His object all sublime
He will achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!
— from The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan
A Good Week For The Death Penalty
This week the Commonwealth of Virginia put the DC Sniper, John Allen Muhammed, to death by lethal injection. His accomplice and fellow trigger guy, Lee Boyd Malvo, gets to live out his days in prison. He was too young to get the needle. Not quite 18. But for a few months, he would have been killed, too.
In Ohio, the State is playing around with the idea of switching from the the three drug “cocktail” to a single drug protocol that can be used by stabbing the needle into a muscle if a good vein can’t be found. It seems like the Ohio executioners couldn’t find a good vein after 18 attempts on Romell Broom and the Governor had to call off the execution.
It seems that both Ohio and Texas are trying their damnedest to catch up to Texas as the States who kill the most criminals. It’s an uphill battle. Texas kills a lot of criminals. And pretty damn fast, too.
The Death Penalty Doesn’t Work and Doesn’t Even Feel Good
I’ve heard of two reasons why the death penalty exists at all:
- Retribution – this is the “eye for an eye” argument
- Deterrence – if murderers know they will die it will make them less prone to murder
Sure, it feels good to call for the head of high profile killers. Most certainly, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, will be facing the death penalty. The 9/11 terrorists that are about to go on trial in New York are facing the death penalty. For these folks we, as a society, want justice to be swift and severe. Well, we’ll get severe. Swift is another story. The court martial of Maj. Hasan and the trials of the 9/11 terrorists will go on forever providing vicarious thrills for thousands of cable TV viewers and fodder for the “fair and balanced” network screamers.
In the end, though, it’s always a little bit anti-climatic. Once the criminal has been put down we quickly forget what it was all about and move on to the next high profile atrocity. More to the point, it doesn’t “undo” the crime. Killing the killer doesn’t bring the dead back to life. It rarely heals the broken lives of those the murders affected.
Deterrence is a joke. You can watch the news any night of the week to listen about drive-by shootings, gang-related murders, drug deals gone wrong or wronged boyfriends going nuts and killing their lovers and, sometimes, the whole family. The death penalty does not deter nut cases, whack jobs or people who just plain crack up in the moment and happen to have a gun handy. It doesn’t deter teens and young adults starving for attention, love and validation from doing what it takes to get attention either from the gang or from the media.
In short, the death penalty doesn’t work and it should be abolished. I won’t be holding my breath.
On The Other Hand…
… it’s perfectly OK to remove any semblance of reproductive choice from women who have no access to affordable health care. It seems that the “‘Just Say No’ to Everything” party is pulling out the old chestnut — abortion — to kill health care reform. They couldn’t kill it with all the scare tactics about the ‘Public Option”. God forbid, one dollar of government money be used to assist poor or even moderate income women with access to the full menu of health care options.
Of course, it’s a nice trick to kill health care reform. Women of means can always find a doctor who can help terminate a pregnancy and pay for it. It’s the poor and lower middle class who will bring children into their world of financial hardship with limited or zero access to good health care even for the child, lack of educational opportunities and general hardship. No matter whether the pregnancy was bought on by rape, incest or just plain sweet talk from an older man promising love and security but leaving as soon as the fun’s over.
Of course, poor women don’t have high-powered lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Poor women don’t have lots of money to line the campaign coffers of candidates.
Big Pharma wins. Big insurance companies win. Politicians win. People most in need of access to affordable health care….sorry.
Joe Loomer
September 11, 2009 at 9:01 am
Amen Missy. I was in the NCO club at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey that morning, and it was just after six a.m. “Bump” – a Senior Chief – walked in from the adjacent room and stated someone had just flown a plane in to the Twin Towers.
About 40 of us Chiefs were in the middle of mashing some Chief Selectees, and everyone thought it was like that light aircraft that hit the Empire State Building some time earlier – causing minor damage. Bump was adamant that the “s**t was serious, shipmates!” So we wandered into the other room to see what he was all upset about, just in time to watch live as the second plane hit.
We knew instantly we were at War, we knew who did it, and we knew we should have been at war a year earlier after the USS Cole.
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
Missy Caulk
September 11, 2009 at 10:18 am
Joe, you are right had we taken action after the Cole perhaps this wouldn’t have happened.
Brandie Young
September 11, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks, Missy.
Gwen Banta
September 11, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Missy, I’m too emotional to say anthing other than, “thank you,” and God be with those who suffered so much loss.
tomferry
September 11, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Missy …. I felt compelled to say “thank you” for this post as well. You already know my story on where I was … what a day we all experienced.
No matter where we were or what we were doing, time stood still … differences didn’t matter and we as a collective group found the strength to take care of one another.
TF
Matthew Hardy
September 11, 2009 at 6:46 pm
We lived in Maryland, near Washington, D.C. at the time. We discussed another attack and the possibility dangerous clouds coming towards our family as we listened to reporting from my wife’s brother who lives in New York City.
We talked to our neighbors more than we every had.
I miss the unity.