Abolishing the death penalty while pissing on the victims of crime

Let me start off by simply stating my position on the death penalty, I support it! I’m sick and tired of people saying the death penalty does not solve or is not a deterrent to crime so it should be abolished. If that is the case then I say break down all the prisons and turn them into shopping complexes because we could do with some extra ‘WestMalls’ in T&T and do away with the life imprisonment sentence because neither of these are solving crime nor are they proving to be deterrents. Currently no one is being hanged, everyone is being imprisoned and the murder rate keeps sky rocketing. People the reality is the death penalty was never meant to be a deterrent nor was it meant to be a cure to rampant crime or any crime for that matter.

The death penalty is simply the consequence of committing a particular crime just as life imprisonment or any imprisonment is a consequence for someone perpetrating a particular type of crime. The death penalty is based on the old adage an eye for an eye. It is based on the premise that the law seeks to promote equality and fairness, hence the statue of the blind woman with the balancing scale. Abolish the death penalty and the scale becomes skewed in the favour of criminals. On the 21st April 2009 gun men killed a man and his wife and then proceeded to burn their two children inside the house. Granting someone life imprisonment for this heinous, gut-less, premeditated crime does not equate to the lives of these four people, there is no way in hell that scale could balance!

What is even more stupid, is people who say the death penalty causes and promotes violence. What utter bollox! If that is the case then we should do away with all the laws against stealing, money laundering, driving recklessly, rape, child molestation etc, because all these laws are promoting the respective transgression right? Wrong, so the argument that having the death penalty on our law books promotes violence in our society is moot, it is dead, it defies logic. Another argument put forward by anti-death penalty activists is that there stands the chance of an innocent person being put to death. Well gee there is also the chance of an innocent person being found guilty of rape even though they didn’t do it and being sentenced to life imprisonment. Anyone can be mistakenly found guilty of any crime and you could also wrongfully be sentenced to life imprisonment.

I fail to see how imprisoning someone for life at the age of 25 and it is only when they reach 80 you find out that they were innocent all along, I fail to see how that is better or more humane than the death penalty so exactly what is the point with that argument? The fact of the matter is all human processes are subject to error and that includes law. Error is an inextricable part of the human fabric it cannot be eliminated. To say that you are going to abolish the death penalty because human beings are imperfect is rightfully stupid. In that case then all laws should be abolished because all laws and the methods by which people are held accountable to these laws are open to error.

Also people who promote this ridiculous argument shouldn’t fly because they could never tell which man made plane will give out in mid flight and they should never drive either because they could never tell which man made tyre will bust on them causing them to lose control of their car and be killed instantly. They should live a life of doubt, return to the caves of our ancestors and avoid the Sun God! In any event there have been tremendous advancements in technology that has increased the investigative abilities of law enforcement officers triple fold. Word to the wise, we no longer live in the 14th century, we are way past the Petri-dish era!

What amuses me about human rights organisations such as Amnesty International is that they are never around immediately after a crime is committed. When those gun men killed that family in April where was Amnesty International? Did Amnesty International issue a statement about these dead people’s rights and how they were brutally denied of their right to life? Did Amnesty International send any support units to assist the family members who were left behind to moan the loss of their daughter, son, and grandchildren? No, Amnesty International is never around when the victims of brutal crimes are being buried! But the minute a government decides to hang a perpetrator for committing a most gruesome act such as setting a house on fire with two little children in it; Amnesty International throws their hands in the air and pontificates to our government about human rights! Is it that only the criminals have rights?

Amnesty International likes to use statistics to prove that country’s that have abolished the death penalty have a lesser crime rate than those that retain the death penalty. What Amnesty International does not tell Joe Public is that the country’s with the lowest crime rates are also the most wealthiest, with the citizens of those countries living improved lives compared to the citizens of those countries with the death penalty but which also has a significant disparity with the distribution of national wealth. Having the death penalty in your law books does not cause crime, what causes crime is social inequality. However as human beings we all have choices and being poor does not justify taking the life of another human being, especially when you choose to sit on the block all day scratching your arse because you’re too lazy to go find a job. These criminals are like parasites that prey on the work force of a nation. We work, we do all the sweating and toiling and like parasites all they do is kill so they can consume and reap the benefits of our labour, they are like a malignant cancer that steals the life out of a human body. What do you do with a malignant cancer? Do you treat it? No, you gut it, you cut it off even if it means losing a breast or an entire limb. These criminals must be cut off permanently because they are a cancer to our society.

Another curious position Amnesty International has is the cost it takes to affect the death sentence. Amnesty claim it is simply too expensive for governments to affect the death penalty. Out of curiosity has anyone ever done a cost analysis on the effect of losing a productive citizen at the hands of these depraved criminals? Let’s say a business man aged 35 earns 400k per annum, he has three children and a wife who stays at home to take care of the household. Some criminals decide to rob him and in the process they put a bullet through his head to take from him what they are not entitled. Let’s say we give the businessman an economic life span up to the age of 65, has Amnesty International done any analysis of losses to governments through the loss of taxes they would have received from this business man? Losses which would no doubt be incremental because as the businessman aged and time passed by taking inflationary considerations to account he would no doubt be making more money at age 40, 50 and 60.

Have they estimated the losses to his family, his widow who now has to find a job and take care of her three children until they all reach legal age? And please don’t tell me about insurance because the pittance she will get from insurance isn’t going to last forever. Does Amnesty take into account the emotional and psychological cost of losing a husband, wife or children to violent crime? Furthermore does Amnesty International contribute financially to the families of victims of violent premeditated crime? Do they help pay the household bills after the sole or a significant bread winner is taken away? Do they attend all the parent day meetings of the now parent less children? Do they remember the anniversaries of the widows? Do they buy gifts for every birthday and leave a mark on the wall for every extra inch of growth? Does Amnesty International keep a widow warm in bed at night as she recoils into herself and stare at the empty spot where her hard working husband once lay?! I’m sure if all of the above costs are tallied it we would soon come to the conclusion that the price at which we hang the bastards is a bargain price!

Amnesty International and all these other anti-death penalty groups do absolutely nothing for the victims of violent crime. Family members are left on their own to pick up the pieces. With one hand members of anti-death penalty groups fight for the rights of criminals and demand the abolition of the death penalty while simultaneously holding their penises with their other hand and pissing on family members and on the graves of the victims of violent crime. Another silly argument that people like to throw at you is, ‘would you be willing to be the one to do the hanging’. The answer to that is quite simple, if it’s my wife and children that the bastard brutally killed then yes I will gladly pull the lever to pop his neck! But for those who want to be smart by asking that dumb question, are you willing to continue paying the deceased’s bills? Are you willing to continue to provide for his family and sustain their standard of living prior to the death of their loved one? Are you willing to attend all the birthday parties and graduation of the deceased’s children? Are you willing to foot the university bills of the deceased’s children?

The above are just some of the effects the loss of a loved one to brutal crime can have on a family. Families pay a high emotional and financial price when a lazy, depraved criminal premeditatedly and violently kills their loved ones. It is only fair that the punishment for such crime be equal to the rippling effect it has on the victim’s family. Giving this person perpetual accommodation courtesy state resources, along with food, entertainment and medical benefits can in no way be a just punishment for the suffering that person has caused unto others. People like to ask the question, ‘Have we become so depraved as a specie to repay violence with violence’. Well I often wonder, have we become so depraved that the rights of a criminal is now supreme to that of his victims? So much so that we are actually punishing society as a whole by seeking to force society to stand the costs of accommodating these wicked criminals in humane conditions that are acceptable to human rights groups like Amnesty International?

If Amnesty wants us to abolish the death penalty then I say let Amnesty International foot the expense of keeping T&T’s worst criminals alive. If such an agreement is unacceptable to Amnesty and I know it will be, then I say forward march to Woodford Square and let the necks start popping! We can all then visit any of our favourite watering holes on the Avenue and have a beastly cold beer, after which we can all take turns pissing on Amnesty International’s request for the abolition of the death penalty in T&T. ©