Are all killings of human beings morally equivalent?
The US and Japan are the only first world countries with the death penalty.
The US typically ranks in the top ten for number of executions per year. For instance in 2013, it was ranked 6th in the top ten, along with the following:
[ol]
[li]China[/li][li]North Korea[/li][li]Iran[/li][li]Iraq[/li][li]Saudi Arabi[/li][li]United States[/li][li]Somalia[/li][li]Sudan[/li][li]Yemen[/li][li]Japan[/ol][/li]
Nice fellow travellers the US hangs out with.
When an alternative is available? Yeah, pretty much.
(And given equivalence of the means: torturing a guy to death is worse than just shooting him.)
I get what you mean, but how do you feel about the coverage? I remember McVeigh apologizing to the families of some of his victims, and issuing other statements. I find that part troubling. We ought not even know this guy’s name or what he looks like, and the criminal justice system should not provide him with a podium, as it seems to often do.
Was the killing of Osama bin Laden morally wrong?
Was the killing of Adolf Eichmann morally wrong?
If a hypothetical madman is holding a gun to your child/spouse/significant other’s head, and I have a gun pointed at their head, and I shoot your family member’s assailant to save their life, am I morally wrong?
Oh, please, this is absolute nonsense.
I can’t see “progressive types,” whatever that means (you’d probably call me a progressive type) cheering for Root’s execution, or for any other execution.
As for me, I’m absolutely opposed to the death penalty. I’m opposed to it for Root. I’d be opposed to it if he killed my mother. I’d be opposed to it if he killed me. I’d be opposed to it if he killed my daughter.
Why does the person who kills your mother, your daughter, or you possess a greater right to live than he allowed any of them?
Apples and oranges. All of those things are different from the death penalty as applied by the judicial system of a nation or state for crimes committed within that state.
In the case of the hypothetical madman, no, you’re not morally wrong, if that’s what’s necessary. You’re not wrong, I wouldn’t be wrong if I did it, and a police officer wouldn’t be wrong if he/she shot said madman. That’s not an execution.
Was the execution of Eichmann wrong? I’d say yes, it was, because it wasn’t necessary. It was nearly twenty years after the war, and the execution didn’t save a single life. It was an execution, not an act in defense of life.
bin Laden? I’m not sure, to tell the truth. I suppose it could be said that he was still at war with the United States and the West in general, although he does seem to have been sidelined a bit.
He doesn’t possess a greater right. Not at all.
While it’s true that the killer had no respect for the right to life of whoever he killed, that doesn’t mean that that right doesn’t exist. I mean, that’s why it’s a crime – precisely because the victims did in fact possess that right.
And since justice demands that the punishment fit the crime, it follows that depriving another of the right to live constitutes the forfeiture of one’s own claim to the same.
A murderer does not deserve to live.
Justice demands what we say it demands.
AIUI, the narrative is that ObL was killed in a combat operation. IF the narrative is bullshit, and his death was an extrajudicial execution, carried out in favor of an accomplishable capture and extraction, yes, it was morally wrong. In the absence of proof that those conditions existed, I decline to characterize it as morally wrong.
Judicially-ordered execution. Morally wrong.
Well, you’re morally wrong on account of your support of capital punishment, even before any hypothetical madmen show up, but in your hypothetical, no, your action in saving the lives of my loved ones is not morally wrong. 
It doesn’t “follow.” At different times in different places, any number of crimes were considered to merit forfeiture of the life of the offender. It’s a moving target. There’s no absolute logic to the statement that “depriving another of the right to live constitutes the forfeiture of one’s own claim to the same.” At one time, theft of property of a certain (minimal, by today’s standards) value was considered to be such a forfeiture. We look back on that and agree (for the most part) that the imposition of death for stealing, say, a hundred dollars, was wrong.
It’s a pretty arbitrary standard.
You say that a murderer doesn’t deserve to live. Fine. Maybe so. But I say that we don’t have the right to take life when it’s not necessary. We write that into the law, rightfully so. And if Mr. Root doesn’t have the right to take life, then I don’t, either. And we, collectively, acting through the state, don’t have it.
There’s an argument to be made that what a murderer DOES deserve is an eon or two of consciously-experienced physical torment, but since that doesn’t exist, it’s morally preferable to deprive him or her of the sweet release of death and oblivion for as long as practicable.
Only if you believe all men are created equal.
Slavery was a compromise, without which, there would have been no constitution and no United States. This compromise sowed the seeds of the Civil War, which was inevitable given the Constitution and the will of the people. There isn’t any evidence of a big faction against death penalty, or that this was an enormous compromise.
Still, your point remains: that the founding fathers agreed on something doesn’t mean it’s unassailably, irrovacably correct. It’s just the basis for our Constitution. The Constitution allows the death penalty; that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.
Not at all. There are plenty of things I don’t approve of, but won’t cry about. Am I ambivalent about the death penalty? Emotionally, yes. There are cases where my heart says “YES”. But my ethics say “no”. My main point here, though, was that I won’t feel much sympathy for the perpetrators when they’re put to death. Meanwhile, if it ever comes to a vote or a poll, I side firmly against capital punishment. I see no contradiction there, other than the emotional one. (And as I often argue, our “moral sense” should never be interpreted as the sole basis for our morality, since it’s a sense that evolved and served a fitness purpose, and is not necessarily a good arbiter of right versus wrong. If my heart of hearts tells me it’s appropriate to kill my lover’s lover, I hope I listen to my head, which says that it is not.)
Where? In your fevered imagination? When I look at the criminal justice system, I see scads of instances where the punishment does not fit the crime.
…this month.
But yes, several times –> just do a ctrl-F and look for “death.”
I’m not liberal on all issues but I am on death penalty. I would think that living in prison, from age 21 on, no possibility of parole, is sufficient punishment. Worse than death in my opinion.
Liberal, and no, I don’t.
It wouldn’t change or fix a thing, and would only serve to bury an embarrassing reminder of how far America still has to go.