Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Crime and Punishment

  • Shooting Up Chicago

    This is what happens when leftists are in charge. And you are still a Democrat? Perhaps you need to see a proctologist who specializes in head injuries. An explosion of drive-by shootings erupted on Chicago’s South and West sides this weekend. At least 74 people were shot, and 12 killed, between 3 p.m. on Friday…

  • Does Capital Punishment Infringe the Unalienable Right to Life?

    Paul J. Griffiths in Against Capital Punishment gives the following argument against C. P.: The U.S. is a constitutional democracy, committed in theory to serve and protect the inalienable rights of its citizens, who are also its sovereigns. Those inalienable rights include the right not to be killed. A sovereign authority that permits or requires…

  • Punishment and Proportionality

    This just in from Daniel M.: Thanks for the recent posts on capital punishment. I acknowledge the distinction you make between lex talionis (LT) and "punishment must fit the crime" (PFC), which you use to rebut this objection from a reader: If your argument is that the punishment must fit the crime, what about cases…

  • ‘The Punishment Must Fit the Crime’ and Lex Talionis

    In my various defenses of capital punishment (see Crime and Punishment category) I often invoke the principle that the punishment must fit the crime.  To my surprise, there are people who confuse this  principle, label it PFC, with some barbaric version of the lex talionis, the law of the talion, which could be summed up as 'An eye for…

  • Three Arguments Against Capital Punishment Demolished

    The Epistemological Argument The first argument contra could be called the 'epistemological' argument or the argument from ignorance: it can't be known with certainty that one accused of a capital crime is guilty.  The argument sometimes takes this enthymematic form: P2. Capital punishment is sometimes inflicted on the innocent. Therefore C. Capital punishment ought to…

  • Capital Punishment

    Public Discourse: On August 2, 2018, Pope Francis announced an update to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, making a prohibition on the death penalty official Catholic teaching. Prior to this change, many scholars believed that the historic teaching of the Church did not declare capital punishment intrinsically immoral, even if the practice is, as…

  • Leftists Love Criminals

    You will never understand the Left until you understand that they reliably take the side of losers, underdogs, and criminals, who comprise their clientele and path to power.  And with lefties it is always about power, first and forever. Here we read about a 78-year-old Englishman who, in defending himself against a screwdriver-wielding home invader,…

  • Black Crime Rates

    Here are some facts that 'progressives' ignore: Who is killing and shooting black crime victims? Overwhelmingly, not whites, not the police, but, tragically, other blacks. The high black homicide-victimization rate is a function of the black homicide-commission rate. Blacks commit homicide nationally at seven times the rate of whites and most Hispanics, combined. Black males between the…

  • Collusion is not a Crime . . .

    . . . and even if it were, there is no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. That is the considered opinion of Alan Dershowitz who, by the way, voted for Hillary.  I hope you will grant me that the Harvard professor knows something about the federal criminal  code. Watch this video which is…

  • The Destructive Left

  • A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment

    David Bentley Hart reviews  Edward Feser and  Joseph M. Bessette,  By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, Ignatius Press, $24.95, 424 pp. (HT: Karl White) I will add my two cents later if time permits. Meanwhile, if you care to know where I am 'coming from,' feel free to poke around…

  • If a Black Shoplifts is it Shoplifting?

    Here

  • How to Stifle Policing

    The Obama Era continues to hinder police effectiveness.

  • Are the Police Racist?

    A short video by Heather MacDonald. Can you spare five and one half minutes? Question for liberals: If a statement about race is true, is one a racist for making it?  Is one a racist for reporting the following? Homicide numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976–2005 indicate that young African-American males account…

  • Academic Criminology Little More than Leftist Ideology that Gets Almost Everything Wrong

    Here. Excerpts: Evidence of the liberal tilt in criminology is widespread. Surveys show a 30:1 ratio of liberals to conservatives within the field, a spread comparable with that in other social sciences. The largest group of criminologists self-identify as radical or “critical.” These designations include many leftist intellectual orientations, from radical feminism to Marxism to…