True, although it’s also the prerogative of the rest of the citizenry (many of whom work as police officers, Guardsmen or Army troops) to oppose you. 
Only to protect human lives either yours or others.
Are you currently in the midst of an armed struggle? The United States government has capital punishment, which is as direct an act of a government taking human lives as I can imagine.
As should have been obvious from the post, I mean innocent human lives not convicted serial killers.
How is that obvious from your post? You said protecting human lives without specifying which human lives
you considered worthy of protection.
So you’re okay with the government executing people as long as they are convicted of a crime. You specified serial killing but are their other crimes you’d be willing to allow to be punished by the death penalty?
If you live in a country where you have freedom of movement, free speech,the freedom to leave and reenter your country at will, a free and fair secret vote and can stand for office then there is never, ever any ethical or moral right to take up arms against your government .
You may well personally believe that all Free Masons or Welsh people should be rounded up and made to do forced labour, and for that matter you might have a substantial number of friends who think the same.
But while the majority population disagrees with you it aint going to happen.
No matter how strongly you feel about it, and no matter how much you know that you’re right and the majority are wrong, it doesn’t give you the moral authority to take up arms against your democratically elected government.
All too often terrorists and terrorist sympathisers in Western countries claim that they’re being oppressed because of their beliefs.
No they’re being locked up because of their actions NOT their beliefs.
They are locked up because they murder, or attempt to murder people, or are in conspiracy with those that would do so.
If you give money that allows someone you know who wants to kill someone, and this means that they can get their hands on a gun and carry out the act, then the blood is just as much on your hands as the person who pulls the trigger.
Without your voluntary donation the victim would still be alive.
Yes for murder, treason, desertion in wartime, terrorism, and piracy. And there are other crimes which I would tolerate the death penalty being used such as rape or pedophilia.
The death penalty is an act of revenge and anger. It doesn’t protect society any more than life in prison. I can see that in the past we couldn’t afford keeping people alive, but now I don’t know if it’s that big of a deal.
My question in the OP was when is it justified, not when is it not justified.
I agree with other posters about the breaking of a social contract. That’s pretty much backed up by the Second Amendment.
I don’t see where it says, “You have a right to be alive but that’s it.” I don’t believe that you need to be near death to engage in armed struggle. That argument in itself negates the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…not to mention the validity of our own American Revolution.
btw, a good book to read is* America Libre*, which is kind of like a Latino Phillip Roth -
How will today’s immigration crisis shape our nation? This provocative novel set in the second decade of the 21st century poses a chillingly credible nightmare vision . . . a Hispanic liberation movement seeking to redraw the borders of the United States.
What’s so wrong with justice? What’s so wrong with the idea of killing a man who has killed another man? There is nothing wrong with inherently with death penalty as venegence although the risk of executing an innocent man must be considered.
To have laws in place for the purposes of allowing people to relieve & act out their emotions is… well… not very civilized. The purpose of jails is to protect society. Executions are just a state-sanctioned way to allow people to act out their anger and feelings of revenge, and does nothing to protect its citizens. To have a country put laws in place that are based purely on emotion is a little bit scary. Why not torture them while we’re at it? That might make the criminal’s victims feel even better.
Treason? Wouldn’t armed struggle to overthrow the government be considered treason by any reasonable standard? How can people have a moral right to commit treason if the government has the moral right to execute people for treason? If armed opposition is a right held by the people then the government has no right to punish people for it. Or if you are saying the government has the right to condemn treason, then aren’t you saying the people who commit treason are wrong?
Whether or not it works,
(As you can’t determine how many people HAVEN’Tcommited murder because of the penalty if caught)
the death penalty is supposed to be a deterren,t not an act of revenge as you call it.
States don’t feel emotions, they don’t get angry or jealous and as such don’t act out of vengeance.
The fact that the death penalty is in place BEFORE the crime is committed precludes this.
I think the ‘by, for, and of the people’ stuff is what makes us a republic, while the elected representatives makes us a democracy. Not really important to make too many distinctions here. When you lose an election, we become a republic, when you win, suddenly it’s a democracy.
If it’s a deterrent, why don’t we torture criminals too? Why don’t we hang them up in city squares and televise it?
- Would this be okay?
- Does anyone seriously believe it would work?
As for emotions, I didn’t mean the state has emotions, but that the people whom it represents most certainly do. Certain laws could be put into place based on the emotional will of the people.
I thought part of the implied deal behind the death penalty was discouraging vigilanteism and preserving the state as the sole legitimate user of deadly force. The state tells the Hatfields, “Jim McCoy committed murder against your own, and therefore yes, you have sound reason for wanting to see him swinging from a tree. But no, you may not do that yourselves. Tell you what, if you accept the state’s justice and lay down your arms, we’ll see that justice is carried out for you according to the law. And if he’s indeed found guilty by his peers, then yes, Jim McCoy will swing as you demand.” Otherwise the Hatfields and McCoys take things into their own hands in a never-ending cycle of murder and retribution, with each side justified in its own eyes.
It’d be nice if the Hatfields and McCoys could forget their grievances, but that’s not human nature, and the state trying to distract them into singing Kumbaya instead while Johnnie Hatfield and Jim McCoy are fresh in their graves will only result in open rebellion against the state’s authority.
Here’s a very good essay by C.S. Lewis which addresses the whole “punishment is mere vengence” argument and points out that the alternative might not be as rosy as one might suppose:
This is not the thread to discuss, (or promote), the Latino version of The Turner Diaries or other fiction.
Take this discussion to Cafe Society.
[ /Moderating ]
I think this made sense 200 years ago, but not so much anymore.
The purpose of jail isn’t to help the victims deal with their emotions… it’s to isolate anti-social individuals. I mean… if the state is just the punishment/revenge-enforcing arm of society… then why don’t we extend this to torture as well. If the victims demanded torture as retribution, should the state carry out the torture?