I'm not telling you anything new, but the attempt to sanitize executions, to make them less dramatic, more clinical, viewable by a few people only and behind a peep show window, has made the practice of cold-blooded legal destruction of human life all the more grotesque, ghastly and sometimes agonizing for viewer and victim. The ceremonial killing of Clayton Lockett got so disgusting the curtains had to be closed so that the witnesses couldn't see the worst of it, making it similar to the kind of 'liquidation' I associate with basement shootings in Stalin's Russia. Far more painful however, than the instantaneous extinction offered by a 9mm Makarov bullet in the brain. 43 minutes of writhing in agony, strapped to a board, gasping out words until his heart finally burst.
I don't care how awful he was, how horrific his deeds; torture killing should have no place in America. It's another illustration of the savagery, the viciousness and the hatred festering in our country to sit beside our love of war and the delight we take in bullying our way around the world.
This medieval exercise did nothing to undo Lockett's crime and any comfort, any 'closure' anyone got from torturing him to death should taint every subsequent moment of their lives and deprive them of any peace even at their last moments and if there is any final arbiter of justice; anything that sits in judgement of nations and individuals, there can be no scale of justice in which our hearts are not outweighed by our blood lust and our cynical pretense that it is anything but the cowardly beast within us.
Once again, I am ashamed to be an American.
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2 comments:
I agree that torture killing has no place in a civilized country and one would think that executing someone would be relatively uncomplex but apparently not.
I remembered reading something about shortages in some drug required for your executions and found an excellent article that outlined the issues. It was an eye opener for me to see that Texas had 317 inmates on death row but only enough of the old drug for 2 executions. I won't put the link, here unless you want it.
We have no death penalty here, not since 1976 and prior to its abolishment our last execution was in 1962. So we are not untainted but we managed to get out of the killing business. Our Conservatives tried to bring it back, but the attempt failed and I haven't heard anthing more about it since. I much prefer life because life in prison is really not much of a life at all, but does allow for mistakes to be overturned. Sorry for rambling on.
The probability, considering the lottery-like nature of courts, of killing an innocent person is reason enough for me to oppose the practice. The sheer arrogance of putting that much confidence in the process is bewildering. The hypocrisy of insisting the government shouldn't have the power to help, the power to regulate, but must have the power to kill is horrible.
It suggests to me that the skittishness about showing what's going on, the queasiness about the appearance of violence -- making a killing look like a visit to the dentist -- it all hints that at some level even the advocates know it's wrong.
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