Attention good citizens of Rome! Avert your eyes from distraction and prepare your receptive ears! A debate as to the legitimacy of capital punishment is about to commence! Supporting the practice is the principled Marcus Solanius and in stark opposition is the honorable Lucius Annaeus. By the will of Justitia, may the man holding the ethical viewpoint be victorious!
Solanius: Imagine, good citizens, that one of your relatives was brutally slain at the hand of a lowly criminal, in the supposed safety of his own home. Would you not wish to see such a criminal put to death? I’m sure many of you would even go so far as to be willing to take the matter into your own hands!
When a murder is committed, the balance of justice is thrown into a sorry state of upheaval. The ultimate punishment of death is necessary to replenish social balance and without it no sort of public order can feasibly exist! Without the possibility of a death sentence, we would live in a world of chaos and disarray, with soaring crime rates and little possibility of living life in peace. I say this because capital punishment is the best and most effective deterrent of violent crime. Is a potential killer more likely to follow through with his vile plans if he knows he will be put to death, or if he can expect to remain in this privileged realm? I say privileged because a man must earn his right to exist and if his transgressions are particularly numerous or severe, it is the right of the nation to decide his fate. The fate deserved in the case of murder is death.
The ability of the court to cast a death sentence is indispensable insofar as it makes a statement as to the strength of our grand empire! If we are seen as a weak nation, our enemies will be emboldened and misery will be in abundant supply! By taking a stance against such a sacred institution, one is effectively taking a stance against Rome! We have no place for such traitors in our great society, as they are no better than the many barbarians living beyond our borders. Any man who kills another without just cause clearly has such a high disregard for life as to not be deserving of his own!
All reasonable men must be aware of the fairness inherent in trading a life for a life. Anything less is an insult to the victim and an insult to the farthest reaches of his family. Would you deny closure to a family involved in such a heinous and tragic event as murder? If you say yes then I dare ask you to look them in the eye and tell them that you would prevent justice from being served. I can assure you all that a level of integrity and righteousness must be maintained if we are to continue our way of life for any portion of time. It is only through the pure rationality and necessity of the death sentence that this lifestyle we know as our own is achieved. This institution defines and defends our values down to their very core and is the foundation of our great society. Anything else is less than Roman, and thus, not worthy of your consideration.
Annaeus: Now that you have heard the words of tyranny, it is time to reveal the truth of the issue in a manner of reason and common sense. Do not be fooled, good citizens, by the lavish and extravagant words of my predecessor, who wants nothing but to deceive the public into accepting his brutish viewpoints. The truth of the matter is that the penalty of death is no more right or just than any other punishment. How can we be so eager and quick to believe the falsehoods propagated by Solanius? With the trickery of his tongue he would convince some to commit any action of his choosing! What he claims to be reason and justice is nothing more than a clever ruse lacking any amount of logic or universal certainty! He would have you make up your minds in his favor without first being aware of all necessary facts and relevant data!
Let us start by considering what crimes deserve what punishments. Although Solanius made frequent mention of murder, never once did he say that death should be limited to those criminals who have committed it. Is there any crime other than murder for which a sentence of death is lawfully to be received? Will a man be put to death for something as slight and trivial as minor theft? Surely we must know before a valid decision can be given. There is true justice and then there is heavy-handedness and a line between the two must be established before any concluding action is taken.
As to the issue of condemnation regarding the crime of murder, does a man deserve to die for taking the life of another? How can any of us say for certain what a man truly deserves? Are we so arrogant as to think that our judgment is equal to that of the gods? Can we truly say that we understand the way of the world well enough to decide the fate of one of our fellow Romans? Even if murder is the most depraved act a man can commit, are we not stooping to his level by proceeding with his execution? If a life is worth a life, as stated by Solanius, then all lives are equal, and thus we have no more authority in divine matters involving death than does the criminal we wish to execute!
Solanius also made the claim that the execution of a criminal is the only way to replenish an uneven balance of justice. Where is his evidence? Is this not the same as vengeance or selfish retribution? Despite the fluidity with which he speaks, Solanius has nothing to say which he can successfully substantiate. How can we know what is just? Does each man not have his own idea of fairness? Is one man’s idea of what is right worth more than that of another? Who is to decide? Would you condemn a man to die based on unproven principles? The heart of the matter is that any man who claims to know is surely a fool, or a deceiver of the masses.
As to his claim of seeing Rome fall into chaos upon termination of the death sentence, Solanius is only trying to scare you into taking his side. His wild claims of soaring crime rates are baseless and nothing more than an opaque veil that hides the true issue at the center of the subject. It is his will to strike fear into the minds of the citizens in an attempt to cloud your reason and obscure the facts. He goes on to say that our very way of life is in danger of being destroyed if the penalty of death is prevented! Once again, he cannot back up his claim with a single piece of evidence. He would have the public vote with their emotions rather than with rationality!
Is it true then that loyalty to Rome and opposition to capital punishment are incompatible views? Solanius would surely be pleased if you thought this the case! In truth, there is no demonstrable connection between the two! Is it true then that Rome will be viewed as weak upon banishment of the death sentence? Killing a man to avoid being seen as weak is akin to destroying the sun to prevent being burned! In a realm where man cannot know ultimate truth, we cannot rightly cast ultimate judgment upon his soul, and thus, the penalty of death is unethical and dishonorable to the human spirit.
With this I ask but one question. Would you be content to have the blood of a fellow man forever on your conscience?
Author notes
This story is directly about the death penalty from a historical perspective and indirectly about a number of other things both historical and modern. I am an opponent of capital punishment, although it is not because I claim to know which side is right, but because I don't see how I should have any say in the irreversible execution of another equally created individual.
A contest entry
- Point vs Counterpoint by Thwack.
990 points, ended February 13, 2007, 6 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 9 of 9
-
Die: A Log
In a realm where man cannot know ultimate truth, we cannot rightly cast ultimate judgment upon his soul, and thus, the penalty of death is unethical and dishonorable to the human spirit.
./. Would you be content to have the blood of a fellow man forever on your conscience?
The presupposition that souls exist has yet to be proved and how does one cope with the subsequent death of several people committed by the individual who was spared one day to repeat another ... and there is more than one manner of dieing as the effect of some crimes can be worse than death
Furthermore is 30 years spent in 9 square feet of cell with two or three other prisoners not worse than an immediate execution ? -
-
Thanks for the comment. In the context of that sentence it is really irrelevant whether or not a soul exists because it was more of a dramatic reference to a person's being rather than a literal assumption of a soul's existence.
I also see the mystery of whether or not a soul exists as an argument against the death penalty seeing as an execution applies a definitive answer to a less than concrete topic. Seeing as we don't have entire knowledge of the nature of existence, we can't know what death truly entails, therefore we are acting on blind assumption when we destroy a life.
It is the equivalent of allowing an uninformed child to serve in the senate; the child might vote for or against something resulting in a favorable effect, but the decision would not be based on knowledge or reason.
Life is like living in a box and death is what is outside the box. No one in the box can know what is beyond the box, which could be anything or nothing. Sending people outside the box as a punishment is like giving them an unlabeled gift bag and calling it justice.
You say the effect of some crimes can be worse than death. How do you know if something is worse than death when you have no valid reference point? Spending life in prison may or may not be worse than death, but the goal is not to give the criminal the worse of the two, but to give them the one thing which they did not give to their victims: fair justice.
If a criminal causes excessive problems to society, then take them out of society. Taking them completely out of existence would only be fair if we knew for certain the true meaning of life down to its innermost working.
The idea of a life for a life trivializes and devalues the human experience one step further than does the unfortunate murder committed by the criminal. Each act of violence propogates more and more hate in the world, despite any positive intentions that may have been had. The mentality seems to be "He hit me so I hit him back." I believe it was Ghandi who said "An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind."
-
-
I loved it! Lucius Annaeus won decidedly. Now rewrite it in Iambic Pentameter! HA HA!
-
This was an interesting and well written story. I liked the way you introduced the orators and loved their names.. I could just imagine the two energetically enunciating their views in the streets of Ancient Rome. Both sides of the argument were well expressed and clear-cut and your well chosen words added to the smoothness of the story.
Good luck in the contest.
-
I can agree with most of your author's notes. but I don't really think of people as all being equal. there are many factors that go into the making of a human being. if you look at it as a scale and just for the sake of an arguement, one side is the goodness they do, the other the evil...society decides what the definitions of both are.
A self-proclaimed mass murderer doesn't really think of himself as evil but more as part of his nature. So, in his eyes, he shouldn't be punished. [ever see the alfred hitchcock movie 'The Rope"?]
So let's make a new arguement. You come home from work just in time to see some guy offing your last family member right before your eyes....he go free? go to jail for a set amount of time? putting him down like a dog?
I'm only against capital punishment because there is a chance, no matter how slim it seems at this time, that the person really IS innocent. If put to death, then later the real criminal is found....what do you say? Oops? My bad.
Yet how many criminals can you stick in the cells? Prison does nothing to reform a criminal. Sticking them all in one location only means they prey on each other until either they are released or they kill each other.
I'm not saying I have a solution, but, at this time in history, the systems doing what it can.
Now!
Your point/counter is extremely well thought out. I do like how you made it personal by interacting between the two speakers.
I hope you do well in the contest.
-
A very well-written piece. Setting it in Rome only helped the oratorical language and suffused it with gravity and purpose. True to the contest, both points were presented with equal importance; even with the admission at the end, it was still difficult to tell on which side you stood.
This is a great beginning entry to the contest. I wish you luck in the rankings. -
you could modernize the story
-
umm, pretty heavy reading. I just have one question: why set it in ancient rome? You didn't really use the setting at all.
-
-
Thanks for reading. I set the story in ancient Rome for a number of reasons, mostly because I think it added a slight amount of interest to the story and I figured I should set it somewhere in the past to make the issue seem less strictly contemporary and more timeless. Rome seemed fitting to me because the Romans where well known for their skill in rhetoric and for their highly persuasive orators and it seemed slightly ironic that a civilization with a reputation for brutality would be the setting for a rethinking of moral policy. I also got to use the title "When in Rome" which i suppose is a statement on the false truths of social structures and their assumed correctness as opposed to something universally true.
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 9 of 9
