Posted by
Dana Andjus on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:07:38 PM
I was in my car today listening to Toby Keith and Willie Nelson sing "Whiskey for my men and beer for my horses." One of the lines talked about hanging criminals and it got me to thinking about capital punishment. I always thought I was for it. I don't see a biblical/ moral prohibition against it. But I also don't see a biblical/moral imperative. Where is the moral high ground?
There are a couple of comical capital punishment moments. The first was Bill Clinton as the anti capital punishment party's presidential candidate rushing back to Arkansas to sign a death warrant for a retarded prisoner on death row as governor. The second was the movie David Gale, which I think had an anti capital punishment bias trying to say that innocent people get put to death but which had such a complex and contrived plot that it seems to me came across as saying just the opposite. And the 3rd and best was John Kerry in the 2004 campaign saying that he was opposed to capital punishment since life in prison was a much worse punishment. And then 10 seconds later saying that he would put terrorists to death, thus implying that he would treat terrorists better than normal criminals. And some people say he flipped flopped.
Anyway his point that life imprisonment with no possibility of parole is harsher than the death penalty is not borne out by the evidence. Every death row inmate, except Timothy McVeigh, exhausts every appeal over 10-15 years before execution. They have found inmates on death row who have been exonerated by modern DNA test though they have never proved an innocent man has been executued. It makes sense though that it has happened. So where do I stand. With modern DNA testing lowering the chance of an innocent person being put to death, some of these creeps deserve whatever we do to them. For some crimes an 50+ year time out probably isn't enough, especially if it isn't hard time. And polls show that the majority of people are in favor of it--probably as big a % as are against the Iraq war. But it's not an issue that I'm strident about. The death penalty for those guilty of horrible crimes is fine with me. And I agree with John Kerry---terrorists deserve it. But if we don't have it, I'm OK with that also. Let's just protect innocent citizens and worry less about criminals.