Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is a big fan of Col. Blimp’s site. And his recent discourse and discussions concerning capital punishment are well worth your time to read. You can find them here: ‘angin’s too bad for ‘em?, III: response to Andrew.

The only contribution to this discussion your Maximum Leader coul make is one that he has made before. He’ll call it a variation of his Hobbes/Nozick position. Col. Blimp argues that the state should forcefully exercise its police powers in the defence of the shared moral code (as embodied in law) of its people. The police power of the state would be used then, to exact revenge for certain heinous crimes against the perpretrators of those crimes.

Allow your Maximum Leader to frame the argument a bit differently. Earlier in the peice the obligation of citizen to the state was brought up. The general point was, put succinctly, that the state affords the framework for people to live together in relative harmony in exchange for obiedience to the authority of the state and its laws. Your Maximum Leader would posit that what the state offers is protection to its citizens. Protection from one another (and a system of laws and legal institutions for adjudicating disputes) and protection from others (foreign nations). We give up a certain measure of freedom in exchange for protection. Namely, we give up the freedom to do as we see fit in all cases in exchange for the protections the state offers us.

Perhaps in the case of those convicted of particularly heinous crimes (convicted and allowed to appeal through an established legal system), the punishment need not be execution, but withdrawl of the protection of the state. This is to say that a convicted and exhausted all his appeals serial killer would not be killed by the state, or even imprisoned by the state. He would be set free with the caveat that he is not afforded any protection from the state. His property, possessions, even his life could be taken from him by anyone at any time. He would be an extra-state entity. He had, in a sense, sacrificed his claim to the protection of the state by choosing to not live according to the laws of the state.

Your Maximum Leader has made this argument before, and it is likely he’ll make it again. But it seemed somewhat germane to bring up.

And kudos again to Col Blimp and his commentators on their thoughful discussion of this topic.

Carry on.