The death penalty is a really thorny issue. First, I think I can say definitively there are people in the world we just don't need; people we're better off without - Saddam Hussein, Charlie Manson, Celine Dion come to mind, but we know that too often we're killing the wrong people.
New and emerging forensic techniques have turned up false convictions all over the place, and the death penalty being a permanent "solution" makes it kinda hard to say, "Oops - dang, I guess we got that one wrong" and go on to whatever's next.
The fact that we keep trying to find "more humane ways" of killing people only points up the fact that we're working maybe a little too hard to rationalize our attempts to substitute retribution for justice.
"...we are some real motherfuckers" is the big takeaway in this John Oliver piece:
No comments:
Post a Comment