Btw Villon was thief and a murderer as well as a great poet.
Personally I am not a principled abolitionist. I think that in a society where the death penalty were not administered in a racist way that depended on wealth and other morally irrelevant accidents, it would not be objectionable. I'm a retributivist. (As are we all if we admit it, consider: is there anyone among us who does not exhult that Pinochet is finally facing prosecution? Who would not be delighted to see certian high officials whom I daren't, in the current circumtances, name, face the needle after a fair trial?)
I think that other things being equal, justice requires that wrongdoers be deprived of the value of what they took -- so a life for a life is not disproportionate, though it may not be indicated in every case. (NB I am among other things a criminal defense lawyer whose pro bono work involves mainly post-conviction litigation on behalf of murderers, and I'd happily defend a death penalty case if one came my way.)
But as things are other things are not equal. The problem with the death penalty in our society is that it is mainly an excuse to kill poor black men for the gratification of middle class whites and the advantage of cynical politicians. We are not civilized enough to have the death penalty. Some people deserve to die, but we don't have the right to kill them in an unjust society.
I think this position is politically effective as well as correct. It avoids the charge of being naive about vicious criminals while preserving the real objections to the death penalty that I think motivate most of us.
jks
--- joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
> "Execution is state sanctioned murder, call it what
> it is."
>
> ---------------------
> Indeed. If killing is wrong; it's wrong. Doesn't
> matter who does it.
>
> It is impossible to convey why Villon was the
> greatest or one of the
> greatest French poets.
> He wrote six hundred years ago, and he wrote in
> medieval French....
>
> At one point, when he was about to be hanged, he
> wrote the following ballad:
>
> Men, brother men, that after us yet live,
> Let not your hearts too hard against us be;
> For if some pity of us poor men yet give,
> The sooner God shall take of you pity.
> Here are we five or six strung up, you see,
> And here the flesh that all too well we fed
> Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,
> And we the bones grow dust and ash withal;
> Let no man laugh at us discomforted,
> But pray to God that he forgive us all.
>
> If we call on you, brothers, to forgive,
> Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we
> Were slain by law; yet know that all alive
> Have not wit always to walk righteously;
> Make therefore intercession heartily
> With him that of a virgin's womb was bred,
> That his grace be not as a dry well-head
> For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall;
> We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead,
> But pray to God that he forgive us all.
>
> The rain has washed and laundered us all five,
> And the sun dried and blackened; yea, perdie,
> Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive
> Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee
> Our beards and eyebrows; never are we free,
> Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped,
> Drive at its wild will by the wind's change led,
> More pecked of birds than fruits on garden-wall.
> Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said,
> But pray to God that he forgive us all.
>
> Prince Jesus, that of all art lord and head,
> Keep us, that hell be not our bitter bed;
> We have nought to do in such a master's hall.
> Be not ye therefore of our fellowhead,
> But pay to God that he forgive us all.
>
> Joanna
>
___________________________________________________________________________
>
> Here's the French version.
>
> Hommes, frères humains qui après nous vivez
> N'ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis,
> Car, se pitié de nous pauvres avez,
> Dieu en aura plus tôt de vous mercisi.
> Vous nous voyez ci, attachés cinq, six
> Quant de la chair, que trop avons nourrie,
> Elle est piéça dévorée et pourrie,
> Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et poudre.
> De notre mal personne ne s'en rie:
> Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre!
>
> Si frères vous clamons, pas n'en devez
> Avoir dédain, quoique fûmes occis
> Par justice. Toutefois, vous savez
> Que tous hommes n'ont pas bon sens rassis;
> Excusez nous, puis que sommes transis,
> Envers le fils de la Vierge Marie,
> Que sa grâce ne soit pour nous tarie,
> Nous préservant de l'infernale foudre
> Nous sommes morts, âme ne nous harie;
> Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre!
>
> La pluie nous a bués et lavés,
> Et le soleil desséchés et noircis:
> Pies, corbeaux nous ont les yeux cavés
> Et arraché la barbe et les sourcils.
> Jamais nul temps nous ne sommes assis;
> Puis cà, puis là, comme le vent varie,
> À son plaisir sans cesser nous charrie
> Plus becquetés d'oiseaux que dés à coudre.
> Ne soyez donc de notre confrérie;
> Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre!
>
> Prince Jésus, qui sur tous a maistrie,
> Garde qu'Enfer n'ait de nous seigneurie:
> À lui n'avons que faire ne que soudre.
> Hommes, ici n'a point de moquerie;
> Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre!
>
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>
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