Liberty Minute March 18 2014

For people of an entrepreneurial perspective, technical innovations are a blessing that can be used to improve human life. Those burdened with a statist view see such advances as the means of controlling other human beings and inflicting punishment and destruction on those who resist.

One extreme and speculative example of the latter disposition is a theoretical proposal to use life extension methods to prolong the suffering of people convicted of exceptionally heinous crimes, such as child-murder. Dr. Rebecca Roache, who describes herself as a ?philosopher,? has suggested that the use of a mind-altering drug called a ?time distortion pill? that could give convicts the sense of interminable punishment.

Others have pointed to the punitive possibilities of so-called singularity theory, in which human consciousness could be digitized and transferred into a non-biological platform. By manipulating that program, a condemned criminal would supposedly experience the equivalent of a thousand-year sentence within the space of a few hours of actual time. 

Roache suggests that the use of such methods would offer the possibility of inflicting ?an eternal sentence? for crimes against humanity. 

Christian believers understand that eternal sentences do exist ? and that it is not within our province to impose them.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.