The Alen and Allen Show, Ep. 3: Capital Punishment
THE ALEN & ALLEN SHOW is a periodic podcast featuring the intersection of the thoughts and beliefs of Alen Shirvanyan, Junior, and Allen Dishigrikyan, Senior, of Clark Magnet High School’s Publication Class in La Crescenta, CA.
This episode reintroduces, with new perspectives, the rather worn-out topic of capital punishment, featuring Alec Kellzi, an outspoken student of the conservative breed, with a guest appearance by George Hamalian, who identifies as a libertarian.
Will Kellzi be able to convince us of his moral high ground? Listen and find out! Because knowledge is a “Dish best Shirved”!
Arman A • Oct 20, 2013 at 2:15 am
Believing in the rights of life, liberty, and property does not contradict a belief in the death penalty any more than any legal punishment does.
Imprisonment strips you of your liberty. Fines strip you of your property. A death penalty strips you of all rights. If you reject capital punishment on the basis of its alleged violation of rights, then you must logically reject all punishment.
Of course, this is ridiculous. This only makes sense if you view only one side of the story, the punishment, and not the other side as well, the crime.
People who have violated the rights of others can, morally, have their rights violated proportionally. You would not fine someone who stole 1000 dollars for 40 dollars, nor would you fine them 1 million. Given this principle of proportional punishment(a clear part of the American legal tradition), giving the death penalty to a murderer is clearly moral.
So I have (hopefully) established the theoretical morality of capital punishment, for a party guilty of a crime that is of proportional gravity (e.g. murder).
But I am still opposed to the death penalty for a different reason: The risk of executing an innocent party. If someone is executed and turns out to be innocent after the fact, there is no going back. If someone is imprisoned for life and then turns out to be innocent, you can simply release them from prison. Life imprisonment has a clear advantage over the death penalty in this regard.
DNA reduces the chance of this happening, but it is still possible.
In terms of morality, life imprisonment is similarly just for those guilty of murder/rape/any other absolutely horrible crime you can think of, anyway. If you want to complain about parole, you can take that away without having to execute.