debaser
y’all already know my stance on the death penalty. it’s hypocritical and expensive and inhumane, and in a system fraught with human error, the liklihood of taking an innocent human’s life by mistake is unavoidable, and it’s inconceivable that we should allow that to happen at the hands of the state. a civilised people should be exemplified by a civilised government. and when we can’t guarantee our citizens a fair trial, we have no business executing them. case in point: the 1000th man scheduled to die in the u.s. since the re-institution of the death penalty.
we have a right to deprive people of their liberty, but not their life. that’s what makes the death penalty cold-blooded public vengeance, plain and simple. but vengeance is not the remit or right of the government, and that’s what makes these killings no better than the crimes we so loudly decry.
if i was home right now, i’d be protesting with all my heart and might. because i honestly think that the u.s. has the power (and therefore the obligation) to be better. to lead by example. i think the death penalty debases us as a nation, and dehumanises our society. and we deserve better than that.
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death penalty 
Comment by gillian
30.11.2005 @ 02:28 am
Disregarding the possibility of these death row convicts being innocent and falsely accused, I just think that the death penalty is rather barbaric. How is it any more progressive than public hangings and the guillotine?
Comment by Jen
30.11.2005 @ 09:50 am
you’ll have to ask the supreme court that one. Apparently it’s no longer “cruel and unusual”, though nothing has actually changed. Amazing how people’s lives carry different weight depending on the current politics.
according to this article: Since 1976 the US has performed 829 executions by lethal injection, 152 by electric chair, 11 in gas chambers, 3 by hanging, 2 by firing squad.