Against Capital Punishment

If a person was killed or raped, it would be just for the victim or the victim’s family to seek revenge, to have the satisfaction of seeing those responsible put to death.

If we should have apprehended a criminal guilty of capital crimes, it would be just of us to execute the criminal for the protection of society and for deterrence against further capital crimes.

But not all just things should be done. Anything that we can justify can be considered just. It is the ultimate justice—the justice of a particular course of action when all the good and evil merits are taken into consideration— that should compel us to act.

The human being is not infallible; he may err in knowledge and action. Thus, a jury of men and women are tasked to determine guilt, expecting that a deliberative body might be less prone, as a whole, to making mistakes and showing bias. Then, in reaching a verdict, we ask them to convict only when guilt is known beyond any reasonable doubt, not absolute certainty; we acknowledge that we can never know the absolute truth. Even after a conviction, appeals can be made, resulting in a new trial or a reversal of guilt if innocence can be shown or, at a minimum, the guilt of an individual is dubious from the nature of the court proceedings. Juries and the rest of the justice system treat the accused unfairly, as it has in the past and will, no doubt, in the future. This can be the consequence of any number of things. In additional to the obvious vagueness and ambiguity that may be present in evidence and testimony, there can be corruption, tampering, and interference throughout the process. It is not difficult—rather, it is impossible to deem a criminal proceeding to be without error, nor is it ever certain that there will not be any new, exonerating details after the fact. For any convict, there is always the opportunity for him to prove his innocence, any convict except those condemned to death.

The death sentence ends the appeals and any possibility that the condemned will ever be innocent. We would hope that the many appeals and reviews the condemned always receive might be sufficient to root out the innocent, and that during the intervening time between conviction and execution, any new evidence would come to light—but we cannot be sure. There has never been a dead man exonerated (under the present system), but the opponents of executions are not at a loss to come up with suspect cases, and some condemned have been set free—prior to execution—based on new evidence that has come to light. How can we ever be certain that tomorrow’s forensic technology will not yield new insight? How can we discount the keen ability of time to settle men’s passions and subsequent bias over crimes? How can we say that there will never be a retraction, confession, conspiracy, that changes the way we should have seen the case? We cannot make such definitive assertions—we are only human. An imprisonment for life allows us to be ever skeptical and ready to see the truth; an execution requires that we be as definitive as the sentence imposed.

It would be in the best interests of the protection of the public if the threat of the repeat offender were definitely removed, but we must juxtapose the protective value of an execution against the threat it poses to the potential innocents on death row. We cannot say definitively that an individual in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison would not pose a threat to the public; human error could let him escape, just as human error could convict him wrongly. But could we not agree that the potential for human error is greater, much greater in the emotionally charged, arbitrary proceedings in a court of law than in the brick-and-mortal jail?

The public might also be protected if capital punishment acted as a deterrent against capital crimes. It might act as a deterrent to some individuals under some circumstances, or it might not. How can we tell? Obviously, those who commit capital crimes don’t think about the consequences that would follow in the likely event they are discovered and arrested. The capital criminals could be a special class of delusional people who ignore the inevitable consequences (while everyone else is deterred by them); or, they could also be normal people who would normally be deterred had it not been for the extraordinary circumstances under which they committed a capital crime. How can we justify capital punishment on the premise of a deterrent effect that may or may no exist?

When a person or a loved one is attacked or killed, it is understandable that victim or their loved ones should be enraged. We should alleviate their pain as much as we can. We can find the individual with whom we believe guilt lies, we can try him, and we can punish him. We cannot, however, kill the guilty. Grief is a terrible thing, but it will not kill the grieving. Death of the criminal will not restore their dead victims to life, nor erase the crime that has been committed. We should not, we cannot execute anyone with whom there is any shadow of innocence—which, in human justice, will always be cast. We must give dignity to life, and show respect to innocence.

The Oligarchy

Human beings set very high standards for morality, conduct, and achievements, but yet despite all of the compliance that self-assured citizens and nations boast of, we can find a great deal of failure and hypocrisy. Morally, anyone in the middle and upper classes should be ashamed to live their comfortable or even ostentatious lifestyles while masses of people at home and abroad live in unspeakable poverty. Politically, we find that democracy, still the rage, produces masses of squabbling politicians and bureaucrats propagating similarly unspeakable corruption and inefficiency—this is government of the people, mind you. And, finally, of intelligence, all one needs to do is to observe the ranks of unmotivated, practically uneducated students swarming schools at all levels. Let us refrain from further evidence of times present and past, and simply say that man is a yahoo, in the sense that Swift intended—a licentious, avaricious, cruel, and vile brute. And yet, in the greatest error of the modern era, we make these creatures sovereign, and masters of their fate, as well as the fate of the human race.

In order to create a truly harmonious society, power must be structured by the capacity to govern, acknowledging that all men are not created equally. In the course of human reproduction, most men and woman born will be of the lowest class of individuals. In poor and rich nations alike, they participate in the labor intensive-work; they are the peasants, the serfs, and the proletariat. Lacking the intellect and perception of the other classes, the low class is a crude bunch of people. Just above the low class is the middle class, a group marked by a capacity to understand and execute but not lead or plan. These individuals of the middle class come in fewer numbers then the low class. Then, by far the smallest is the high class. These people have the talent of leadership and genius in the affairs that concern them, accompanied by a virtuousness that does not grace any other class.

It comes not only as a natural consequence, but as a natural necessity for the strong to rule over the weak. If all the classes were empowered equally, then chaos would result. The unintelligent masses, subject to the whim, would overwhelm a representative government with politicians that were corrupt and deceptive in order to gain power or politicians that represented the misplaced priorities of the low class. Human progress—indeed, the even the security of that progress—could be jeopardized by the corrupting influence of the low class. But if the strong should rule the weak, the high class would make enlightened decisions and planning to be executed by a competent middle class bureaucracy. With the centralized planning and absence of cumbersome opposition, the ruling elite could easily allow massive leaps in our progress as a race.

We, the human race, has been striving for liberty and equality for centuries—but with the gross inequalities now—with poverty, suppression, racism even in these great times for democratic ideals, we may suspect that these ideals have failed us. Perhaps the prosperity and well-being of mankind will not lie in archaic notions of freedom and equality—perhaps it is the inequitable distribution of power, where those most fit to lead do lead, is to be the savior of mankind.

The POW to End All POW's

"It's the ones you think are great that let you down."
-The Monk

To my enthralled audience, I present the December 17 POW.

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The shades of meaning in language can allow an author to render his ideas in a manner that complements his message or implies an entirely new meaning. Some might call the use of these shades an effective enhancement of language for the amplification of meaning. Other could say that such a method subversively manipulates through style rather than substance. Either could be applied to most language, depending on one’s perspective and the circumstances of the piece. Regardless of the ethics, connotative use of language can be used to great efficacy, as in Charles Krauthammer’s latest piece, “The Real Obama.” Krauthammer can dish out virulent cutthroat attacks, to the point that they can become ineffective by virtue of their unwarranted over-aggression. This column abandons most of the outrageous premises that undermined Krauthammer, choosing to rely on statements that attack through suggestive language.

Though perhaps he could have used a better word choice towards his end, Krauthammer is attempting to caste Obama as a “transformer,” which in context we may define as “one who creates transformations.” Though transformation may carry a positive connotation, Krauthammer argues that Obama can and will provide the profound change that defines a transformation—but it is change that would be radical and radically wrong. Furthermore, some of this imminent transformation has been deliberately obscured from the public in the space before the election and even now during the transitory period; hence, the piece is entitled “The Real Obama.”

In describing Obama’s ideology, Krauthammer states that Obama’s ideology is, at present, “largely opaque.” To the same denotation, Krauthammer could have said “Obama’s beliefs remain largely unknown,” but that would have certainly given a different, and less effective, connation to the phrase. Opaque, according to Oxford University Press, can describe something that is “hard to make out,” “not clear,” or “obscure.” Unknown implies that something exists, but we do not know where (as in where to find a fact). Opaque, on the other hand, seems to indicate that something exists and is accessible, but still eludes our understanding of it. It follow that if a person or their views cannot be understood (especially that of a United States Senator), then there is good chance that those views are deliberately obscured. From that, one could very well suspect that if some deliberately obscures, there must be something to hide—leaving us to speculate on what hides underneath the black veil.

Now, having set the stage for some dark insinuations, Krauthammer looks caste Obama as a politician engrossed in domestic policy almost to the exclusion of the pressing foreign, military, and domestic policies. Not only might the reader take alarm in that Obama, so Krauthammer alleges, has little to no “aspirations” in foreign policy or “commitment” to “economic” policy (both of which have positive connotations), he might be fearful that such transformational energy would be invested in domestic policies. Such policies could theoretically intervene, and possibly interfere, in the daily lives of American citizens. Then, Krauthammer states: “Their [the cabinet member’s] job is to keep credit flowing and the world at bay so that Obama can address his real ambition” (emphasis added).

Oxford would seem to define ambition as “An aspiration to be, to do.” That’s all well and good—how can an innocent aspiration be held against you— but then one should look at one of the older senses of the word: “An ardent (orig. inordinate) desire for distinction.” While this may not be primary sense of the word in this context, one must consider the effect that this other sense might have for the connotation of ambition. It might imply a more foolish or ruthless pursuit, than, perhaps, goal or aspiration.

Krauthammer makes his case that Obama wants to create a transformation. Then he argues that Obama has the “power” and money to make such a move. That is, since even the conservatives have thrown in their hat in the “intervention” (a controversial buzzword), and “experimentation” in the economy, since Obama was elected by an impressive mandate, and since Obama will work with a strongly Democratic Congress, he should not face significant partisan challenges to his plans (i.e., his power). As for money, Krauthammer points out, correctly, that the imaginable sums of money allocated to be spent have already leap over the prior fiscal bounds—does another trillion really matter? Krauthammer argues that the public demands for action will lead to expenditures of now-trivial sums of money by the Obama administration, unopposed, in a transformation. Yet, by specific instances of diction as well as the general tone of the piece, Krauthammer clearly opposes the nature and magnitude of the proposed actions.

I don’t doubt that Krauthammer’s clever use of diction was effective, or that his arguments were unsound, or his insinuations were not clearly conveyed. He constructs the piece very well, so that he gives a good account of what the other side is shaping up to be (but not actually defending them), and yet he fails to present his argument, his opposing viewpoint, in detail enough to be compelling. He gives no direct reasons as to what he thinks, what he purposes, and why he is right; unfortunately, with nothing better than vague insinuations about the president-elect, Krauthammer has not written an effectual piece.

Certified Authentic Rant

One month and two days ago, a sleep-deprived AP student brought forth on the library computer a new POW, conceived in Misery, and dedicated to the proposition that all Krauthammer posts fail equally.

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In my studies of his material, Charles Krauthammer’s writing exhibits irksome qualities that consistently detract from his work, and in work of his I’ve analyzed, I’ve found his argument to effectual. Two flaws that I believe carry from column to column: his awkward language and, most importantly, his terrible tendency to stretch or misrepresent the facts most essential to his argument. It amazes me how some of his columns start out conceding and rational, only to degrade into lies, fearing-mongering, and worse. His most recent column is no exception.

Consider the language in “From Market Economy to Political Economy.” The stamp of Krauthammer is the strain between language that may be too informal and language that is too verbose. The essence of the first paragraph is that the country’s economy now revolves around politics instead of the markets. The word “you” occurs six times. Krauthammer’s basic structure is:

You did this.
You did that.
Now, you do this.
Now, you do that.

The error is not necessarily in the informality of the language. Although this is a column in the prestigious Washington Post, if Krauthammer feels that he can better communicate with his audience by using informal language, then he is welcome to do so. The only stipulation is to be consistent. In the second paragraph, Krauthammer prefixes “meta” to economics to form “meta-economics,” a new word that appears to mean, paraphrasing Oxford University Press, “the higher or fundamental kind of economics.” This is a classic Krauthammer-ism in both its (out-of-place) highly technical nature and its awkward purpose in the paragraph. While the word appears to function reasonably well in its placement, why invent a new word when conventional language or a simple rewording might make the statement clearer and more accessible? Why make an informal appeal, only to lead into very formal language? I suspect, based on his prior subversive manipulations of language, perhaps he’s attempting to get an edge from both formal and informal language simultaneously. In his current approach, he can theoretically gain directness when speaking to audience through his informal language, while maintaining the sophistication for purposes of awing his audience, or, more likely, to deliberately confuse and mislead (as he has previously done with the dangerous word, “Orwellian”). Pure genius, until, when one actually reads the column, one finds the transition between informal and formal unsavory and too abrupt in its execution.

This piece is not exempt from the Krauthammurian rule of dubious premises and non-sequiturs. In a repeat of the style from his last column, he follows the pattern of concessions (or, at least, rational reasoning) followed by (irrational) attacks. He effectively illustrates the how the markets follow the political situation by comparing the extreme market activity from November 19 to November 24. It seems that the markets acted in response to the political events—namely, bailouts and an assurance of continuity of the present policies. It may be reasonable to say that the government has taken an uncomfortably large step into the free market through the bailouts, weakening the all-important spirit of profit which, as unfortunate as it may be, is the sole motivation of the businesses that make this country prosperous. That, of course, in the Krauthammurian tradition, is not mentioned; in this instance, Krauthammer chooses the weak idea and the paranoid idea to be the ineffectual thrust of his attack. What can come out of massive government bailouts? Lobbying. The “economic distortion.” Really, Krauthammer, is that the best you can do? Lobbying is a nuisance. Action stemming from the lobbyists could be a problem, but the resultant “economic distortion,” the phrase he used without elaboration, does not give readers any sense or substantiation of why or how this distortion would occur.

The other reason, the paranoid reason, is such because it makes the Krauthammurian assumptions that a) Democrats will seize upon any power they have, and b) Democratic ambitions are earmarked for failure and consequent disaster. Yes, Krauthammer is correct in that our legislators and government officials, as the keepers of The Bailout, do have incredible power and leverage stemming from their position—but can they use it? Should they use it? Krauthammer complains that the officials chastise the banks for hoarding money, even though it is a fiscally conservative policy on part of the banks. He misses the point. People and businesses need credit, and whatever can be done to restore credit (thus preventing a downward economic cycle) should be done. Banks need to be around for this purpose—banks exist solely for this purpose. To preserve the banks for any purpose other than credit is a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars, and if banks hold onto money only for the purpose of self-preservation, then the taxpayers’ money is spent in vain. But even if officials want banks to loan to the public, there is little they can do about it, at least with the money already distributed. Krauthammer also believes, in a carryover from two weeks ago, that Democrats are out to remake Detroit into a green eco-monster that cannot be competitive. First of all, the whole notion of the auto czar (an official with powers to reorganize the automakers) may very well be dead. The automaker, particularly GM, are slashing and burning their operations to stay alive, and that, in conjunction with the production of green cars of solid manufacture, may in fact turn Detroit around. Krauthammer argues that those forthcoming electric cars are unfeasible; he quotes the estimated MSRP’s to prove his point. However, he is not taking into consideration how much they could save consumers when oil prices inevitably shoot up again in better times. He is not taking into consideration how much an electric car could do for our energy independence, and the national security concerns tied to it. Krauthammer is suspicious without justification, and so what he has said against the bailout, in the arguments that he used, amounts to little more than fear-mongering against the Democrats.

I’m sick and tired of reading Krauthammer. I disagree with him, but I cannot respectfully disagree with him. Time after time, again and again, he fails to address the issues, preferring to make up his own. Time after time, again and again, he deceives and exaggerates on the real issues by his language alone; that and his attempts to sound “folksy” are so weak and ineffectual it’s condescending to the intelligence of his readers. Skip The Post, get The Times. That’s my advice.