Generally, when we think about human rights, the first rights which come to mind are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, compliments of the Declaration of Independence. We have these rights by the very fact we are human and seeing as how we remain human the entire time we walk this earth, we should theoretically have these rights until the day we die. However, as we all know, this is not always the case. The New York Times ran an article today titled, “China Said to Execute Thousands in ’09.” The article stated that in 2008, China was responsible for at least 1,718 executions, approximately three-fourths of the 2,390 executions performed worldwide in that year. What this amounted to was the stripping away of all basic human rights, most notably the right to life, from 2,390 different people in the year 2008 alone. And why? Because they broke the law in such a way that they lost all their human-like qualities and therefore the execution of these people were not violations against human rights because they in fact lost their status as a human and no longer held the human right to life? Or is it rather that the right to life is not actually a human right but instead a conditional right we retain so long as we all abide by the rules and regulations set forth by our government?
At first, this may seem like an easy question to answer: no matter what you do on this planet you are still a human and as a human you should be granted the human right to life, the death penalty should therefore be abolished. However, when presented with certain cases, such as John Wayne Gacy, this question can become much harder to answer for some people. Gacy lured young men into his home under the pretense of hiring them for a job and then proceeded to rape, torture, and murder these young men, bury them under his house, all the while throwing neighborhood block parties dressed up as Pogo the Clown, and he did this to at least 33 young men. Many people find it hard to look at Gacy as a human, for how could any human do that to 33 young men? There was something fundamentally off about this person and the court found his actions and presence on this earth to be such a threat that the removal of his existence was a necessity.
However, almost all of us know very rarely are the people sentenced to death people like Gacy. As The New York Times argues, the death penalty is generally employed as political maneuvers, “often after unfair trials, and were used ‘disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities.’” Is this then the problem with the death penalty as it currently stands today? Is it the practice of the death penalty which is causing society harm? Or is the theory behind the death penalty causing harm as well? What is your opinion? Not only how it is used in practice, but the theory itself that the practice is based upon. Are both troublesome, or can they be justified?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
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Andi, good post, but I do have one quibble with it. You talk about how "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are fundamental rights guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution. Yet you argue that either the death penalty is a violation of this notion or that it is not true that the right to life is fundamental but rather conditional based upon our actions. I would argue that these fundamental rights ARE conditional upon our actions. Taking a different path, consider the fundamental right to liberty. If an individual commits a crime, such as rape or murder, is he immune from punishment on the grounds that he has a fundamental right to liberty? Surely his liberty would be violated by throwing him in jail. With this example, we see that all (or at least some) rights are conditional upon the actions of the individual. These rights can be taken away IF an individual acts in a way contrary to societal laws, typically in a manner that violates the rights of another.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think the death penalty is problematic on other grounds, some of which you touched on later in your blog post. Just one of the reasons I'm excited for the death penalty discussion in class.
I have always thought the death penalty was a contradiction of our system and shouldn't be implemented. First because there is no way to justify killing a person for killing another person. And second because of the issue you raise, an individuals right to life does not cease when they violate anothers' right to life, continuing the cycle would only contribute to more and more deaths.
ReplyDeleteThe Death Penalty: Not a Human Rights Violation
ReplyDeleteSome wrongly state that executions are a human rights violation. The human rights violation argument often comes from European leadership and human rights organizations.
The argument is as follows: Life is a fundamental human right. Therefore, taking it away is a fundamental violation of human rights.
Those who say that the death penalty is a human rights violation have no solid moral or philosophical foundation for making such a statement. What opponents of capital punishment really are saying is that they just don't approve of executions.
Certainly, both freedom and life are fundamental human rights. On this, there is virtually no disagreement. However, again, virtually all agree, that freedom may be taken away when there is a violation of the social contract. Freedom, a fundamental human right, may be taken away from those who violate society's laws. So to is the fundamental human right of life forfeit when the violation of the social contract is most grave.
No one disputes that taking freedom away is a different result than taking life away. However, the issue is the incorrect claim that taking away fundamental human rights -- be that freedom or life -- is a human rights violation. It is not. It depends specifically on the circumstances.
How do we know? Because those very same governments and human rights stalwarts, rightly, tell us so.
Universally, both governments and human rights organizations approve and encourage taking away the fundamental human right of freedom, as a proper response to some criminal activity.
Why do governments and human rights organizations not condemn just incarceration of criminals as the fundamental human rights violation of taking freedom away? Because they think incarceration is just fine.
Why do some of those same groups condemn execution as a human rights violation? Only because they don't like it. They have no moral or philosophical foundation for calling execution a human rights violation.
In the context of criminals violating the social contract, those criminals have voluntarily subjected themselves to the laws of the state. And they have knowingly placed themselves in a position where their fundamental human rights of freedom and life are subject to being forfeit by their actions.
Opinion is only worth the value of its foundation.
Those who call execution a human rights violation have no credible foundation for that claim. What they are really saying is "We just don't like it."