tribalbeeyatch

Are you thinking of The Plague? I seem to recall something along those lines in it.

Grad Student Humanist

I believe you're referring to Camus' essay "Reflections on the Guillotine" which can be found in his collection of essays Resistance, Rebellion and Death. I heartily recommend this essay, as well as the rest of Camus' oeuvre.

"It is obviously no less repulsive than the crime, and this new murder, far from making amends for the harm done to the social body, adds a new blot to the first one." -- Albert Camus, "Reflections on the Guillotine."

auto-da-fe

You are correct Undercurrent about one of the guns in a firing squad having blanks. It was so each could rationalize it wasn't them who did it. At least in a stoning, every person has to take responsibilty for their own actions.

I personally think the Exectutioner mentioned in the OP is delusional and suffers from (possible several) psychotic diseases. To try and justify murdering people in the name of God is nothing new, people have been doing it for centuries. This is just ANOTHER case of it being state sanctioned. I'm sure this guy sleeps well at night when he keeps telling himself "I'm doing God's work, I'm doing God's work, I'm doing God's work". Like most other theist, he can rationalize just about any behavior with that lame excuse.

Harumi

And this brings up the question of how a supposedly loving God would make killing his children one of his children's life's work.

Don't you just love it when logic goes out the window?

Pyrrho

This is nothing new. Religion has always been a "justification" for killing people. Yet some imagine that barbarity like this is some new "fundamentalist" idea!

Pyrrho

Their conscience is supposed to be safe. But I think you will find that it often does not, and that people involved in executions often end up with emotional problems that appear to be a result of what they have done. You see, most people are not so stupid that they fail to realize, at some level, it is just a rationalization rather than something that makes them innocent.

Deacon Doubtmonger

OK ... this begs the question of how they'd induce doubt with swords -- blindfold two or more executioners, give one guy a dull one, then keep the blindfolds on so none of them sees which one it is??? Oops -- forgot ... they'd all have to wear heavy gloves so none could feel whether or not his blade met resistance ...

Then again, that Saudi chopper certainly has no doubt as to his actions.

As I understand it, the present Fred Leuchter-designed lethal injection machine has two activation buttons, as does his electric chair; both devices have an onboard computer randomizing which button is live. Should the electricity fail, the injector also has two manual pulls, each with the same spring strength.

It seems the history of the creation of capital punishment methods is not entirely "pure" or doubt-free. Random execution tidbits from the Deacon's sodden brain:

(1) Re the gas chamber: I've heard two conflicting stories as to its creation. One holds that the Nevada governor who first enacted it was opposed to capital punishment, so he devised a method for which he thought the equipment could never be built, whereupon the voters turned around and said, "You made this law; now you HAVE to make it happen." The other holds that the original idea was to transfer the prisoner into the chamber without telling him what it was, then to gas him "humanely" while he slept; this was abandoned due to technical difficulties.

(2) Re electrocution: This idea arose out of a trade war in the infancy of the electric era. Thomas Edison and his company would often try to promote the safety of their direct current by zapping animals with rival George Westinghouse's alternating current.

(3) At least one firing squad execution is known in which all the riflemen surreptitiously aimed their weapons slightly away from the prisoner's heart during the first volley. Perhaps they were insufficiently religious?

Deacon Doubtmonger

"In any decently run universe, this [God] would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago." -- George Carlin

Buddrow_Wilson

Look, who's to say which stone made the killing blow? For all I know my throw only injured the person or made contact with him already dead. I take comfort in the fact that is highly unlikely that I was the one who actually "killed" this person.

yguy

Is it supposed to be news that one who is determined enough can rationalize anything?

The person who pushes the dummy "kill button" is as responsible as the one who pushes the real one.

Pyrrho

I never thought I would see the day that I would agree completely and absolutely with one of your posts.