Why I Need a Beer
I've been thinking lately about the physiological reactions I have to the news lately. Bill O'Reilly, if you can call that news, has made me so angry at times that my face gets red, my lips curl up, and I can't get to sleep because I'm so mad. When I read about Jimmy Ray Slaughter being executed in Oklahoma, I got light-headed and nauseous, kind of like when you're free-falling in an amusement park ride or when you don't weigh enough to give blood and you are about to pass out. Also, last night when I was watching the video taken from death row in San Quinten where Scott Peterson is now, I had a similar feeling, and was inclined to turn off the TV.
I won't babble on about Bill O'Reilly because I'm guessing most sane people have similar reactions. Maybe not quite so physiological, but nonetheless, similar. We'll just say that I internalize it more than most.
But this whole death penalty stuff, state sponsored execution, is infinitely disturbing to me, even when I watch movies where there are hangings or be-headings or electrocutions. Even if there is no question of the condemned's guilt, it still disturbs me. I usually look away, walk out of the room, or change the channel until it passes. Friends with which I may be watching the movie might think I'm weird, but once I have that image in my head, I can't stop thinking about it. That anti-gravity, low blood-pressure, nauseous feeling persists.
Oddly enough, I can watch the gorriest Quentin Tarantino movie and love it. Seeing that fella in Reservoir Dogs get his ear cut off, then shot didn't affect me in the slightest. Great stuff!! Why, then does state-sponsored killing offend me and gangster killing not?
Even serial killers, and murders don't bother me that much. Sometimes the investigations can be quite interesting. Hearing the stories, seeing the evidence. All great fun! Now, I've never had anyone close to me be killed or tortured, and maybe if I did, I'd feel differently. I also have that "it can't happen to me mentality" as those things are fairly uncommon, generally drug or revenge or robbery related. I don't sell drugs, I'm usually nice to people so there's no reason to exact revenge upon me, and I don't have much stuff to steal. But if someone broke into my house, I'm sure my killer beagle would, uh, I don't know, probably want a belly rub or something.
I haven't followed the Scott Peterson trial at all, so I don't know anything about the trial or the evidence. I can't speak to whether I feel he is guilty or not. Our justice system says he is. But I don't believe that our justice system can be 100% accurate. No justice system can be, except for that of some higher power, if you believe that sort of thing. Certainly not here on Earth and here in the United States of Corrupt Power-Drunk Politicians.
Jimmy Ray Slaughter was claiming his innocence as they shot him up with the lethal injection. I don't know the facts on that case either, as I did not follow it. But how can the State of Oklahoma know 100% that he did commit the crime? Our justice system generally uses the "reasonable doubt" test but when you are putting people to death. I would think there should be "no doubt," as there is no way to change your mind if conflicting evidence arises after the person is already dead.
I just don't think us humans should have the power to decide such things. Our judgments can never be perfect or administered fairly. There's also the argument that the death penatly costs government more money than life in prison due the expensive appeals process, but I won't dwell on that.
And what's with people turning out to see executions? I would NEVER want to see something like that. Never. Never. Never. Not on TV, and certainly not in real life. What's the fascination with it? I could maybe understand if it was your family member that was murdered, and wanting to get revenge and somehow feeling better to see that justice was served. But nevertheless, you will never get your loved one back.
Any kind of death in one's family is a difficult thing, but harming another human being is not going to bring back the one you lost. So what purpose does the death penalty serve exactly?
So, back to the physiological reaction that I get from hearing about such things. Maybe I was executed in a previous life, and I'm reliving that experience through my subconscious? I just find the death penalty to be so incredibly reprehensible. A judicial system, appointed by our government that is so corrupt, and mainly focused on who gets to be in power and how to win the next election, making these life and death decisions, gets me right in the gut.
Alright, enough of that. Let's all lighten up, drink a little green beer, watch some basketball, and pinch someone who isn't wearing green tonight! I can assure you I won't be wearing anything green tonight.
I won't babble on about Bill O'Reilly because I'm guessing most sane people have similar reactions. Maybe not quite so physiological, but nonetheless, similar. We'll just say that I internalize it more than most.
But this whole death penalty stuff, state sponsored execution, is infinitely disturbing to me, even when I watch movies where there are hangings or be-headings or electrocutions. Even if there is no question of the condemned's guilt, it still disturbs me. I usually look away, walk out of the room, or change the channel until it passes. Friends with which I may be watching the movie might think I'm weird, but once I have that image in my head, I can't stop thinking about it. That anti-gravity, low blood-pressure, nauseous feeling persists.
Oddly enough, I can watch the gorriest Quentin Tarantino movie and love it. Seeing that fella in Reservoir Dogs get his ear cut off, then shot didn't affect me in the slightest. Great stuff!! Why, then does state-sponsored killing offend me and gangster killing not?
Even serial killers, and murders don't bother me that much. Sometimes the investigations can be quite interesting. Hearing the stories, seeing the evidence. All great fun! Now, I've never had anyone close to me be killed or tortured, and maybe if I did, I'd feel differently. I also have that "it can't happen to me mentality" as those things are fairly uncommon, generally drug or revenge or robbery related. I don't sell drugs, I'm usually nice to people so there's no reason to exact revenge upon me, and I don't have much stuff to steal. But if someone broke into my house, I'm sure my killer beagle would, uh, I don't know, probably want a belly rub or something.
I haven't followed the Scott Peterson trial at all, so I don't know anything about the trial or the evidence. I can't speak to whether I feel he is guilty or not. Our justice system says he is. But I don't believe that our justice system can be 100% accurate. No justice system can be, except for that of some higher power, if you believe that sort of thing. Certainly not here on Earth and here in the United States of Corrupt Power-Drunk Politicians.
Jimmy Ray Slaughter was claiming his innocence as they shot him up with the lethal injection. I don't know the facts on that case either, as I did not follow it. But how can the State of Oklahoma know 100% that he did commit the crime? Our justice system generally uses the "reasonable doubt" test but when you are putting people to death. I would think there should be "no doubt," as there is no way to change your mind if conflicting evidence arises after the person is already dead.
I just don't think us humans should have the power to decide such things. Our judgments can never be perfect or administered fairly. There's also the argument that the death penatly costs government more money than life in prison due the expensive appeals process, but I won't dwell on that.
And what's with people turning out to see executions? I would NEVER want to see something like that. Never. Never. Never. Not on TV, and certainly not in real life. What's the fascination with it? I could maybe understand if it was your family member that was murdered, and wanting to get revenge and somehow feeling better to see that justice was served. But nevertheless, you will never get your loved one back.
Any kind of death in one's family is a difficult thing, but harming another human being is not going to bring back the one you lost. So what purpose does the death penalty serve exactly?
So, back to the physiological reaction that I get from hearing about such things. Maybe I was executed in a previous life, and I'm reliving that experience through my subconscious? I just find the death penalty to be so incredibly reprehensible. A judicial system, appointed by our government that is so corrupt, and mainly focused on who gets to be in power and how to win the next election, making these life and death decisions, gets me right in the gut.
Alright, enough of that. Let's all lighten up, drink a little green beer, watch some basketball, and pinch someone who isn't wearing green tonight! I can assure you I won't be wearing anything green tonight.
posted by cookie christine @ 3/17/2005
10 Comments:
At March 17, 2005,
Anonymous said…
The problem with state execution is two-fold.
Before I start: if someone hurt someone I love, and I had the chance, I would kill them. Without regret.
But I do not want to support state-sponsored execution. Living the rest of your life, 23 hours a day, in a 6x8 foot cell is quite enough vengence for me.
But of over-riding importance is the fallibilty of our legal system. People are executed on the basis of eye-witness testimony, which is about as fallible as things get. We are learning that even finger-printing is more art than science, like "lie detection" tests which are no longer even admissible.
In the ten years after 1987 when the death penalty was re-instituted in Illinois, as many condemned have been completely exonerated of having commited the crime in question as have been executed, largely due to the efforts of a small group of people.
In other states, many death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence alone.
These are not people that have been gotten off on a loophole, but absolutely cleared by irrefutable evidence.
Bush, in his hubris, claims that "not one innocent person was executed in Texas when I was governor," while he rejected appeals based on DNA evidence.
We ought to be the leader of enlightened nations, not the last dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century of science and jurisprudence.
At March 17, 2005,
Anonymous said…
The problem with state execution is two-fold.
Before I start: if someone hurt someone I love, and I had the chance, I would kill them. Without regret.
But I do not want to support state-sponsored execution. Living the rest of your life, 23 hours a day, in a 6x8 foot cell is quite enough vengence for me.
But of over-riding importance is the fallibilty of our legal system. People are executed on the basis of eye-witness testimony, which is about as fallible as things get. We are learning that even finger-printing is more art than science, like "lie detection" tests which are no longer even admissible.
In the ten years after 1987 when the death penalty was re-instituted in Illinois, as many condemned have been completely exonerated of having commited the crime in question as have been executed, largely due to the efforts of a small group of people.
In other states, many death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence alone.
These are not people that have been gotten off on a loophole, but absolutely cleared by irrefutable evidence.
Bush, in his hubris, claims that "not one innocent person was executed in Texas when I was governor," while he rejected appeals based on DNA evidence.
We ought to be the leader of enlightened nations, not the last dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century of science and jurisprudence.
At March 17, 2005,
Anonymous said…
This is one of those things that always threatens to require me to turn in my little Che Guevera hat.
The death penalty? In theory, I really don't have a problem with it. I mean, I don't think people should be drawn and quartered, or, you know, skinned alive or anything.
But there are more than a few people in America who I just don't have any moral qualms with putting them to death.
I mean, Ted Bundy? The Carr brothers? Who cares? I don't.
At a certain level of depraved behavior, I kind of think you give up the right to argue about the sanctity of human life.
Either you're a person, or you're a wild animal. Take your pick.
My problem with the death penalty is, like Jerry, the application of it. A lot of people sit on death row even though, while being found guilty, the evidence--unlike with a Ted Bundy--was not uncontested.
It was not inconceivable--again, unlike a Ted Bundy or the Carr brothers--that the accused was actually innocent.
But the other thing about the death penalty is that, even when it's not used to kill people, it's used as a club against poor people to coerce testimony, to get around the Fifth Amendment.
It's a favorite trick of over-eager prosecutors, or lazy ones, or evil ones, to threaten poor defendants, often ones with a prior criminal conviction, with a death penalty prosecution unless they plea to a lifetime sentence.
It's most often used against defendants who are relying on public defenders, who are black, in the south, and who are utterly unsympathetic defendants.
With no money, a lousy attorney, a feeling that the deck is stacked against them, and being threatened with a death sentence, it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of people plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit, rather than take their lousy chances at trial.
We find out every day about innocent people on death row, we have no idea about innocent people who are doing life terms as a result of plea bargains to avoid the death penalty.
A guilty plea, after all, is not something you can appeal.
Anyway, that's the way I feel about it. If it were used judiciously, in cases where guilt, coupled with appalling cruelty and depravity, were beyond doubt--and those cases do exist--it wouldn't bother me at all.
But, in application, it doesn't work that way. Innocent people are killed. People who have made just one bad decision--a very bad decision, maybe, but they're not beyond redemption--are killed.
And innocent people sit in prison for life to avoid the death penalty.
ricky
At March 18, 2005,
cookie christine said…
oooh, Ricky in a little Che Guevera hat! Is it getting hot in here?
At March 18, 2005,
Anonymous said…
Not just in a Che Guevera hat.
But in NOTHING but a Che Guevera hat.
Hot? Hot as Cuba, baby. Hot as Cuba.
ricky
At March 19, 2005,
cookie christine said…
Whew! That's hotter than a bass fisherman in a speedo. Somebody get me a cold shower!
At March 19, 2005,
Anonymous said…
A cold shower is exactly what you need!
I recommend throwing on a boyfriend beater t-shirt and some white cotton panties, and then hosing yourself down with some cold, cold water.
It should help. Though, it's a little more difficult than it sounds. You may not get it right the first time.
Try it out. Take some photographs. And I'll critique the whole thing as best I can.
Two, three dozen times? Maybe a couple of different pantie ensembles. Trust me--we'll get it right.
I'm determined!
ricky
At March 20, 2005,
cookie christine said…
what are these "pantie" things that you refer to? I for one, prefer to "let freedom ring," if you will.
I'ts very liberating.
At March 21, 2005,
Anonymous said…
Oh, I'm all about freedom. But I ain't knocking anticipation.
There's Christmas morning. And there's Christmas eve.
And both make you giddy. But for different reasons.
It's the treasure chest theory--sure, what's INSIDE the treasure chest is good beyond all imagining. But what a moment when you first unearth and see the treasure chest!
ricky
At March 22, 2005,
cookie christine said…
Ah yes, Sweet anticipation! You have a point!
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