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[av_heading heading=’VIEWPOINTS | Again and again: No to death penalty!’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Wednesday, June 28, 2017
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“INDEED, nowadays the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person is. It is an offense to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person… Nor is it consonant with any just purpose of punishment. It does not really render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance. The Commandment ‘Thou shall not kill’ has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty.” (Pope Francis, 21 June 2016, Oslo, 6th World Congress against Death Penalty).
First and foremost, it is not only right but also proper to take good note of several key observations – specifically about the above-cited Fifth Commandment. First, it has been expressly said and formally given precisely by the Author of Life itself some thousands of years ago and it remains exactly the same to these times – and those yet to come.
Second, it is short in its wording, simple in its meaning and straightforward in its understanding.
Third, it is absolute in content and spirit – no “If”, no “But” nor any conditionally at all of any kind thereto appended.
Those who dare say that the penalty of death is right and proper, the just and ethical response to any man or woman found guilty of any given heinous crime – be those who dare say so are kings or presidents, politicians or the so-called “crime watchers” of one kind or another – are not simply playing petty goods but are in effect convinced that they are better, wiser and even mightier than God whose Sixth Commandment is absolute, viz., meant for all peoples, in all circumstances, at all times.
So it is that such pro-death and thus deadly individuals constitute a truly big liability for civilization in honest pursuit of truth, justice and peace.
Delusional individuals – especially those in command of secular power or in tenure of popular civil persuasion for one reason or another – infallibly think and consider themselves as some kind of special persons, distinct individuals. They are convinced they know better and are thus even brighter and mightier than everybody else – God well-included.
To say that they are a danger to their own selves, to their perceived enemies for one reason or another and to the people in general is an understatement. There are even those who say that such individuals do not really belong to civilized society.
The truth of the matter is that even killing oneself – suicide – in one form or another such as by hanging or shooting oneself, jumping from the rooftop or the like, is taboo as well.
Reason: The person concerned did not give life to himself/herself. The truth is that even the so-called “mercy killing” is still killing someone and thus remains well-covered by the Fifth Commandment.
Let it be herein expressly said and well noted that there is a whale of a difference between self-defense of one’s own life made possible only by killing someone precisely desirous of killing the former. Such is precisely saving one’s own life made possible only by precisely doing away with the life of his/her would-be killer.
By the way, if ever the Law on Death Penalty were passed, those responsible for its approval should be the ones who one after another should personally kill the convicts one by one. This is fair./PN
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