Vengeance

I'm against the death penalty. I'm not going to exhaust the reasons why on a blog entry but some of my reasons include the fact that (i) it's not fairly or equally applied -- statistics show that African-Americans, the poor, and males are disproportionately executed; (ii) our criminal justice system is seriously flawed and full of holes, with the wealthiest and best connected people getting the best legal representation (which goes back to the fairness issue); (iii) there are people on death row who are innocent; and (iv) it's a fact that we have executed innocent people in this country.

Finally (for the purpose of this little discussion) I have moral and philosophical problems with the death penalty. Let's call a spade a spade: executing people who kill is retribution and nothing more. Don't talk to me about deterrence. No criminal thinks about the death penalty when he or she is about to commit a crime. It doesn't even enter their mind. They just do what they do thinking they'll get away with it.

The death penalty is also defeatist. It's a sorry surrender to a primitive, lowest common denominator human emotion: anger. It's an admission that we have not evolved as a species and are simply glorified animals walking around with lattes, cell phones, and iPods. It's a rejection of our better nature, of a higher order. The death penalty is also a clear rejection of a core requirement of the social contract, and a central biblical maxim: "Thou shalt not kill." If you think killing is wrong then you shouldn't kill anyone. It's pretty simple. Simple that is, until you start making exceptions.

These are my briefly-stated feelings on the subject. Many people disagree, including most of the inhabitants of Texas. I'm sure it'll come up again.

I'll tell you though, I have a hard time staying objective and consistent on this subject when I hear of a tragedy like the one just suffered by the Petit family in Cheshire, Connecticut, whose home was invaded at 3 a.m. two nights ago by the two pieces of dogshit you see below:



If you haven't heard, after breaking into the Petits' house, these two scumsucking maggots sexually assaulted Mrs. Hawke-Petit and one of the daughters while Dr. Petit was tied up in the basement and badly beaten. At 9 a.m., one of the two pigs (I'm literally at a loss at what to call these two fucking assholes whose lives are utterly worthless. How can I properly convey that these two fucking pigs are lower than dirt, lower than the bacteria in pigshit, meaningless fucking scumsucking maggots? Wait, I already used that one. You get the point.) escorted Mrs. Petit to a local bank to withdraw $15,000. During the transaction, she managed to alert one of the tellers, who called the police. Upon returning, the scumsucking maggots set fire to the house in an attempt to destroy the evidence of their disgusting crime. Before doing that, they strangled Mrs. Petit to death. They also tied the daughters up in separate rooms. Both died of smoke inhalation. Dr. Petit was the only one who survived the fire; he barely escaped, having been clubbed repeatedly in the head and left for dead.

The two maggots tried to escape in a family car, but the police were already on the scene and they were easily caught. Surprise, surprise, both of them had more than 20 prior burglaries on their records and were out on parole.

When I hear stories like this, I feel shocked, disgusted, and angry. All my objective feelings about the death penalty go out the window and are replaced by good old-fashioned bloodlust. A desire to have these murderers pay for what they did in kind. A desire for them to suffer just like they made their victims suffer. In exactly the same way. First, I want both of these maggots to be ass-raped (repeatedly) by extremely well-endowed volunteers, fellow inmates ideally. Then we'll dress them up in trendy orange jumpsuits and tie them together, sore butts and all, in an airtight, glass room, about 10 feet by 10 feet. Just like the one David Blaine used in London that one time, but a little bigger. We'll put the room in a boxing ring with lots of overhead lights and we'll get a live audience to watch the festivities. The rest of us will watch on Pay-Per-View. (All the PPV money would go to the victims' family, or a chosen beneficiary.) At the top of the glass room there'll be a wide circular opening where we'll hook up this enormous black tube. At exactly 9 p.m. (have to do this at prime time, of course) someone will raise a symbolic black flag, which will cue the commissioned executioner to start pumping thick, black, sooty smoke from a huge truck outside, through the black tube and into the glass room. Then we'll watch the two scumsucking maggots (who have already been ass-raped, I remind you) die a proper, agonizing death by suffocation.

There's even a part of me that can be logical about the death penalty. Whether we're talking about the two pigs above, or the other predators we hear about too often, the ones who commit heinous crimes, like kidnapping, assaulting, and killing children. Plainly, these are not functioning human beings. They're wired wrong. They're closer to animals than people. So what is wrong with doing to them what we would do to a rabid dog, or a vicious wolf who was killing chickens in our henhouse? What is wrong with putting them down? Taking them out of commission for good by erasing their existence? Let them come back as something better in the next life. Like maybe a rabbit turd.

Ah but even as I let these vengeful feelings loose and allow them free reign in my psyche, I can hear a small voice in my head whispering to me. It's barely perceptible, but it's there. It's reminding me that I'm better than an animal who acts solely on impulse, who pursues every feeling, every desire, to its logical conclusion. It's reminding me that I need not choose to act or think like an animal. Acting and thinking like an animal is in fact a choice we can make or not make. The people who commit these horrible acts choose what they do, they choose to give in to animal impulses without thought or conscience. They choose to rob, to assault, to rape, to kill. Giving in to the primitive is what makes these people no better than animals. Are we now going to act the same as them? If so, what does that make us?

It's an important voice, that little voice. It's more than just my conscience. I like to think that it's the voice of my true, higher Self. Or, if you're so inclined, the voice of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Allah, Mohammed, the Messiah, Krishna, Maitreya, your spirit guide, what have you. (If you're Atheist, you should have stopped reading this about a year ago.) It's this voice that's telling me, "Hey buddy, the shitstorm you're living in isn't even real. Chill the fuck out. Focus on forgiveness so you don't have to keep coming back to this hell-hole."

Would that it were so easy, Voice In My Head. When I hear stories like the one about the Petits, it's hard for me to be objective. It's even harder for me to be forgiving. Forgive these pigs? Are you kidding? I just want them dead. It's then that I realize how far I have to go. How many fucking reincarnations it's going to take me to get to where I want to be. So much for A Course in Miracles. So much for the Ten Commandments and turning the other cheek. Better grab some popcorn. I've got a lotta lives comin' and time moves pretty goddamned slow.