Progressive
3rd August 2002, 08:25
Let's Legalize Murder
The war of punishment is over. We lost it long before the Declaration of Independence. Whatever the other factors, we lost primarily for spiritual reasons. We merely repeated the mistake of Prohibition: the harder we tried to stamp out murder, the more attractive we made it. We should know that prohibition doesn’t work. Forcible resistance to murder simply makes it more enjoyable.
Our attempts to stamp out murder violates a fundamental principle that Jesus articulated in the Sermon on the Mount: "Resist not evil." The Greek term translated "resist" is intestinal. When it is used by the Greek Old Testament or by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, however, the word is usually translated, "to be engaged in a revolt, rebellion, riot, insurrection." It is virtually a synonym for war. It means to stand up against an enemy and fight. So Jesus’ words should be translated, "Do not resist evil by violent means. Do not fight evil with evil. Do not mirror evil, do not let evil set the terms of your response. Applied to the murder issue, this means, "Do not resist murder by violent methods."
When we oppose murder with the same weapons that murderers employ, we commit the same atrocities, violate the same civil liberties and break the same laws as do those whom we oppose. We become what we hate. Evil makes us over into its mimetic double. If one side prevails, the evil continues by virtue of having been established through the means used. More often, however, both sides grow, fed by their mutual resistance, as in the arms race, the Vietnam war, the Salvadoran civil war and Lebanon. This principle of mimetic opposition is illustrated abundantly in the war on murder.
The war on murder creates casualties beyond those arrested. There are those killed in fights over turf, innocents caught in cross fire, citizens terrified of city streets, escalating robberies, and children and small dogs being mutilated as a stress reliever. Much of that, too, is the result of the laws against murder. Murder, after all, has been around a long time and was once sold over the counter to the highest bidder. What makes it so irresistible today is its sex appeal. And it is appealing only because it is illegal.
Murder does not threaten the American way of life; it is part of it. Things that citizens fear most about murder have less to do with physical effects than with laws, social injustice, and anti-democratic values of political opportunists.
A great complaint against murder is that it exemplifies "immorality." What a curious complaint for Americans to voice. The country's traditions call for each citizen to choose a personal path through life. Some paths are more common and more approved than others, but they are supposed to be chosen freely. The nation is founded on permissiveness. Strictures imposed by caste, class, or clergy are abhorred.
When someone inveighs against "immorality" the concern is more likely disapproval of choices made by others, and perhaps fear that those choices may someday become elements of a new norm of behaviour, a new morality. Morality is not immutable. This chapter began with examples of alterations caused by law; other forces of change are also at work. Change is inherent to life. Only death brings stillness. A person who is anti-murder must accept changing morality. To demand that everyone, for all time, accept one person's concept of morality is to call forth the forces of death. It is no coincidence that moral zealots kill people.
Instead of demonizing murderers, let us embrace them as moral crusaders. People are going to murder anyway, so let us legalize it—and regulate it. Instead of enforcing laws, the police forces could be converted to carrying out assassinations. This would bring in a much-needed source of revenue for the government.
The war of punishment is over. We lost it long before the Declaration of Independence. Whatever the other factors, we lost primarily for spiritual reasons. We merely repeated the mistake of Prohibition: the harder we tried to stamp out murder, the more attractive we made it. We should know that prohibition doesn’t work. Forcible resistance to murder simply makes it more enjoyable.
Our attempts to stamp out murder violates a fundamental principle that Jesus articulated in the Sermon on the Mount: "Resist not evil." The Greek term translated "resist" is intestinal. When it is used by the Greek Old Testament or by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, however, the word is usually translated, "to be engaged in a revolt, rebellion, riot, insurrection." It is virtually a synonym for war. It means to stand up against an enemy and fight. So Jesus’ words should be translated, "Do not resist evil by violent means. Do not fight evil with evil. Do not mirror evil, do not let evil set the terms of your response. Applied to the murder issue, this means, "Do not resist murder by violent methods."
When we oppose murder with the same weapons that murderers employ, we commit the same atrocities, violate the same civil liberties and break the same laws as do those whom we oppose. We become what we hate. Evil makes us over into its mimetic double. If one side prevails, the evil continues by virtue of having been established through the means used. More often, however, both sides grow, fed by their mutual resistance, as in the arms race, the Vietnam war, the Salvadoran civil war and Lebanon. This principle of mimetic opposition is illustrated abundantly in the war on murder.
The war on murder creates casualties beyond those arrested. There are those killed in fights over turf, innocents caught in cross fire, citizens terrified of city streets, escalating robberies, and children and small dogs being mutilated as a stress reliever. Much of that, too, is the result of the laws against murder. Murder, after all, has been around a long time and was once sold over the counter to the highest bidder. What makes it so irresistible today is its sex appeal. And it is appealing only because it is illegal.
Murder does not threaten the American way of life; it is part of it. Things that citizens fear most about murder have less to do with physical effects than with laws, social injustice, and anti-democratic values of political opportunists.
A great complaint against murder is that it exemplifies "immorality." What a curious complaint for Americans to voice. The country's traditions call for each citizen to choose a personal path through life. Some paths are more common and more approved than others, but they are supposed to be chosen freely. The nation is founded on permissiveness. Strictures imposed by caste, class, or clergy are abhorred.
When someone inveighs against "immorality" the concern is more likely disapproval of choices made by others, and perhaps fear that those choices may someday become elements of a new norm of behaviour, a new morality. Morality is not immutable. This chapter began with examples of alterations caused by law; other forces of change are also at work. Change is inherent to life. Only death brings stillness. A person who is anti-murder must accept changing morality. To demand that everyone, for all time, accept one person's concept of morality is to call forth the forces of death. It is no coincidence that moral zealots kill people.
Instead of demonizing murderers, let us embrace them as moral crusaders. People are going to murder anyway, so let us legalize it—and regulate it. Instead of enforcing laws, the police forces could be converted to carrying out assassinations. This would bring in a much-needed source of revenue for the government.