As an atheist, I tend to swing in this direction.
Seriously. No one seems to take offense to the dad’s actions, but apparently we need to hash out endlessly exactly how to categorize it.
There are, however, religious groups which do believe in an afterlife and that think killing people is wrong; sometimes even to the point of banning self defense.
And I would think that believing killing someone in the middle of their committing a major crime meant sending them to hell forever would make that even worse than sending them to nothingness.
It is sort of interesting that people who object to state-run executions have no problems with some rando killing a fellow civilian. I include myself in this category. (Well, I don’t have no problems, clearly, but few.)
And the reason for the thread wasn’t a verdict on Giamanco’s actions, but on how they should be understood: I was deeply uncomfortable with the unmitigated praise, preferring a tempered acknowledgement of the heroism but also the difficulty, and some solemnity for the death of a teen (not to mention the innocent victims).
It would be even more interesting if you could show that this were true.
You don’t see the distinction between killing somebody as what appears to be the only way to prevent them, in that moment, from killing someone else; and killing somebody who’s held captive and is not in any immediate danger, and probably not in any long term danger, of harming anyone else?
I would disagree with this philosophy, but it would at least seem coherent and internally logical. Not so the lamentations and navel gazing in this thread, though.
The objections to state-run executions is predicated, in part, on the premise that the state has full control of the prisoner, thus there is no moral reason to kill them. This isn’t the case with most self-defense situations where there is an active threat that must be dealt with immediately. State run executions are thus not the same thing as self-defense.
It’s okay to feel the way you do, but it’s okay for us to feel the way we do. I’m not going to offer Giamanco and the teacher anything but unmitigated praise. I can do that and recognize the solemnity of the event at the same time. It’s not one or the other.
I don’t think anyone would have a problem with the state being the one to kill the murderer in this situation, such as if the cops got there first and took him out.
No, I totally get that. My comment comes from the perspective of death as a consequence of one’s crime.
And if everyone had their own definition of words then it’s more people talking to themselves than a meaningful debate.
Oh come on. No one here is saying that it’s ok for some “rando” to kill fellow civilians just cuz. There are a couple of posters who seem to equate killling someone in the defense of others with executions but nobody here is saying it’s ok to just walk up to the guy and kill him.
For about the zillionth time, it’s ok to kill someone in defense of yourself or others (within the typical standards).
The discussion seems to have reached the stage of people repeating themselves, is there anything else to discuss?