I read three stories about death and punishment today. One was about Johnny Penry, a twice-convicted rapist and murderer. Another was about a white-supremisist who went on a shooting rampage in a daycare center. The last was about Tim McVeigh, the butcher of Oklahoma City. At first the only thing I felt was sadness. In each case, good people were dead or horribly scarred by the actions of brutal killers. Each claimed, as at least part of their defense, that they served some other higher purpose (or in Penry's case, that he was too stupid to know that rape and murder were wrong.) McVeigh claimed that he bombed the children in the federal daycare center because he was trying to punish the government for Ruby Ridge and Waco. Buford Furrow shot-up a daycare center and killed a mailman because, as a white supremacist, he believed that non-whites are animals and not fit to inhabit the same earth as the pure-whites.
In Penry's case, his lawyers will come before the Supreme Court to argue that it is "cruel and unusual" to execute a brutal killer because his IQ isn't high enough. To the best of my knowledge, they are not asking the court to establish an IQ, below which a moron can commit crimes with impunity, but that is essentially what their argument boils down to. They argue that we, the people, owe this animal a life of gentle care. He is too dimwitted to be responsible for any sort of crime. He had an amazingly shitty childhood. We can't (apparently) punish his mother for her wanton brutality. Shouldn't we let him escape punishment? Hasn't he suffered enough?
Buford Furrow struck a deal. Too cowardly to see his beliefs through to the end. He now renounces his racist ways and wants to live, even if it's in prison. Heck, why not? I hear there are plenty of other racists in prisons. They'll probably call him a hero. And, the way our justice system works, there is ALWAYS hope that he will be released. If not through parole (which they promise he'll "never" receive), then perhaps through some retrial or new technicality. Maybe he'll just escape. He's alive, his victims aren't. Nothing can change the latter, but the former could be rectified.
And McVeigh, what about the butcher of Oklahoma City? McVeigh has taken all possible steps to hasten his execution. Knowing that we currently stretch-out the process to make death as psychologically painful as possible, he's trying to end it and attain martyrdom before the All-star break. Fat chance.
But then it occurred to me what all these murderers have in common. It's not that the death-penalty will bring any of their victims back. It's not just about vengeance (although that IS a valid component of this punishment). It isn't that we "owe" the survivors "closure." These, and others like them, do not deserve to live amongst us.
Who am I to say that? Who gave me the power to execute?
No one. Get real, I didn't pass any of these laws. By the time I was born, murder and rape were already crimes. Although the murder of a postal worker wasn't a unique crime (as opposed to killing any other person) murder was a crime in all fifty states (and every country in the world). To all who say that we owe these people a life of leisure in some prison I say NO! There is no question of guilt, no possibility for some last-minute DNA reversal. Heck, you can't even claim that their convictions were the result of racist juries. These three white men are poster children for lethal injection if ever such a person existed.
"Gee, Dan, that's harsh. Sure McVeigh and Furrow are cold-blooded, but that retarded man, you can't execute him, he didn't know murder and rape were wrong." So? Should we let him recuperate in a mental hospital for a few years and then let him out to see if he rapes and kills again? Look, we kill sheep, pigs and cows by the thousands just for the THREAT that they might have an illness like Foot-and-mouth (which isn't harmful to humans). Why should we suffer the continued company of animals like McVeigh, Furrow or Penry? Prison doesn't take away the threat, it just concentrates the evil in one place and serves as a training ground where less violent criminals can be "educated" by the bitterest dregs our society can't bear to part with.
Why should we support them into their old age?