A Turkey Of An Op-Ed
27th November 2011
This is somewhat untimely, but still worth pondering.
I have never understood the bleeding-heart whiners who sob and moan over the fact that people convicted of murder get terminated.
This is not tragedy, such as people who contract fatal diseases or die in freak car accidents. This is not (popular mythology to the contrary notwithstanding) oppression, like Christians run over by Muslim tanks in Cairo. This is not even obvious miscarriage of justice, like some poor black kid getting lynched by a mob of Democrats because he kissed a white girl, as happened far too often in the South. This is a long-established system (granted, less than perfect) for removing from society people who have demonstrated that they do not choose to live by the same rules as everyone else, rules that are objectively demonstrable as necessary for society to exist at all. Who could have a problem with that, except someone who has become so totally detached from reality that his judgment is suspect in every realm of life?
Certainly, there are people on death row who don’t belong there. There isn’t, however, anyone on death row who doesn’t belong somewhere other than wandering around loose where he (and it’s almost always a he) can bother innocent citizens — Pat Boone doesn’t wind up on death row. Considering the number of murders who happen every year, and the number of people who are executed for murder every year, one could almost say that it’s more likely somebody in prison will die of food poisoning than of deliberate execution.
There is a very good case to be made (certainly from a Christian perspective) against capital punishment, but there is no good case to be made for letting these people out on the street. I’m curious how these armchair judges would feel about hosting such convicts for five or ten years in their spare bedrooms, just to prove their sincerity?