Margaret Beckett Disgusts Me

[poliphilo]

This country abolished capital punishment when I was a kid,  so why is a British foreign secretary welcoming the death sentence that's just been passed on Saddam Hussein?

Comments

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's diplomacy: the Iraqi government wants to execute him, best not to object in this case. Hussein is someone for whom the only objection to execution is the one that rests on a handful of moral principles; he is an "otherwise executable", someone most people would be more than happy to have dead. It's acceptable, even for someone who opposes the penalty, to "be happy" for it on this occasion. The costs of condemnation are higher and won't accomplish anything.

For myself, I'm opposed to capital punishment as such on preciously narrow consequentialist grounds. In the case of Hussein, I am indifferent: an examination of the costs and benefits indicates that the marginal increase in brutality for Iraq is negligible (the brutalizing effect). Keeping him alive poses great risks but so does killing him. Thus I personally can't say whether I think he should be killed or not.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm opposed to capital punishment on principle. I think it demeans and brutalises the state that practises it.

OK- this is the decision of an Iraqi court and the Coalition powers are holding aloof- but, even so, I'd rather British politicians weren't crowing about it.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

This pretty much sums up my position. I won't hold a candle at Hussein's execution, but to celebrate it? Disgusting.