Killing is wrong

Saying that killing is wrong is an easy philosophical stance. It’s like saying you like Oreos. We pretty much all agree, save for a few sociopaths (Michelle Malkin). Most of us, however, make exception in this stance.

Murderers? Kill them. Rapists? Kill them.We want to see these people punished so deeply that they will never breath again.

So when you take the opinion that even the awful members of our society who rape, murder – or both – should not be put to death, you find yourself on the receiving end of some bad PR.

Ain’t that right Mikey D?

But people advocating the death penalty do have a point, which I think Mr. Bernard Shaw was attempting to touch on with his question (but utterly failed too because he’s a horse’s ass). We all want revenge when we’ve been wronged. That’s not the issue though. The issue behind the death penalty is simple: Is it ever okay to kill someone? If you answer no go here and enjoy this LOLcat. Go take a nap.

If you’re like me and you think that killing is wrong unless someone is hurting you or a loved one, well good, stick around. Let’s talk because I think you’ll find this interesting. And if you’re someone who believes in capital punishment, I’ve got someone for you to meet.

Most of the time when people — especially liberals — use the “Hitler defense” I cringe. God, I think, are they really doing that? But when we’re talking about the death penalty, it’s relevant.

Karl Brandt, Nazi doctor and personal physician to Hitler, invented a three drug cocktail to make the death of children appear painless. Sound familiar?

Karl Brandt was Hitler’s doctor. He was the leader of the Action T-4 Euthanasia Program. He enjoyed his work, spending hours removing organs, measuring craniums, and dissecting brains (not to mention seeing how he could poison people). The people he worked with, however, found the work too disturbing. These were lower forms of life to the Nazi Supermen, everyone agreed on that. But…they were killing children as well as adults. Obviously the adults were evil…but the kids? Why were they having to suffer the bathhouses?

Brandt did not come up with the name, but he did invent what we now know as “lethal injection,” the “humane” death given by every state still executing people (even Nebraska where they still use the electric chair as well, sick bastards).

He used it to murder children as part of the Holocaust.

Lethal injection made the whole death scene nicer. The children of gypsies, Jews, and Poles, looked like they were asleep. So peaceful. They just lay there and….slowly….as if touched by an angel…they…just… stopped.

The coworkers felt better.

Lethal injection involves three drugs: Thiopental sodium, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. The thiopental sodium puts the individual to sleep, briefly. The pancuronium paralyzes the diaphragm, stopping breathing. The potassium chloride stops the heart.

Death happens quickly. Most of the time. Unless we’re talking about executions in the state of Ohio, where recently the state attempted 18 times to execute a man by lethal injection, missing his veins each time. Now Ohio is going to use only one drug instead of three because they think it will work better. They’re not sure, of course, but they’re going to try it anyway. (Brandt’s philosophy of human experimentation lives on well, apparently.) Of course, even when they get the drugs in, sometimes the executors use too little of the Thiopental. When they do this the person on the table regains consciousness partway through their death and experience suffocation, and heart failure in full awareness. Onlookers do not see this because of the paralyzing effects the drugs have.

The folks die in agony. The people celebrate that such a cruel, inhumane monster is dead. It is illegal, by the way, to do something like that to a dog.

So, I ask you this: Is it really okay with you that the United States uses Nazi ideas to kill people?

But maybe this argument only annoys you. After all, American rocket science was led by former Nazis, and we got to the moon. You can look at me and ask, “Hey, some of those Nazi ideas weren’t evil, so, so what if this is connected to a Nazi?” Fine. Good comeback. One question remains though.

If killing an innocent person is wrong and the perp should be executed, and we execute an innocent person, shouldn’t we all be put to death? It’s called a paradox, and there are few as big as the one presented by the death penalty.

Meet Cameron Todd Willingham. Okay. You can’t meet him. He’s dead. Has been for a few years. But his name should stick with you because if you believe in the death penalty this is an innocent man you murdered.

Cameron Todd Willingham, an innocent man murdered by the state of Texas.

In 2005 the state of Texas executed Willingham for killing his three children in an arson fire set in 1991. But here’s the issue, he didn’t. Many insane things happened at Willingham’s trial. He had a skull tattoo which prosecutors linked to “sociopathic behavior.” And his Led Zeppelin poster was described as “cultish.”People who first gave reports to police saying how they needed to restrain him from re-entering the house, changed their opinion in court and painted Willingham as someone more like the Joker.

Prosecutors told Willingham that if he just pleaded guilty they’d let him live. All he had to do was admit murder, and he would simply rot in jail. He wouldn’t admit to it. He claimed innocence to his death.

In August 2009, five years after the state of Texas executed Willingham, a report on his trial was released. Dr. Craig Beyler, an ouside investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission found that the fire marshalls behind the case completely disregarded scientific evidence. He described the investigation as more like mysticism — meaning that the men wanted him to be guilty, so they let their minds invent his guilt.

Dr. Beyler concluded that there was no evidence linking Willingham to the crime, nor even evidence of a crime. It was a fire. A random fire that tragically killed several children. And their father too paid the ultimate price.

So now where are you on this? Ready to submit to your execution for killing someone innocent? No, you say? The death penalty is acting as a deterrent even though 1,135 people have been executed since a 1976 US Supreme Court decision okayed the death penalty again?

Well, maybe your right. Maybe ideas die with people. Maybe if we kill enough murderers and rapists there will be a day when we’re all safe. Yep. Pretty open and shut. Killing people kills ideas. Amen.

Kill the man, kill the ideas? (Photo from Wikipedia Commons)

Wait… oh man. How did I forget that. Jesus!  No. I mean it. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, executed by Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate by means of crucifixion. Not to mention the hundreds of persecuted Christians who continued to proselytize despite death threats.

Yup. Kill the man, kill the ideas.

I’m not advocating for freeing murderers and rapists. I’ve already said on this blog that three Sexually Violent Predators in my neighborhood should go back to jail and rot. I believe that in my heart. I do not want these people on our streets. I say lock them up forever. Small cells. Cafeteria food. No TV. I do not give a shit. But don’t kill them. Killing does nothing except perpetuate death. Let men and women who commit these crimes sit and think for 60 years about what a dumb move that was. Let them never have their own shirts, linens, or privacy.

But do not by any means put the blood on my hands. Your revenge is not worth it to me, and mine should not be to you. We need to get over this idea that stretches back probably even before Moses. An eye for an eye blinds the world not literally, but in our hearts. We like to believe that the monsters around us are not human, but they are. The BTK killer was a Boy Scout leader. Ted Bundy was a Young Republican. John Wayne Gacy was his town’s Man of the Year once. When we say it is okay to kill them, we say it is okay to kill.

And for me, unless that person is right here, right now harming me, I can’t do it.

Killing this man does nothing

I don’t want to bother looking up the latest survey, but take my word for it that the majority of Americans are pro-death penalty. Why? I do not know.

Executing this man will only be revenge. And we will be no safer for doing it. (Photo from Wikipedia Commons)

There is no deterrent effect provided by it. It costs a shit ton of money. And, more importantly, it takes away a part of our national heart every time we do it. Tonight John Allen Muhammed, one of the infamous Beltway Snipers, will be executed. This will do nothing to stop terrorism, both international and domestic, and will only serve as a sick form of revenge by a society scared.

Random acts of violence and terror will continue long after this man’s heart ceases to beat. Soldiers will die, mother’s will bury kids. The Boogey Men and Women will always be there, forcing us to check our locks at night just one more time.

John Allen Muhammad is a huge chunk of waste in the grand scheme of the world. But we should not lower ourselves, as a nation, to his level.

I’ll be back this week to rant more about the death penalty’s failures, but for now just take a minute to think seriously if you’ll be safer tonight because this man is dead.

I know for a fact that you won’t be.