And if you want to see the face of this death machine, watch the two clips at Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog. Watch them deny science and say that they are quite comfortable with using folklore and old wives tales to send a man to prison. Or that they consider a person who listens to heavy metal to be likely to worship the devil.
Texas justice is essentially sorcery, and there will be people who say that we can perfect it, that we can close the loop-holes. They're wrong. The problem isn't with loopholes--it's with us. We are fallible. Conservatives, more than anyone, should know that--it undergirds their entire philosophy. They don't think government can perfect much of anything. What makes them think we can perfect murder?
5 comments:
I saw this on another blog where the author referred to Texas as being from another planet. I don't think that I disagree. My state may be last in economic development, but we were the first to abolish the death penalty in 1846.
What makes them think we can perfect murder?
I think they just ignore the fact that innocent people get executed, just they they ignore that innocent people get tortured.
If you read John Grisham's The Innocent Man, Oklahoma isn't much better. Scott Turrow's book Ulitmate Punishment covers just about anything that can be said out it.
BTW, I've given you an award.
I just saw that, PM, thanks. And I know that Oklahoma is terrible on capital punishment as well.
Steve, I think you are right. the people I speak to just don't really care about it, and I think it is because they are convinced it could never happen to them, and that the people who are incarcerated or executed are guilty of something.
It makes me very sad.
In May or thereabouts, Colorado failed to repeal the death penalty, but that was because the bill also allocated funding for cold case investigations. For purely fiscal reasons, four Democrats in the state senate voted with Republicans to retain capital punishment. If the federal government would permit us not to waste our enforcement resources going after pot smokers, we wouldn't have nearly so much of a law enforcement budget crisis. But that's a rant for another day.
This may be damning with faint praise, but there isn't a lot of political incentive for DAs to seek the death penalty; we've only executed one person since the 60s.
I could actually tolerate the death penalty if it were incredibly rare and reserved for special cases. I wouldn't like that, mind you, but that would at least seem to be reserved and thoughtful. The way Texas and Oklahoma approach the death penalty, however, has none of those qualities. Not only another country, but a barbaric one, and one where the dominant religious voices cheer on the executions.
Post a Comment