I was thinking about this issue in a libertarian context. Rothbard says that every punishment should be retributive and proportional, and follows this logic to the conclusion that a murderer can be sentenced to death penalty. What are the logical implications of this?I don't support death penalty in our current statist system. I consider that it can be used to kill innocents and to show the "strength of law" to potential criminals. Maybe, in an anarcho-capitalist society, things would be much better, as there is absence of law enforcement monopoly. Anyway, it is perfectly possible (and will happen) that someone makes a mistake and an innocent is wrongly killed in the name of the law. What would the "retribution" be? Another murder? Any ideas on this?
Under the current system of justice, I think capital punishments are ill-advised for at least two reasons.
First, the system that administrates capital punishment is also the system that brings the cases and provides the evidence. So, there's builtin bias which makes it more likely that many more awaiting their sentence are in fact quite innocent or that the crime in question was not premeditate (premeditated murder imho is the only type of murder that I think justifies capital punishment...).
Second, the system as it is built, excluding builtin biases, is also highly inefficient. It costs about one million dollars in the United States to execute a person. This is largely because of the mechanism revolving appeals (which I support under the current setup as the front end of the justice system is horribly biased), which in itself wouldn't necessarily exist in a free market. Or at least wouldn't exist in the form that it does now.
Barring those concerns, in a free market, I believe capital punishment will still exist, but only for premeditated murder (regardless the number of the victims) as for crimes of passion are not based on a similar sense of malice, but that may still depend on the concept of aggravating circumstances.
"The power of liberty going forward is in decentralization. Not in leaders, but in decentralized activism. In a market process." -- liberty student
My thought is that punishment should be proportional to the act of aggression. Lfe for life, eye for an eye. Now, I also think everyone has a right to a trial by jury of there peers and should be able to appeal to many different layers of a legal system. One thing you should look at too, what they used to do in old days, was to banish someone and to have the legal authorities refuse to protect them, so someone could murder them or take them for all they were worth. Sometimes the legal authorities do not have to do anything.
Jason: My thought is that punishment should be proportional to the act of aggression. Lfe for life, eye for an eye. Now, I also think everyone has a right to a trial by jury of there peers and should be able to appeal to many different layers of a legal system. One thing you should look at too, what they used to do in old days, was to banish someone and to have the legal authorities refuse to protect them, so someone could murder them or take them for all they were worth. Sometimes the legal authorities do not have to do anything.
It's not economic for a private producer of defense to go around executing people, for two reasons:
Punishment qua punishment would cease to exist without the state, restitution would replace it.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Death penalty in any (state or non-state based) criminal system can lead to the execution of innocents, as any criminal system necessarily will lead to the conviction of innocents. As dead people can't really be compensated for the miscarriage of justice, death penalty should be prohibited in a libertarian society. If not, it would justify (on the very same grounds used to apply the initial penalty) endless chains of vendettas on basis of the execution of innocents also qualifying as murder. Besides, it's compeltey inefficient from an economic poit-of-view.
Individualist: Jason: My thought is that punishment should be proportional to the act of aggression. Lfe for life, eye for an eye. Now, I also think everyone has a right to a trial by jury of there peers and should be able to appeal to many different layers of a legal system. One thing you should look at too, what they used to do in old days, was to banish someone and to have the legal authorities refuse to protect them, so someone could murder them or take them for all they were worth. Sometimes the legal authorities do not have to do anything. A right to a jury trial would be a positive right. There's no such thing.
A right to a jury trial would be a positive right. There's no such thing.
Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market. To summarize, procedural rights, using the right to trial by jury as an example, can be defined by libertarian natural law.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
Against it.
Not because there aren't those who deserve to die, but because I don't want to EVER give the government the power to kill its own citizens.
The Rev
Lifes a piece of shit, when you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
Just remember it's all a show, keep em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
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