Patricide Essays - Fatherhood, Homicide, Family, Patricide

Patricide Essays - Fatherhood, Homicide, Family, Patricide Patricide In the time of the Romans, the punishment for patricide was to be sewn up in a sack that had a monkey, snake, rooster, and dog inside, and then to be thrown in a river. Each of the animals in the bag had some specific meaning to them, and being sewn up in a sack and tossed into the river also had a specific function to the murderer. Thus this punishment became the proper way to punish the guilty. In the Roman era, patricide had become a major problem, so it was decided that for whomever held a title in Rome, there would be a meeting to discuss how to get rid of the problem and punish appropriately. The title holders decided that the best way to punish the young men, and to stop them from thinking of committing the sin, was to make them die, as well as make them feel everything their father had, and to regret their crime. This decision then became the chosen consequence for the crime of patricide. The significance of the animals was to torture the perpetrator in a particular way for his crime. The importance of the snake was that the snake was evil, dating back to the Garden of Eden, where it posed as the Devil and deceived Eve. While the victim was alive, the snake would be there to remind him of the ultimate sin-the deception of one?s own father. The rooster is primarily known for his crowing, and thus his crows would remind the sinner of his guilt, so that he couldn?t escape from what he did. The dog?s function in the sack would be to howl, not only to be deafening and frightening, but also to evoke the wrath of the gods upon him. The monkey represents torture, because it is capable of mimicking human actions. It would mimic the son?s behavior and re-enact the murder of the son?s All four of these animals perform at least one role in torturing the boy, and so that he would be forced to think about what he had done to his father. The purpose of the sack was to increase tenfold the agony which his father suffered, and also to make him regret his decision to kill his father. With each passing moment, the torment would get progressively worse, so that the boy would get a taste of the Hell that was to be his afterlife, as punishment for committing patricide. The sack represented a way in which to make the boy suffer much more, and quickly before he drowned. The son was thrown into the river so that he could feel the way his father?s panic when he killed him. The water would serve to scare the son in the way his father felt when he realized that his own son had turned on him. The sewn sack would prevent the son?s escape so he would realize there would be no turning back from his actions. These different elements of punishment combined to make the murderer truly suffer each aspect of the crime through the torture. The closed sack with animal reminders of different aspects of the murder would serve as a deterrent to living observers. This ritual is a fitting punishment for the crime.

Political Conservatism and the Role of Religion

Political Conservatism and the Role of Religion Quite often, those on the left of the political spectrum dismiss political conservative ideology as the product of religious fervor. At first blush, this makes sense. After all, the conservative movement is populated by people of faith. Christians, Evangelicals, and Catholics tend to embrace the key aspects of conservatism, which include limited government, fiscal discipline, free enterprise, a strong national defense, and traditional family values. This is why many conservative Christians side with Republicanism politically. The Republican Party is most associated with championing these conservative values. Members of the Jewish faith, on the other hand, tend to drift toward the Democratic party because history supports it, not because of a particular ideology. According to author and essayist Edward S. Shapiro in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, most Jews are descendants of central and Eastern Europe, whose liberal parties in contrast to right-wing opponents favored Jewish emancipation and the lifting of economic and social restrictions on Jews. As a result, Jews looked to the Left for protection. Along with the rest of their traditions, Jews inherited a left-wing bias after emigrating to the United States, Shapiro says. Russell Kirk, in his book, The Conservative Mind, writes that, with the exception of antisemitism, The traditions of race and religion, the Jewish devotion to family, old usage, and spiritual continuity all incline the Jew toward conservatism. Shapiro says Jewish affinity for the left was cemented in the 1930s when Jews enthusiastically supported Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal. They believed that the New Deal had succeeded in alleviating the social and economic conditions in which antisemitism flourished and, in the election of 1936, Jews supported Roosevelt by a ratio of nearly 9 to 1. While its fair to say that most conservatives use faith as a guiding principle, most try to keep it out of political discourse, recognizing it as something intensely personal. Conservatives often will say that the Constitution guarantees its citizens freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. In fact, there is plenty of historical evidence that proves, despite Thomas Jeffersons famous quote about a wall of separation between church and state, the Founding Fathers expected religion and religious groups to play an important role in the development of the nation. The religion clauses of the First Amendment guarantee the free exercise of religion, while at the same time protecting the nations citizens from religious oppression. The religion clauses also ensure that the federal government cannot be overtaken by one particular religious group because Congress cannot legislate one way or another on an establishment of religion. This precludes a national religion but also prevents the government from interfering with religions of any kind. For contemporary conservatives, the rule of thumb is that practicing faith publicly is reasonable, but proselytizing in public is not.