In essence, if you oppose sanctioned killing, then you should oppose euthanasia and abortion, as the Catholics do. I do not. Moreover, I see human life no more valuable than animal life, yet we kill animals. While I have not and would not kill anything (except flies and mosquitos) myself, I do not see any principle that would prohibit death penatly, while allowing euthanasia, abortion, and slaughtering/terminatin animals.
wojtek
enclosure
PS. Probably the only logically consistent argument against death penalty is that proposed by the Roman Catholic Church on the principle that all human life is sacred (god-given, etc.). I do not buy that principle, however, I do not think that human life is any more sacred than, say, the life of animals we eat. Hence I have no fundamental problems with abortion, euthanasia, or death penalty any more than with slaughtering farm animals or terminating stray pets. They are reprehensible on emotional grounds, but they all represent forms of killing socially constructed as legitimate.
At 07:17 AM 1/27/00 +1100, you wrote:
>
>>So what follows is that to fight racism whe should rally behind that Texas
>>guy King who got death penalty for dragging a black man behind his truck.
>>What would you recommend instead - psychotherapy?
>>
>>wojtek
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>Perhaps! It would certainly cost less, by all accounts.
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>(Hope you don't mind my jumping in, here, I've been listening in for a day
>or so...)
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>Of course King may DESERVE to die -- but that's not the point. The point
>is whether or not the rest of us should have the right to feel legally
>justified in killing him.
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>It is not so much a moral repugnance against the act of killing that forms
>the strongest argument against the death penalty, though there is that as
>well, but rather a moral/political rejection of the legalization of
>killing, the granting of social blessing to the act.
>
>Pardon me if this point was made in earlier discussions on the topic.
>
>Joanna
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>www.overlookhouse.com
>