10 Presidents Who Have Personally Killed People
Many politicians publicly endorse capital punishment. But would it make a difference if they had to personally put people to death? Social science suggests it might.
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Many politicians publicly endorse capital punishment. But would it make a difference if they had to personally put people to death? Social science suggests it might.
David P. Barash, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and an HNN blogger, writes in his book, The Hare and the Tortoise: Culture, Biology, and Human Nature, that if the people who back war or capital punishment had to kill people with their bare hands we might well have fewer wars and executions. That’s because the way we are wired it’s far easier for us as humans to order someone’s death, which makes death an abstraction, than to actually inflict a fatal blow. To understand what an order to kill someone involves we humans have to feel what it’s like. Our emotions have to be engaged. Barash, a longtime foe of the development of nuclear weapons, warns that the risk of nuclear war is greater because leaders can order the use of nukes without triggering their own natural emotional responses. Citing a suggestion of Roger Fisher, Barash facetiously writes that one possible solution would be to replace the computer-coded nuclear football with a small capsule implanted in the heart of a trusted aid. To trigger an attack the president would have to literally rip open his aide’s body. As Barash vividly writes: “Bright red human blood might be just what is needed, to shock even the most insulated Neanderthal back to reality.”
All this got us wondering at HNN how many presidents have killed people or seen battle up close? This is what we found out.