Death Penalty

curtiss_leung at ibi.com curtiss_leung at ibi.com
Thu Mar 4 08:23:59 PST 1999


William Lear wrote:

> A wild guess: the working class is more imbued with the propaganda

> of hard-work individualism. Those at the top know better. When

> workies see murder, they think "There's someone not playing by the

> rules --- in a bad way". The leisure of the upper classes allows

> them some distance from the struggle, perhaps a recognition, however

> dimly, that the game really isn't that fair, hence the easier

> recognition of the the murderer as one of us.

Assuming that support for the death penalty really is more prevalent

among the working class, I'd say it's simply a function of their being

exploited. Bitterness comes from a lack of diversions and

satisfactions in life (speaking from my own personal experience here),

and revenge fantasies can discharge some bile -- or at least seem to.

The awareness of one's contingency to and dependence on society

probably plays a role as well; the thought of someone so unnecessary

and so dependent that they have to be killed may provide some perverse

comfort to those a paycheck away from being on the street.

--

Curtiss



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