For no more than balance and the benefit of some of your followers, Peter, your equally eloquent late brother of course took an opposing and perhaps more pragmatic view on the questoon of state power over life and death.
"In 1997 C-SPAN debates and talks, Christopher
#Hitchens argued forcefully *against* the
#deathpenalty, emphasising risks like executing the
#innocent (which he noted would liberate the truly guilty in those cases) and its racist application in the US. 🇺🇸
In his 1998
#VanityFair essay 'Scenes from an
#Execution', he witnessed an execution by
#lethalinjection and concluded that while he already knew strong arguments against it, the experience reinforced his opposition.
In a 2005
#LosAngeles Times piece ("Why we should put an end to the death penalty"), he stressed that no
#justice system can be perfected to avoid executing innocents, so the only moral choice is abolition rather than reform.
He framed opposition as a principled stand against state-sanctioned
#killing, even in extreme cases, and highlighted how the state already resembles a murderer without needing to become one through executions."
With thanks to the brilliant
@Grok. 👏😊