Thursday, November 12, 2009
Death penalty
posted at 2:51 PM |
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I was surprised that it upset me but when I heard that the DC sniper had been executed, I was sad and a bit angry. If killing is wrong - and I suppose it's hard to argue that murder is wrong - then it seems to me that state-sanctioned, cold-blooded, deliberate killing is logarithmically more wrong than anything else. If one thinks of it as revenge, I understand the emotional logic, but a state is not meant to be emotional (even if its citizens and legislators are, inevitably). To tie someone down and shoot them with tranquilizers so they won't feel the horror of the death-delivering shot is as appalling as the rest because it means it's not even returning a punishment to the person. So what's the point? Furthermore, statistically it doesn't even work. I'm willing to bet a lot of money that no criminal has ever said, "Uh-oh, I'd better not shoot those people cuz I'll risk getting the death penalty if I do." And how often the press has reported that victims' families are surprised when they don't feel any relief after an execution, or even that they themselves request a stay. I truly think the death penalty is barbaric and wrong. And yes, life imprisonment is expensive, but surely we are supposed to live according to a sense and belief in good and bad behavior, and not be entirely governed by purse strings. What happened in Ft. Hood might have been prevented if only one or two people had had the sense to listen and follow through since the perpetrator seems to have provided dozens of signs of what was brewing in his head and heart. If bureaucracies put half the energy into paying attention and thereby preventing sick and angry people from wreaking havoc, it would be far better than spending hours and years discussing execution and then doing something that is only marginally different - and arguably even more heinous because it is so calculated.
Labels: ideas
3 comments
I know it's accepted that is isn't a deterrent, but is that a side issue and how can you know? It's like Obama's 'saved jobs', there is no way of proving it.
I wonder how much of the horror people feel about the death penalty is simply because they know about it before it happens, the anticipation of it, whereas the victims are already dead when you hear of it, it's happened, nothing can be done about it, we didn't know them unlike the murderers who we see living and breathing on TV and that diminishes our empathy with them. It takes a mental effort to remember in this case just who the victims were, they were in the news for a day or two, then they fade from view and out of our consciousness. Ordinary people going about their lives killed for no reason, kind people with families, taken by some idiot with no regard for others whatsoever.
No, no tears from me.
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