Some of us are too busy choking back anger at vengeance and political opportunism disguised as righteousness to break the silence.
If I thought for one minute that executing people would achieve any of the things its advocates, enthusiastic or grudging, said it did, I would support it. Like almost every other sanction built into the justice system from fines to incarceration, it does none of these things. Execution has been used overwhelmingly against minorities and the disadvantaged, the legal counsel some of these people has had has been a joke, and innocent people have been executed. Where is the vengeance for the wrongfully jailed and executed? At least if you lock someone up in error you can make some semblance of recompense, what do you do for the wrongfully executed; kill a jury, the DA, the judge, the governor who signed the death warrant to balance things out? Vengeance is vengeance after all, wrapping it up a legalistic shell does nothing to blunt its crude fury.
Execution is state sanctioned murder, call it what it is.
And the next time you trumpet the execution of a Tookie Williams or someone else you feel is ‘deserving’ remember the man executed a few years ago who was so mentally stunted that after his final meal he asked his jailer to save him some desert 'for later'. What did he ‘deserve’ and how would you explain how your moral superiority allows it to be inflicted on him?
PC, at his daily limit, in more ways than one.
N P Childs
'I'm Mister Bad Example, the stranger in the dirt, I like to have a good time and I don't care who gets hurt'.
-Mr. Bad Example, W Zevon