Troy Davis murdered by State of Georgia; The death sentence is not Libertarian or Christian.

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

So, we hear that the Troy Davis has been put to death by the State of Georgia in a case where serious doubt has been raised regarding whether he is guilty of murder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/22/troy-davis-execution-last-words

Two major problems with the death penalty.
a) No way to correct miscarriages of justice
b) God COMMANDS us in the ten commandments you shall not murder.

Democratization of murder via the death sentence and killing done by the State cannot provide exemption from God’s law. Do we, like Pontius Pilate wash our hands of responsibility to uphold the Ten Commandments because the crowd bays for death? Indeed, murder, institutionalized/collectivized by the State via the death penalty is worse even than private murder cases, because the whole of society be damned for collectively turning their back on God’s Commandments.

But on a more practical level, is not death an easy way out for the guilty? Like the coward who commits suicide? It is almost like providing mercy for the guilty yet horror for the wrongly committed. Surely life incarcerated is a harsher penalty for the guilty, during which the potential of repent and deliverance is possible, as is the undoing of miscarriages of justice?

And do not talk to me about the cost to “Society” for incarceration, because death row is an expensive institution and the cost of incarcerating all those put to death is a fraction of the money wasted incarcerating those who commit victimless crimes, such as marijuana use. So there is no justification for the death sentence other than to corrupt society, and if we continue on that route we are no better than the Romans who celebrated their neighbors being mauled by tigers in the amphitheater, killed if the crowed demanded it.

2

When people argue politics with religion I like to point out the the Jews thought Jesus was a blasphemer and killed him for it. Obviously, even when you are well-intentioned towards your God you can do the “wrong” thing (though, I suppose, Jesus knew he would die).

Hence, I dislike to mix religion with politics. The Bible also gives us other rules that we forget in a libertarian society, so why respect some and not others?

3

True or not, it is irrelevant to the question of social order.

Collective punishment is manfestly evil. If God engages in it, then God is manifestly evil. I prefer to think that God is not manifestly evil.

So, you’re complaining that Troy Davis has been given mercy?

True. The mob is vicious and bloodthirsty. So mob rule is, therefore, vicious and bloodthirsty rule. Isn’t democracy grand?

Clayton -

4

Re: a, yes, death is final. However, say someone is sentenced to life and his innocence is discovered 20 years later. How do you correct that miscarriage? Pay him off? Does that make things right? How much is 20 years worth?

In a justice system, it is imperative that people weigh the evidence carefully and only convict when it’s beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the case regardless of the punishment. The fact that some innocent get punished and some guilty go free is an indictment of what takes place in the court room, at the crime scene, etc, not of the punishment itself.

Furthermore, one of the reasons death row inmates can end up costing the state more than a lifetime prisoner is because of the extensive appeal process available to them to help ensure it is not a wrongful execution (though it is admittedly not a foolproof process).

Re: b, most importantly, this is not a prohibition of all taking of human life. It is the prohibition of murder. The very same law in the OT authorizes the state to take the life of certain criminals (including that of murderers).

I’d like to further point out that the ten commandments are a part of a covenant or a contract that God had with the Israelite people thousands of years ago. While some of the same principles may still apply, we are not bound to them anymore than citizens of Japan are bound by laws in Chile.

I am a Christian, but I prefer not to make religious arguments that I think should be binding upon non-Christians. I find my libertarian leanings to be congruent with God’s law, but I don’t expect people to adopt them for that reason.

I’m not sure I follow you on your thoughts about death being “the easy way out.” If the point of punishment were strictly to make the guilty party suffer, then we wouldn’t have a “cruel and unusual punishment” clause. At any rate, it seems like you don’t want to extend mercy to the guilty (via the death penalty, presumably because you want them to suffer?). But then you note that those with life imprisonment have the opportunity to repent (which I’d think would make it a better way to go). Though I’d like to point out that a) people on death row have the opportunity to repent as well and b) someone’s faith decisions or lack thereof are not the concern of the state. The state, from the Christian perspective, is an institution in place to punish wrongdoers and protect the innocent. It is a tool of God to provide a measure of justice and order for the time being, as imperfect as that may be. Christians are told not to return evil for evil because vengeance belongs to God right before Paul goes on to explain one way in which God takes vengeance (i.e., the state). Mercy is the duty of the church.

I think that victimless crimes (mostly have the War on Drugs in mind here, though prostitution, gambling, etc apply as well) should not be the concern of the state, and it’s a shame that the government is housing them all for personal choices they have made. However, the fact that government wastes money in one area does not justify it wasting money in another area either.

My biggest concern when it comes to the justice system isn’t the choice btwn life imprisonment (is that kidnapping btw? if capital punishment is murder…) and the death penalty. I’m more concerned about whether the guilty are being charged and punished or not and whether the innocent are being released or not. People rely on “expert” testimony on arson, DNA evidence and its interpretation is taken to be infallible, plausible motive is treated as damning, etc. Not to mention trials and punishments string along months and years after the act. If this stuff was straight, I’d have an easy time advocating the death penalty in murder cases where the defendant’s guilt was beyond a reasonable doubt. As it stands, given the corruption and incompetence that run rampant, I’m less eager to cry for blood.

5

Jesus used to teach with parables. Analogies. He wouldn’t have done that if he thought there wasn’t reason behind the rules he sought to demonstrate.

I’m not a ‘Christian’, per se, because the self-proclaimed “Christians” who tried to convert me as a small child did not live up to the moral example they tried to impose on me, and I suspect that the story is capable of being told without using particular names or places such as ‘Jesus’ or ‘Judea’. I’m not particularly attached to Jesus any more than I am to Buddha or Lao Tsu. But for what it’s worth, I do like the story, and I think Jesus was actually trying to advocate voluntarism.

To my admittedly biased mind, “true” Christianity entails and requires voluntarism. The state is personified by demons, like Mammon, Leviathan and, of course, Ba’al Ze’Bub - the Punic devourer of children.

Where the state revels in ancient pagan blasphemies and Satanism, you might as well use Christian metaphors to fight it.

This scenario is after the Pharisees accuse Jesus of exorcising that herd of possesed pigs by invoking the name of Ba’al Ze’bub.

Doesn’t it remind you of arguments with statists in which they insist that you are solving problems - ‘driving out demons’ - using means at least as evil as theirs? i.e. “Won’t the protection agencies go to war, and wouldn’t this war result in a new world order of its own?” :stuck_out_tongue: And then we say, “Even if that were to happen, how do you presently solve problems, and what do you think is currently happening?” The point is that it’s no better an excuse than saying you aren’t gonna clean up because it will only get dirty again later. The point is that you don’t stop cleaning, ever.

Clearly, the Pharisees did not have good intentions towards God. They claimed to, but could not reply to Jesus’ arguments. Too bad there are so many “Christians” today who are unable to think as Jesus expected his disciples to, and would have followed the Pharisees’ blind dogma rather than Jesus’ argumentation, had they been around in those days. They like to call themselves “Christian”, but they just adapt the words (symbols) loosely to justify whatever they like. I dare say there are non-religious “libertarians” who do the same thing. Symbols - idols - are not to be worshipped, right?

6

There are capital offenses in the Bible:

Worshipping other gods.

Human sacrifice.

False prophecy (Joseph Smith and Muhammed?)

Necromancy

Blasphemy

Breaking sabbath

Foreigners getting too close to the tabernacle.

Being raped by a married man in the countryside

Sex with a woman before being married to her.

Adultery (same with someone else’s wife)

Marrying your wife’s mother

Prostitution, if you are the daughter of a priest

Homosexuality

Bestiality

Murder

Smiting or cursing or persistent disobedience toward a parent

astrology and wizardry and psychics

Using the lord’s name in vain

Kidnapping

Negligent homicide

Contempt of court

Lying as a witness to any capital offense

7

I also see from your picture that you do not have a beard. When the Bible clearly states:

You must not shave or cut the corners of the hairs of your head and you are not to trim (mar or clip off) the edge (corners) of your beard.’

Leviticus 19:27

On the judgment of murder. Being punished is not the same as murder. At least not in this religious paradigm. To suggest so would at the very least suggest that the God’s will contradicts itself. In which case, you should be killed for blasphemy.

8

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/a-praxeological-account-of-law/20383

The root problem is that the legal system itself is not legally liable for its own actions, see the link above.

But no matter how carefully the evidence is weighed, unjust outcomes are inevitable when the justice system itself is legally immune from the consequences of its actions. The problems with our legal system are not confined to the academic details of legal practice that can be debated endlessly. Rather the problems with our legal system all ultimately stem from the system’s own legal immunity. Judges, jurors, prosecutors, investigators, witnesses, etc. are all immune (in many cases absolutely immune) from legal recourse by the accused. Is it any wonder that our poor, beleaguered prosecutors can only manage to maintain a 98% success rate (where success = somebody goes to jail)?

Such a distinction is theological - it is no different than any other kind of special pleading. Killing by the State cannot be categorized differently based on the theological beliefs of one or another sub-group.

The myopic fixation of the public and the modern legal system with the Platonic ideas of “guilt” and “innocence” is a key part of the problem. Without legal liability for its own actions, the legal system is free to abuse its victims with impunity so long as certain word games are played properly (and so long as the accused doesn’t happen to be very wealthy and well-connected, cf Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s recent legal adventures). The idea of granting any human being or human organziation legal immunity for their actions should be rigidly terrifying to anyone with a pulse. But our society is replete with such “loopholes”. We have Predator drones flying all over the world shooting missiles into any damn building that the CIA decides contains “terrorists”. The innocent people who are often nearby have no legal recourse. They cannot sue the CIA. Even those with the money and the inclination (say, Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International or the ACLU) cannot sue because any such lawsuit will be kicked to the curb in a nano-second on the grounds that the government has “acted in the interests of national security.” Such actions are not subject to legal scrutiny. We have self-described Murder, Inc. “kill teams” roaming the planet assassinating any goat-herder the CIA fingers as a terrorist. We indefinitely detain minors and, yes, even US citizens and perform brutal acts of torture until recently only practiced by NKVD on dissidents in their underground dungeons in Leningrad. All of this the US gov’t does while trumpeting from the hilltops that ours is a nation under “rule of law.”

We must end all forms of legal immunity without exception and without delay. Everyone is 100% liable for every act they perform and every decision they make, 100% of the time. Any other rule is social suicide - insanity - and must quickly lead to the breakdown of social order under mob rule by sociopathic syndicates.

Clayton -

9

Whether you like or not, the foundation of American Common Law and Constitution are the ten commandments.

Thou shalt not steal is applied to the State with the requirement of gold and silver coinage, the principles that humans have inaleianable rights is based on the concept that rights are derived from God, not the Sate. It is the foundation of the American way of life and that moral code has proven its ability to create wealth and prosperity beyond the imagination of those who believe that their rights are derived from the State.

Regardless of what you may say about other parts of the bible, I find it astonishing to believe that one could say that it could be bad for a society to comply with the ten commandments, because whenever you look at depridations of the State, it is, always and everywhere, in contravention with those ten commandments.

10

Even if true, this is a completely unsupportable claim.

Clayton -

11

“astrology and wizardry and psychics”

So Voldemort…is God…?

12

I find it astonishing to believe that one could say that it could be bad for a society to comply with the ten commandments

Ah, so “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” will greatly help our economy by halting all trade. Indeed, we should use force to make people not work on the Sabbath.

13

a) Agreed.

b) How can you possibly use God’s commandments in an argument against the death penalty, when God explictly calls for the death penalty? Throughout the Bible, God regularly commands us to kill sinners, for a variety of offenses, including, but by no means limited to, cursing one’s parents, adultery, incest, beastiality, not screaming for help while being raped, murder and blasphemy.

14

"

b) God COMMANDS us in the ten commandments you shall not murder.

True or not, it is irrelevant to the question of social order."

Illogical. If it is true then it is relevant to social order, if it isn’t true, then yes, it is irrelevant.

15

What separates the 10 Commandments from any other moral order derived from various global mythologies? Just about every society on Earth has instructions against murder, theft, and fraud. If they didn’t, it would be difficult to function as a society. “Thou shalt not steal” is a maxim in many other concepts of morality and a non-theist libertarian would appeal to a Natural Law, of which God is not a necessary condition and would operate in opposition to the State just the same.

It wouldn’t necessarily be the best thing to abide by the 10 Commandments because there are more commandments than the commonly cited ones. Remember the Sabbath (not relevant to the functioning of society), honor your father and mother (under what condition, if any, is this honor to be revoked?), do not covet (capitalism operates on the principle of wanting something somebody else has, as long as the means they take to acquire it is just, although I do recognize that there is an alternate conception of what this commandments means), and the first three are strictly religious principles that has nothing to do with civic law.

16

The first commandments are central to your Founders believing that rights are derived from God, not the State.

The commandment against coveting the possessions of others would outlaw Socialism, so don’t knock it.

17

I’m more relaxed about the Sabbath, but as recent as about ten years ago, shops closed in England on Sundays, as still occurs in Spain, France, Italy, etc. and I tell you what, we lost something when we got 24/7 commerce, some of the sparkle in society dissapeared when families could not be guaranteed Sunday for chilling the heck out, and going out to enjoy nature and the company of others.

18

Sure days off are pleasant, but why does it qualify as a Commandment? I’d think of a Commandment as something which “one must not do” (lest there be some form of punishment). Also, I don’t care what the deified “Founders” thought about anything just because they claimed to found a nation that I had nothing to do with.

Plus your first statement about the first three being central to their philosophy, many of the Founders were deists and didn’t take the Old Testament at face value. That, and you’re harping on a dichotomy that an irreligious Natural Law libertarian doesn’t even have to consider. The State or God wouldn’t be necessary conditions for granting “rights.” A right doesn’t have to come from either God or the State in this person’s worldview.

19

I have ONE commandment from Murray Newton Rothbard: the Non-Aggression Axiom.

20

Oh, regarding “do not covet anothers property”. That Commandment is double sided. It allows for property rights, which is the foundation of Libertarianism. Once you have purchased something it is your property, right? And if God provides you a right to your property, then the State cannot take it away. This is why Christians should be completely opposed to ALL FORMS of Socialism, without exception.

The Founding Fathers were Christians and they stated, that only a moral society could retain a Republic. We must re-discover that moral compass to re-discover the Republic and our Liberties.