Don’t Kill Saddam Hussein
Capital punishment makes a mockery of the ‘Legal System’, and so this is yet another reason to be against capital punishment.
My previous and enduring reasons for being against capital punishment are -
1) It is irreversible - if new technology like DNA testing is developed and proves the convict innocent, the dead cannot be given back their life. So what then makes society any better than the criminal? Killing innocent people is a crime!
2) The legal system is intrinsically flawed - because it is run by humans who have innumerable flaws. Humans can never be 100% right.
3) New Capital punishment makes a mockery of the Legal System. - Take the case of Saddam Hussein, he has been tried and found guilty of heinous crimes. And the majority of the world’s population believes this to be an undisputable fact and I agree. But still it seems to me that killing him is wrong.
Not only is there 1 & 2 to consider, after all trial by public opinion seems to be the most unreliable type of trial, just because everyone thinks something is true doesn’t mean it is. It is a statistical fact that half of any country’s population has an I.Q. of 100 or less (100 is the average score on the I.Q. test); and public opinion is easily swayed by the loudest voice, and the objectivity of the masses seems to reside somewhere around zero. But despite all this, I believe that the chance of Saddam being innocent is a scientifically insignificantly figure. So, 1 & 2 are, for me, essentially out of the equation on this one.
Nevertheless, I still say, “Don’t kill Saddam Hussein!” because of my new third reason. His death makes a mockery out of the Justice System for the simple reason that if we are going to kill him, what makes us any better than he is? Yes, I know that he had a trial and has been treated with much more compassion and respect then any of his victims but if he was on trial for the purpose of determining his previous obvious guilt then 1) how can anyone be sure he got a fair trial?; and 2) if we were all just going through the routine with the ultimate goal of ‘legitimately’ killing him then why bother and why not just kill him outright right from the start? And if we just kill him without ‘due process’ then we are killing him in cold blood, and again what makes us any better than him?
Anyone can set up a system of ‘due process’ to excuse themselves from the crime of murder but in the end it is still murder and a crime. I’m sure Saddam Hussein set his own little system of ‘due process’ in order to wash his hands of the guilt of all the terrible crimes he has commited; after all, he seems to feel as guiltless as the society that is killing him.
My previous and enduring reasons for being against capital punishment are -
1) It is irreversible - if new technology like DNA testing is developed and proves the convict innocent, the dead cannot be given back their life. So what then makes society any better than the criminal? Killing innocent people is a crime!
2) The legal system is intrinsically flawed - because it is run by humans who have innumerable flaws. Humans can never be 100% right.
3) New Capital punishment makes a mockery of the Legal System. - Take the case of Saddam Hussein, he has been tried and found guilty of heinous crimes. And the majority of the world’s population believes this to be an undisputable fact and I agree. But still it seems to me that killing him is wrong.
Not only is there 1 & 2 to consider, after all trial by public opinion seems to be the most unreliable type of trial, just because everyone thinks something is true doesn’t mean it is. It is a statistical fact that half of any country’s population has an I.Q. of 100 or less (100 is the average score on the I.Q. test); and public opinion is easily swayed by the loudest voice, and the objectivity of the masses seems to reside somewhere around zero. But despite all this, I believe that the chance of Saddam being innocent is a scientifically insignificantly figure. So, 1 & 2 are, for me, essentially out of the equation on this one.
Nevertheless, I still say, “Don’t kill Saddam Hussein!” because of my new third reason. His death makes a mockery out of the Justice System for the simple reason that if we are going to kill him, what makes us any better than he is? Yes, I know that he had a trial and has been treated with much more compassion and respect then any of his victims but if he was on trial for the purpose of determining his previous obvious guilt then 1) how can anyone be sure he got a fair trial?; and 2) if we were all just going through the routine with the ultimate goal of ‘legitimately’ killing him then why bother and why not just kill him outright right from the start? And if we just kill him without ‘due process’ then we are killing him in cold blood, and again what makes us any better than him?
Anyone can set up a system of ‘due process’ to excuse themselves from the crime of murder but in the end it is still murder and a crime. I’m sure Saddam Hussein set his own little system of ‘due process’ in order to wash his hands of the guilt of all the terrible crimes he has commited; after all, he seems to feel as guiltless as the society that is killing him.