In England, we have people who call for “bringing back hanging” and there is a subculture in some European countries of neo-Nazi thugs and people convinced by all kinds of sick and anti-social ideas. As we say up in Yorkshire – There’s nowt so queer as folk. It takes all sorts.
But, one article struck me dumb, about Republican candidate Charlie Fuqua, who is running for the Arkansas House of Representatives – Republican Charlie Fuqua Supports Parental Death Penalty for Kids. I can’t believe this, in a country that once put a 14-year old kid in the electric chair, and not very long ago!
This is supposedly a man of mainstream politics, and undoubtedly a so-called Christian. You have a kid who throws a tantrum at home. You then take him before some kind of court and then a policeman shoots him in the back of the head or gives him a lethal injection. Why not a public hanging – the old way with no drop – with popcorn and candy floss for all the family? Such is “God’s law”.
Just wait until Richard Dawkins gets hold of this!
I don’t know how prevalent such a belief is in the United States, but there are some really strange religious opinions out there.
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Of course, reading the article, subtleties do come through and there is a real problem with child and teenage delinquency. How the law should deal with that, when laws are broken, is out of my competence. By definition, children are not mature and can only be educated by methods involving reward and punishment to condition a moral sense. Our own right-wing politicians in England certainly advocate the return of corporal punishment in schools and the Borstal or military-style rehabilitation programme through discipline and hard work. Corporal punishment needs to be used with discernment, as the Royal Navy as early as the eighteenth century admitted that flogging “breaks a good man’s heart and makes a bad man worse”.
I have occasionally expressed my opinion on the death penalty for any offender. I am against it. On the other hand, I would be in favour of reviving penal colonies like French Guyana and Devil’s Island, la bagne, where inmates purge their sentences (life if the person is unreformable) and pay their own way through work. The old brutality and inhumanity were wrong, and that would have to be re-thought and supervisors would have to be strictly accountable for abuse.
But, to give up on a child is also a terrible indictment for a parent. I was a rebellious child, and would be dead now if my father had heeded Fuqua. Instead he bought me a fishing rod and some tackle, and took me out for rides in the car and some man-to-man talking. I have no children of my own, but I feel personally touched by this question.
Sensible comments would be most welcome.
The Blue Flower 
Was that the Onion or real life? Surely I Have Been Trolled! Is he for real?
Also, with people like Peter Singer supporting infanticide, is there anything about a person you can predict by knowing that they are or aren’t Christian?
I only have my source to go on. Otherwise I don’t know that man from Adam. I’m just too sickened by this kind of “American” (or anywhere else’s) religion when it is capable of this kind of thinking. Humans tend to fit their religion in with their other philosophical and political views. What becomes dangerous is when those ideologies get into politics and take over a country or the world in the name of “theocracy”. We’ve a long way to go…
I am not entirely convinced that this is a political issue, personally, I believe that it is more of an ethical, moral one. And not limited by geography.
I would agree with you. The Islamic world has “honour killings”. Also I said that this is not just an American problem. In the Normandy countryside up to about 1900, in the really backward and bestial families, it was a “tradition” for fathers to rape their children.
Here’s a link to a Google search on the man. Yes, he is real, yes, he said those things, and yes, there are lots more like him actually holding elective office.
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=charlie+fuqua+arkansas&oq=Charlie+Fuqua&gs_l=hp.1.1.0i3j0j0i10i30j0i30.3068.3068.0.6201.1.1.0.0.0.0.128.128.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0…1c.Fl-HG6VOlzk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=4c814b5607df3525&biw=1024&bih=614
The last congressional election put lots of these dangerous flakes in positions of power. Frankly. Father Chadwick, I believe people of this sort would be far better housed in a colony such as you discuss. And no, Alexander, a person’s claiming to be a Christian or not is no predictor of their moral opinions or actions. “By their fruits ye shall know them” — not by their words.
Politically I’ve long been a conservative and used to be a registered Republican, but I cannot support anyone of that party any more because of the prevalence of and apparent support for this kind of hateful attitude; and, though I’ll have to hold my nose to do so, I’ll be voting fir every Democratic candidate in the upcoming election.
Personally, I fail to see the distinction between what this political office holder wishes and the official support of the Democratic Party for unlimited abortion, as well as post natal abortion as well (this used to be called infanticide), so strongly supported by Mr Obama (please see: http://www.mcclpac.org/about_obama_baipa.htm).
The main difference is that whilst Charlie Fuqua’s position is very much a minority one, and not likely to go anyplace, the position of the Democratic Party’s hardline support of abortion on demand up to the moment of birth and now after the moment of birth is an actual reality.
I’ll leave American politics to you Americans, as we have enough problems of our own over here! 😉
These right wing, apparently Christian politicians in the States never cease to amaze me with the statements they come out with. Personally I believe the death penalty to be wrong. I do believe as a Christian involved in European centre right politics that some serious criminals need to be imprisoned for lengthy periods of time, even in some extreme cases for life. I strongly advocate that all prisoners should be held in clean, safe and humane conditions I also believe that such attempts at rehabilitation that can be made should be undertaken.I believe that the views I have expressed here are widely held by British and European mainstream Christians.who are right of centre in the political spectrum..
Neil
Our local left-wing, sometimes Jewish politician, has declared that abortion on demand is a “medical necessity.”
As an orthodox Christian and opposed to abortion on demand I wonder why the Christian Democratic party in the States has such little support.
Neil
On this and similar topics, I recommend David Bentley Hart’s ‘Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies’.
Unfortunately, in the USA, Dominionism (look it up on Google or other sites) is in the ascendency in some ‘evangelical’ and other conservative protestant circles. It purports to champion Levitical law in the public sphere. There are a number of websites that report on the antics of these people.
these are sick people.
Rdr. James Morgan