holding steady.™

song of the day & my issues with the death penalty

first, the fun:

john mayer,”why georgia“

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**did you know that he did a cover of Kid A? did you know that it’s good?**

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second, as indicated by the title, i have some issues with the death penalty, or state executions, or capital punishment…or whatever you would like to call our tendency to do away with the lives of our citizenry. i love that we live in a free society, and i love that living under such circumstances affords us rights and luxuries that many other nations cannot.

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i reject the premise that, since all things come at a price, one such price should be the ability of the state to end anyone’s life. i have my issues with war, which i will bide my time in expressing, but i also don’t understand how we can condone killing anyone. i feel that, offense notwithstanding, life in prison without the possibility of parole is a harsh enough sentence. yes, even for murder. i think state-sanctioned executions are a barbaric manifestation of our Judeo-Christrian implied right to revenge. and it’s scary when you think about it, since the company we keep as a retentionist country in this particular area make for a grim understanding of how we have progressed into the 21rst century as a nation.

it’s possible that i can’t see the other side to this issue because i’ve never had a serious crime (by the state of Florida’s measure, worthy of punishment by death) committed against me; i’ve had occasion and blessing to live what many would call a privileged and sheltered life. but what people seem to forget is that “vengeance is mine” was said by God. we can’t even the score by killing someone who has killed another, no matter if it was a three-year-old boy or an auditorium of housewives.

human life is sacrosanct, in any and all forms. to kill someone as punishment is to paint the whole of that society with their blood, for we condone it when we have nothing to say.