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...people cannot change, and that human beings cannot be saved, and cannot save themselves. They are fatalistically condemned to repeat crimes, and there can be no recompense or restitution, no way out of the horror of a violent and miserable life.
In Medieval times, people were assigned to certain positions in society at birth, and could not change them. Serfs, peasants, slaves, servants were thought to be less intelligent, less noble and less human than those who lorded it over them--kings, barons, clerics, knights, ladies. Eventually a middle class arose--but they were called the "trade class"--the skilled workers, the business people, the bourgeois. They were not as high as the highest, nor as low as the lowest, but they, too, were stuck. They could not become nobility.
What occurred during the era of the Enlightenment was that philosophers, scientists, some religious thinkers, and ordinary people began to realize that nobility, genius, talent, bravery and other such qualities crossed class lines. Perhaps the narrative of humankind--the remembered stories--began to get more currency (due to book publishing). In any case, the kings and nobility began to look absurd--as a class apart that you are born to and cannot earn a position in (--plenty of idiots among the kings and nobility!).
This resulted, eventually, in that most astonishing declaration of the New World colonies: that all men are created equal.
But the fascists among us never quite agreed with that, and still hold the medieval view, to this day, that some are cursed and some are blest, some deserve riches, most do not, and it is the natural order of things that some lord it over others.
Capital punishment--and especially the manner in which it is adjudicated, with the poor and desperate getting that punishment, while the rich (who, like Bush, for instance, may be mass murderers and war criminals) escape it--fits into their personal world view, a dark and superstitious view, that is anything but Christian, and is a heavy drag on the inevitable forward thrust of human progress.
My personal view is along Buddhist lines, that if you execute a murderer--especially if you do it coldly and deliberately--the evil that that person may have been harboring will come back into the world greatly magnified. By slaying another human being, you literally perpetuate the evil with more evil. Consequently, we must provide each soul with every chance possible to redeem himself, to get rid of the evil, to overcome it, to change course.
The rightwing also likes to play God. They have been guilty of that blasphemy throughout their history--and the current rightwing, with its visceral delight in the death penalty--falls right into line with the Inquisitors and witch-hunters of the Middle Ages who identified 'witches' by marks on their skin, or some other voodoo, then plunged their heads into water, and if they drowned, then they were not the tools of the Devil, and if they didn't, they were.
Inflicting capital punishment is playing God. It presumes that you KNOW who is guilty, without question, without doubt. And if you are wrong, so what? A few poor innocent peons unjustly sent to their deaths is no big problem for you. The point is, you are God, and you can damn well do as you wish.
I disagree with some of the posters here, though, that most people truly approve of state execution. I think the people who do have been brainwashed, and, with some of them, their anger at life under corporate rule--their feeling of powerlessness--gets projected onto the executioner, whom they look to to exercise power and rid them of social ills; and, with others, their most primitive feelings have been tapped and encouraged: revenge, bloodthirstiness, hatred, racism.
With good leadership--leadership that was not in thrall to fascist "think tanks" and corporate news monopolies, and that was not corrupted by them--ordinary people could be inspired to reject the death penalty, for its unfairness and for its darkness, and to seek a better society.
Most people are aware that, if you have a lot of money, you don't get executed. It is a short step from that to realizing how bad the death penalty is. I was encouraged by a statistic I recently read, that the great majority of Americans oppose the torture of prisoners "under any circumstances." 63% opposed, May '03. So, the great majority of Americans have not bought all the fearmongering. They are sticking to their sense of ethics and fairness and lawfulness, despite intense propaganda. Most civilized countries have abandoned the death penalty, and I think we will, too--given half a chance (honest, transparent elections; good leaders).
The execution of this changed man--Stanley Williams--is an abomination. And it would be an abomination even if he were not changed--because of the hope that he might. All our efforts should be put into changing people, not cutting off their opportunity to think about what they have done (if they are guilty) and to change themselves and make recompense.
And then there are the innocent, unjustly tried, unjustly convicted. What of them?
How dare we play God in this way?
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