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Reimagining the Death Penalty: Targeting Christians, Conservatives
Get PDFThis Article is an interdisciplinary response to an entrenched legal and cultural problem. It incorporates legal analysis, religious study and the anthropological notion of “culture work” to consider death penalty abolitionism and prospects for abolishing the death penalty in the United States. The Article argues that abolitionists must reimagine their audiences and repackage their message for broader social consumption, particularly for Christian and conservative audiences. Even though abolitionists are characterized by some as “bleeding heart” liberals, this is not an accurate portrayal of how the death penalty maps across the political spectrum. Abolitionists must learn that conservatives are potential allies in the struggle, who share overlapping ideologies and goals. The same holds true for Christians—there is much in the teachings of Jesus to suggest that he aligned more with forgiveness than capital retribution. As such, abolitionists would do well to focus on these demographics more earnestly than in the past. The notion of “culture work” underscores these groups as natural allies in the quest to end the death penalty.
A great irony in abolitionist messaging inspires this Article, namely, that abolitionists have failed to get much mileage out of the “Greatest Story Ever Told.” The narrative of Jesus of Nazareth stands as a powerful message to convey the problems inherent in capital execution, yet its explanatory power has gone largely untapped. Jesus was, by today’s standards, wrongfully convicted, tortured, and executed by the state. The simplicity of the story is breathtaking and sits at the core of abolitionist concerns: An innocent man was put to death. Like these religious considerations, there are others that reveal how political conservatives share overlapping space with their religious counterparts. For example, it is arguable that being anti-death penalty is both a religious and politically conservative posture. The Declaration of Independence suggests as much: “all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The meaning here is clear—life is sacred—the Creator gives humans life, and nothing can alienate that right. Furthermore, the actual cost of taking a felon all the way to execution is a huge financial burden on taxpayers as well, which represents the epitome of big government spending and the most physically maleficent power the state can exercise over an individual’s life. Today’s death penalty embodies much of what conservatives disavow, and abolitionists must work to build upon these natural affinities and interest convergences to help bring the death penalty to its demise
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Get PDFSomebody Call My Doctor: Repeal of the Treating Physician Rule in Social Security Disability Adjudication
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Ideological Exclusion of Foreigners in Israel and in the United States
Get PDFThis article explores the challenge which free speech poses to Israeli immigration policy. It does so, first, by looking into the American immigration policy regarding ideological exclusions, i.e. refusing entry of a foreigner to the U.S., or the deportation of one from it, solely due to the foreigner\u27s ideological belief As discussed in this article, the U.S. Supreme Court has been consistently reluctant to strike down laws and regulations barring entry of foreigners due to their ideological convictions, from the beginning of the previous century, throughout the Cold-War era, and up until the recent upholding of President Trump\u27s travel ban. The article then turns to suggest that this doctrine of ideological exclusion is evolving in Israeli immigration policy and law too, and discusses the possible lessons that Israel could learn from the American experience in the field. Three Israeli case studies from the last decade are presented and analyzed: the deportation of a Messianic Jew; the Israeli-PalestinianB ereaved Families for Peace conference; and a recent amendment of the Entry into Israel Law allowing for the exclusion of activists who support boycotting Israel or its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The analysis of the aforementioned cases is conducted along two axes. One is the location of the foreigner, which leads to the suggestion that foreigners already inside the country are independently entitled to the protection of freedom of speech prescribed by international human rights law and by Israeli Constitutional Law, yet are not necessarily entitled to extend their visa just by invoking their right to free speech. The second axis is the Israeli citizens\u27 and citizenry\u27s right to freedom of speech, which encompasses the right to listen, obtain information and engage in dialogue (with a foreigner). This analysis leads to the conclusion that although foreigners do not have a right to enter Israel based on their own right to freedom of speech, the citizenry has a right that the state will not prevent the admission of foreigners solely for their ideological belief