Police officials in Java have stated that they've been given orders to prepare for some impending executions. As well as the training of the firing squad, mental care is also being offered to those who'll carry out the act. It's not known just how many will face death, or the names of those who'll be shot. There are at least 165 people on death row, with about 40% of them convicted of dug offences. Two Brits, Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth Cashmore are among those on death row. Both were found guilty of drug crimes. The last round of executions took place in April 2015 when 8 men had their lives taken by the firing squad.
It is a very strange thing the human being as it has a huge amount of sentimentality towards it's own species and virtually none towards other species even though both are existing. It will factory farm and skin for fur, hunt for fun and almost do anything to another existent being if it pleases, and yet it will tolerate anything from it's own and find abhorrent the purposeful ending of the life of something that looks the same as itself and communicates in the same manner as itself. There are people committing crimes so depraved and with so minimal if not zero possibility of rehabilitation and yet we will not end it's life ( some would not even call it 'it' ), and yet we will end life of other species with impunity. It raises the question of do we value life? existence in all it's form? or do we simply only have the capacity to relate to something that looks like we do? do we consider ourselves the existing consciousness or the form in which it appears? As an example this Anders Brevick the neo Nazi who murdered many many innocent young people and yet has just won a court case to stating that his human rights are being disregarded in prison. You could easily ask what is the purpose of keeping him alive and I think it can only come down to sentimentality as it cannot be civilisation as were we civilised we could never take as much other life as we do without even reflection.
Some nice points raised there Blue. I think the sentimentality statement probably sells the human race a bit short though. We've arrived at this point in history on the back of our pursuit of ethical standards, and as much as we subvert one for another in every day life, we've managed to find ourselves in a pretty good place, at least those of us lucky enough to be living in the first world. Sure we can look about the place and find all manner of terrible things that fly in the face of the ideal, but that shouldn't stop us from trying to move to an even better place than we have now. And one of the ways of doing this is to apply ethics to the social construct of society. The state once locked people on stocks, had others drawn and quartered, sold people into slavery, didn't allow women the vote, gay people were sometimes sent to prison, and on and on it goes. Sure we kill animals, and we abuse them no end. But we're prepared to turn a blind eye if it benefits the greater human good. It's called speciesism. Whether we like it or not, we wouldn't be where we are today without it. I'm not suggesting that I like it as such, in fact probably all of us have some issue with what we perceive as cruelty to what we see as lesser life forms. But while we're not over the moon at what we see, we're prepared to sell one ethic down the drain in preference for another. We do it every day in the racing game. Racing is not in the best interests of horses, but as it supports millions of people around the planet and injects billions into economies, we accept it. Sure we do all we can to minimise the damage to the horses, and make all manner of claims, such as without us, the animals wouldn't have been born, and that they are better looked after than some humans, that fact remains, horses are being subjected to speciesism. As for the taking of human life, there can be argument that we're certainly placing human life well above those of our fellow creatures. But does this mean that we should not make efforts to better ourselves? Life is about moving forward as best we can. We try making it easier for animals in general, as well as people. One of the steps that the world seems now to be making in earnest, is the abolition of capital punishment. Under special circumstances, I suppose I would take a life. If mine was threatened and I had no way out, I'd have to do it. We permit self defence. But we don't condone murder. Ethically, most the world is rapidly reaching a point where state sanctioned killing is seen as little more than what it is, state sanctioned murder. And In the first world where the appeals can drag on for years, the the legal costs of executing someone can exceed the costs of a life time in prison. So why kill them? It seems to me that in those cases, it simply boils down to killing for the sake of it. Why kill if we don't have too?
Thank you for a really good reply Cyclonic - I agree with the points you make and recognise we all take a stand in within the degree we will exercise speciesism, personally I could not kill something regardless of species for my benefit but can reconcile horse racing etc which as you quite rightly point out is not necessarily to the horses benefit. I would not have an issue if jump racing were removed as it does raise the risks markedly, but that's another debate. I also think real civilisation will arrive when speciesism is replaced by a equal respect for all living species rather than just our own. I am reminded of the Gandhi quote " you can tell how civilised a society is by how it treats it's animals".
I can't agree with the death penalty. I used to as a younger man but too many miscarriages of justice have been unearthed in the last 30 years. I saw a bit of of a documentary about that evil bastard Brady last week and he's spent 50 years inside for what he and Hindley did and has just wanted to die for a long time. All the more reason to keep the ****er alive.
I was doing a little light reading yesterday about the SS and some of things they got up to inside the concentration camps. Inhuman swine, sadistic animals. One particularly creative chap was called Sommer, a brutal commander in Buchenwald (I forget his exact position) who liked to place the ends of a metal clamp across the victim's temples and then tighten the clamp until the skull cracked. Although many were executed I share Chan's view that death would be an all too easy way out for these animals.
