to work given the finality of capital punishment. Innocent people getting hung and psycho killers walking free is the reality we must face.

So to answer your question, "How does one make that Call?" Easy. Don't do it. What most countries (139 countries) have done is ban executions altogether and of the rest, most at least limit execution to the very clear cases of multiple murder.

Easy call to not allow capital punishment, because the death penalty is an emotional response to justice, not a rational one. It lowers the state to that of common killer.

And since the prisons are getting full and non-horrendous crimes like treason and espionage can carry the death penalty, why not death to thieves too? And crack heads? Pot heads too! This power of execution should obviously be used with restraint and great reservations. When it's used so often, there's no restraint being exercised.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Pictures above make that clear. You hate people like Timothy McVeigh and want them to suffer.

You're quite the mind reader. I personally hope people like Jared Loughner don't get the death penalty, and instead spend the rest of their long life suffering in jail.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Why would you want them to suffer?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So you don't trust the government to run health care but you do trust it to kill people?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

For people demanding an unfair/unjust society it's a consistent position.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For people who think the government is made up of idiots who will always choose the stupidest and most incompetent option it's a very inconsistent position. If we can't trust the government to handle things like taxation right, why would we trust it to handle the death penalty right?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

You left out abortion and gay rights.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Do you truly advocate the notion that might makes right, or are you saying that it is the popular notion of proper governance?

Here is an interesting song that advocates the doctrine of might makes right:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I do not advocate it, but rather note that it is the realistic determiner of good and evil and right and wrong. What I'd advocate would be a world based on a different, alternate principle.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with the Socratic definition of justice?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Oppressors tend to crumble under their own brutality. Holding onto power thru violence takes tremendous support, support that must have little to no ambition, otherwise a coup occurs.

Even dictators like Castro have realized that to hold on to power they must have a sense of fairness and justice, even if it's a little warped from our perspective.

One way dictators try to hold onto power and eliminate ambition in the ranks is to elevate herr leader to cult like status, where emulation is impossible (There can only be only one (God))

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I would argue that holding onto violence is the last resort, as you're right: regimes that rely purely on brutality don't tend to last long and they die by inches.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

You'd think more politicians would read "the Prince"

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You'd think even more would read Machiavelli's other writings where he calls for a republic dependent on citizen-soldiery.....

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

If the efficiency with which force is applied determines what is good or evil, then the death penalty should be judged on its efficiency, not on whether or not you consider it "irrational".

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That doesn't exactly follow, as each situation has its own criteria to follow by this standard. The death penalty has never been a deterrent to crime in any point in history no matter how it's been done, so it's always been inefficient.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

What about the more serious crimes? Theft, burglary, violence, drug trafficking and bribery are all punishable by death. No, not the syringe, or the electric chair, or the shooting squad. Death by hanging, like in the good old times. All manifestations of ethnic hatred are punished, even when it is done on the Internet. And there are plenty of Internet inspectors who lurk around the blogs and forums. By the way, these rules apply to foreign tourists as well. There have been 400 effective death penalties between 1991-2004, which is among the highest rates per capita in the world. But the crime rates are among the lowest, of course. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1535777.html#comments)


Go straighten her out.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Good post.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

The only thing you've resorted to is going around posts and saying "good post", now?

I guess that's better than the "atheism hurr durr" option, though.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Its good to see people thinking about things as opposed to googling a number of random facts anyone could find on the 1nt3rn37z and assembling them into something resembling a good post. ((((:

Just my preference...