I’ve been thinking...

I can see this note generating some negative feedback, but then again, what that I do doesn’t generate negative feedback. And if you’ve scrolled down to the bottom and think this note is too long to read, I feel sorry for you. Here goes:

What’s with the sudden resurgence in death penalty campaigning? I’m disgusted by the amount of requests to events, groups, etc. called ‘bring back the death penalty’. I understand that they are mainly centered on the charges laid against those two people for the suspected murder of Tori Stafford, but it’s still ridiculous. Let me explain.

First off, laws aren’t changed because someone puts a petition on Facebook. Sometimes an enormous public reaction can influence a Supreme Court decision that later becomes a reference in future cases and is added to the perceived common law. But they don’t just add ‘the axe’ to the list of punishments because some internet community is outraged.

Second, I don’t know enough about the case to possibly offer an opinion on ‘who done it’, but as far as I know a verdict hasn’t been rendered yet. I think we should probably hold off on the death sentence until after a jury decides the validity of evidence and if the burden of proof has been satisfied. This mob mentality of the grapevine says this person is bad so let’s kill ‘em, is the same style that lead to the alleged crucifixion of Jesus.

Now, in no way am I saying Tori’s murderers are Jesus, I’m just saying we need to remain objective, and let systematic procedures work as efficiently as possible to provide blind, fair justice, or who knows who’s messiahs we are offing.

Third, go fuck yourself with the cost argument. I don’t want to hear about how YOUR tax dollars are going to be financing a child-killers cable bill in prison. Your tax dollars don’t finance shit, and ask anyone who’s spent any time in even a minimum security penitentiary and they will tell you it wasn’t all sitting around watching ‘The Sopranos’. You speak ignorantly about incarceration. Besides, if the response to any expense was destroying it, where would our society be? Can’t afford to raise your kids? Just kill them. Can’t afford to fix your breaks? Put a match in your gas tank.

The goal of sentencing is to rehabilitate people. You know, like when you were a kid and you got spanked, or had to stand in the corner. That was designed to make you re-think your ways. You don’t think 25 years in prison will accomplish that? I recommend you watch ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and pay close attention to Freeman’s monologue at the end.

1967 Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?

Red: Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.

1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...

Red: I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?

1967 Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you?

Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

Lastly, let’s examine the hypocrisy of it all. The death sentence is a disaster of logic. A person decides he can chose who is allowed to live, so he goes and kills someone. Is there something wrong with that? Well, public opinion says, yes there is. We call it a crime, and we discipline people for it. But what if the discipline was death? Then you would be saying, “You can’t go around killing people, every life is valuable. So, if you do kill someone, we’ll kill you for it.” Yeah, exactly, doesn’t make much sense does it. Sure, there will be plenty of people who argue that it’s different if society decides to kill the person, of who killed whom first is relevant, etc., but the truth is it’s either all wrong, or all right, and the punishment can never be the same as the crime.

So, sure, you may be upset about Tori, and it IS a horrible thing, but open your eyes and think about your campaigns for someone else’s death. Then think about yourself: What if you made a mistake and killed a child? What if you killed a child by accident, do you still get killed? Is it only children? Are children more valuable than a 70 year-old revolutionary, a 40 year-old poet, or a 31 year-old mother of four?
You clearly aren’t able to make these decisions, and no one is, which is why Canada doesn’t have the death penalty.

It always makes me sick thinking about the bloodlust developed countries seem to have. Solving problems with war, death sentences, gang violence, hate crimes, etc. The next time you are thinking someone should be killed or deserves to die, go spend a week in an IDP camp in Darfur.

We are so desensitized, watching edited news, sitting in our lazy boys, drinking cold, bottled water, yelling at the TV for people to be killed. We’ve lost our ability to see the real world, experience real loss, understand real war, etc.

Gandhi said it best, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

-Gerald A. Dinkel (He just says things.)

http://sardonicconnection.blogspot.com/2009/05/78-tori-stafforddeath-penalty.html