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Two of a Kind Someone seems to be maintaining Executed Today again, or at least it has been or is being ported to a new engine. Looks like Wordpress. Dunno, haven't used WP in years. Anyhow it's still here, and should remain so forever. Whoever it is does extensive research into the circumstances of the judicially (and sometimes non-judicially) snuffed-out human existences (and sometimes not snuffed as intended) and most provide a history lesson. Sometimes the details (method, messiness, etc. or absence thereof) aren't even included beyond the fact that it happened. Or not. The original notice of discontinuation of maintenance remains on the home page. I suspect the author may be English but it's hard to say. He has a vast knowledge of history of the major English-speaking nations, both those where the language originated and the colonies that escaped its clutches fairly early. His sense of humor seems a lot like mine and he seems like me a superior intellect. I spent those critical years of my life (aside from the first four) in the south, and while the state I lived is technically not in the deep south according to Wickedpedia we're fairly southern here, more like Texas than Alabama or Mississippi. Something for which.... nevermind. Hell, Mark Twain regarded Missouri as southern and I drove north a long way to get to Hannibal. Okey-dokey, where was I? Right. Growing up in the south, unless you were in one of the elite families that started their kids being bleeding-heart liberals early, there were a few things you learned and for long while thought you would always believe and nothing could ever change your mind. One of those beliefs I discarded long ago but the people I was taught to believe it about seem determined to unchange my mind. The majority of them anyway. Probably the biggest one was capital punishment. You'd hear about a murder, the news was someone was unlawfully slain and the perps had been arrested the response of about anyone being told was 'I hope they get the chair'. We were all somewhat naive in those days. We didn't know how bad the government was, even at the federal level much less the state and local. So a person charged with a crime and found guilty was presumed to merit whatever punishment was prescribed, preferably the maximum allowed by law. There was a lot more stuff we didn't know then. So people condemned to death got no sympathy from regular law-abiding folks like us. Today my random execution generator emitted the Karla Faye Tucker story from our friend, and I remembered that a few days ago it popped out the one about Ricky Ray Rector. So here's the deal. The Tucker affair made more news, in part because it was in Texas and Texas had a republican governor for most of the time. The governor was a dim when she was convicted, and Ma Richards was governor 1991-1995 and she didn't do anything to get her off the hook, at least for the death penalty. Perhaps she figured on the process taking a lot longer or being elected to another term. Or just didn't care since there was nothing to be gained by a commutation to life - due to the sickening nature of the crime. At any rate Bush 43 was governor when the clock ran out and figured letting her off easy wasn't the right thing to do. Besides he had a presidential election on the line, as our execution chronicler observed. He may be a little left of center, but he's honest. He observed the same thing when discussing the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, where Bush 43 let events take a course. In any case he could have done nothing more than offer a 30-day stay, and whether he could have asked the parole board to recommend clemency - and whether it would have done so - is unknown. But asking could have been injurious to his political aspirations. While Bush as president was revealed to be yet another tool of the neocons and proceed to launch two-decade war that cost a million lives and a few trillion the country cannot afford. Slick Willie pulled a similar stunt when campaigning for president in 1992. The fact is he would have lost no matter what he did had not Ross Perot sucked up almost 20% of the vote, but had not Bush 41 not been like his son a tool of elitists he would have had a pretty good shot even with Perot in the mix. But Bubba couldn't know how much damage the crazy man from Texas would do, so no opportunity to show he was just as tough on crime as any Republican would be lost. So he made certain that not only was a brain-damaged man put to death on schedule but he made a big show of it. While both of the Bushes are worthy of scorn, Clinton is far worse both as a tool of the demonic cabal dedicated to the absolute destruction of he Republic. And his private behavior is not only reprehensible but is not juse white trash, it's something most white trash would be ashamed of. And of course the Clintons are far more dangerous to be friends with. Our unknown scribe did not go into the merits of arguments for or against clemency for either of the two who were done away with. Rector is a rather pathetic figure, apparently not very bright and with some behavioral issues. After he lobotomized himself in an unsuccessful suicide attempt before his arrest. Later the Supreme court would rule that people who aren't capable of understanding why they're being killed (or in this case even that they are being killed) cannot be put to death. Unfortunately for Mr. Rector he was on the wrong side of the ledger - Bubba would have commuted his sentence in a heartbeat if it had been to his political advantage. The degree to which the dim base is indoctrinated is clear in the reaction of a sibling of the executed man, stating that she disapproved of what Bubba had done but would still vote for him again. Tucker is less problematical, as she was a apparently by choice a thoroughly unpleasant person. Indeed the main reason she became a cause célèbre was her conversion to Christianity after her arrest. Like that's never happened before. Real or good acting it made no difference in the end. My own opposition to capital punishment is not philosophical but practical. No doubt some people commit crimes so awful that they should not be permitted to live as a matter of principle, not to mention the potential threat to innocent people should they ever be at liberty again. Both are good arguments, seeing as how I agree with them. But a society that has proven itself incapable of and worse unwilling to administer justice fairly should not be allowed to end the lives of human beings in the name of justice. And as even in the heyday of judicial killing the practice was never evenhanded as it became less common the wrongful executions as a percentage of the whole became even more egregious. Sadly the society that can not apply justice properly will not do the one thing that would both punish the worst offenders and prevent them from killing again and many of those who oppose capital punishment would oppose it as well. Incarcerating the offenders for life without any possibility whatsoever of being at liberty again while reducing the cost of incarceration would punish them (minimalist supermax, no amenities, mattress on a bare floor and a bucket, hosedown once a week, subsistence food) but such treatment would be decried as cruel and unusual just as capital punishment is. If an innocent person were to be punished thus and later found to be innocent they could have at least some of their life and appropriate compensation would lessen the harm. When they're dead it's too late for even that. Our unnamed scribe has stated that he has no position on it and is merely documenting it. I am definitely opposed to it. I was conditioned from birth to believe otherwise by, as I said, a naive older generation. They were more innocent as well, and the world in general was not as depraved as it seems to be now. Including the nation that was once the last best hope for mankind. Last updated: Saturday 3 February 2024 19:18:02 1707009482 |
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