Justice Part 1

I saw an article in the Pitt News about anti-death penalty activists. I used to wholeheartedly support the death penalty. It is called for in Genesis 9 and is in fact part of the agreement God makes with Noah not to flood the entire earth again. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed. Indeed, it seems theoretically morally justified, especially in light of this well-known thought experiment. If a murderer destroys the life of a victim and there is a life-transfer machine, we can agree it would be fair for the life of the murderer to be transferred to the victim so he could live again. I will later touch on why exactly this is fair.
When talking about justice for a crime, we first have to agree on the nature of what crime is. I probably defined it in an earlier blog entry, but again a real crime has a victim who suffers harm to his body or property. True justice for a crime is in the restitution of what rightfully belonged to the victim. That is why the previous thought experiment is morally justified. Practically, though, that is not how the death penalty works. Even if it were applied perfectly, there could be no restitution to the victim and therefore no true justice. Even worse is the fact that in real life, there are wrongful convictions and racism and such that result in the death of innocents. When an innocent man dies for a crime he did not commit, not only has justice not been attained, but now another injustice has been committed.
This same consequence of wrongful conviction could be applied to other crimes, with of course not nearly as devastating a loss. With property crimes, there can always be restitution to replace things that have a monetary value. However, in crimes of violence, how can true justice be attained? Pure monetary restitution as a punishment for this crime is not sufficient, as I will explain in another entry, because irreparable damage may occur. I will also explain why our current "justice" system does not attain justice and explore some ideas about what can be done.

So it's been quite a while since I posted anything on this blog...over 15 months. However, today seems like a good time to continue. Maybe entries will even be posted with some regularity, even though there's loads of stuff for me to do, such as study for a kinesiology lab exam, a neuroscience exam, conduct two interviews about how the disabled were treated back in the day, a presentation on Guillain-Barre, and a couple things for bio lab. On top of that, my parents and my brother are visiting for a couple of days in a week and a half. However, I've often felt the need to say something, given the state of society these days. Who is honest and in their right mind these days? Who can you trust?
Case in point: Thanks to Michael Tennant, I've now discovered that Walter E. Williams, a free-market economist, is unfortunately a blood thirsty warmonger. Hopefully he does not consider himself a Christian, since he says "Thank God" to the fact that the deaths of innocent people "were not considered" in the US's war on Japan and Germany. How is this acceptable? Let us remember the wisdom found in Proverbs: There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers. If God hates hands that shed innocent blood, how is it acceptable to thank Him for the slaughter of innocents? Did Christ say or did He not say "Blessed are the peacemakers." These Bible verses are very clear. They cannot be taken the wrong way by anyone with the intelligence to be functionally literate (Disclaimer: I do realize that there are very intelligent people with reading difficulties.) Although Laurence Vance has already done an excellent job covering Christianity and war, I may add some of my own thoughts to the mixture.