Hang it! Here we go again

One or two quick responses. I’m sorry to say that (of all the many things that I have discussed this weekend - terror, Islam,  Ireland, Syria, the BBC, crime and the fiddling of official statistics) the death penalty has come up again as a major concern, and my attempts to refer readers to the index haven’t worked because (as it seems to me) they won’t do their homework. Look under 'Capital Punishment' and 'Death Penalty', and you will find that all this has been gone over many times before.

 

Oh well, if I must : I favour hanging because of its extreme swiftness when efficiently carried out, combined with its huge moral force.  There are many arguments for the death penalty beginning with the placing a special value on human life, moving on to deterrence.  Beneath all those arguments lies a religious question (this is the case with most major issues of our time) . If man has an immortal soul,  the death penalty, by giving him the chance of real repentance before death, is far preferable to years rotting in a cell, during which ( as Myra Hindley plainly did) he forgets what it was that he did, and starts campaigning for his release.   

 

If man has no soul, and this is the only life we have, and there is no eternity nor any divine justice, then the only arguments for the death penalty are utilitarian ones. In an age of unbelief, I tend to concentrate on the utilitarian ones. But even those lead me to the view that the act of execution, while not being actively cruel or involving mental or physical torture, should be frightening and violent, rather than pseudo-medical.  I would be cowardly if I did not say this. I do not enjoy saying it, or thinking it. But those who wish to have anything to do with standing between the populace and evil must sometimes face directly the unpleasant duties that may fall on them. The main reason for the abolition of the death penalty is the squeamishness of politicians, who enjoy office but do not like all the duties which power loads on to their (often rather narrow) shoulders. Far easier to them to leave the matter to some trembling constable with a gun in a dark street, who can be disavowed if it all goes wrong later.

 

The use of medical-seeming methods also tends to support the idea that crime is a disease rather than a wilful act of conscious evil.  I formed this view when I witnessed an execution by lethal injection.

 

It is my belief that the career of Albert Pierrepoint (and yes, yes, I know of his late change of mind on the validity of capital punishment, and don’t think it has any weight in the general matter. Who would not sicken after so much horror?) shows that hanging, competently done, is both swift and morally powerful, even when done behind high walls. Having witnessed the main alternative, electrocution, I am haunted by the fact that we do not really know what the condemned man suffers. He is gagged and masked at the moment of death, and electricity (as various people who have had major shocks or been struck by lightning can attest) is an unpredictable force. The swift breaking of the neck and spinal cord is, I think, demonstrably more humane.  Sorry, but you asked.

 

One correspondent, so confident in his rightness that he reveals himself to be called ‘Baz’, combines two subjects in a comment on my long article about the strange disappearance of the single Measles jab. I have complained that none of the pro-state, pro-authority contributors here have actually dealt with this article, and he is no exception.

 

He says :

 (my answers are interleaved with his comment marked **)

’The single measles vaccine was a niche product; your quotes from the manufacturer support this. It was used in cases where the patient could not be given MMR- an allergy to one of the other components for instance.’

 

**That may well be so, though I didn’t know that you could tell in advance that someone had an allergy to the Mumps vaccine or the Rubella vaccine. How and when is this tested for? Does he have references which support this explanation? Anyway, if it is so, wouldn’t it have made sense to continue to make it available, as it was available for the first ten years of the MMR’s availability?

He continues :’There wasn't a huge supply in the UK’,

 

**No, but the company continued to supply it in continental countries, and supplies can be increased if needed. Andrew Wakefield, as the article points out, warned the authorities well in advance that publication of his article might increase demand for the single jab.

 

He continues ‘…so when Wakefield's fraudulent research…’ 

 

**I really do wish this sort of language could be kept out of this. can Mr ‘Baz’ prove that Andrew Wakefield set out to practise a deliberate fraud? If not, use of such terms is quite illegitimate. Can't we just accept that those involved made a well-intentioned mistake, rather than subjecting them to a sort of show-trial for sabotage and wrecking railroads?

 

Mr ‘Baz’  resumes  ‘… prompted the MMR panic, it is unsurprising that stock ran low rather quickly.’

 

*** See above. They were warned. Did he read the article properly?

‘Baz’ again: ‘As for why the company chose to stop supplying the single vaccine- individual vaccines are less effective; the patient is unprotected for longer. It would be unethical to offer substandard care.’

 

**Here he just regurgitates government propaganda. This does not deal with the point that thousands of parents *did* refuse to allow their children to be given the MMR. And they *would* have given their children the single jab, had it been available. Mr ‘Baz’, like the rest of his hindsight-inflated, triumphalist bunch of government patsies, will not answer the question *‘ But surely a single vaccine, all its disadvantages accepted, would have been better than no vaccine?’*  They never answer it because they have no answer to it. But this does not cause them to think. They know they are right. So it causes them to close their minds to the question instead.

 

Mr ‘Baz’ again: ‘The company possibly also thought that providing single vaccines would encourage the panic and suggest that MMR was unsafe.’

 

**Once again, this suggests that he has not read the article properly. *The single vaccine was already available*. No decision needed to be taken to continue making it available, merely a quiet and unannounced decision to step up supplies of it to GPs to meet demand. Instead, though nobody would admit to having taken such a decision, the vaccine was withdrawn *precisely at the moment when demand for it was greatest*.

 

Mr ‘Baz’ writes : ‘ A company will always sacrifice a niche product to protect a bigger one.’

 

**Well, in that case, why did it wait ten years to do so, and do so just at the time when demand for this niche product was at its highest? If Mr ‘Baz’ wishes to lecture us on business principles, perhaps he can explain which business principle drives a company to stop making and selling a product exactly when demand for it is rising.

 

Finally, there’s this little jibe, once again, not as clever as he thinks it is :First quoting me “I note that not one, not one, not one of the pro-state contributors and government propaganda regurgitators here has yet addressed the substantive point of the 4,400 words above.", he says ‘ It's always entertaining to be patronised on the evils of trusting government by a man who supports the death penalty.’

 

As he well knows, or would if he read what I write with any care, I support the death penalty only where strong independent juries exist, together with the presumption of innocence,  and only where there are open courts and  is a free press. This is precisely because I do *not* trust the government with such matters.

 

Read before you write, Mr ‘Baz’.