On humane executions and other oxymorons…
So the state has decided to halt the planned execution of Morales, being unable to find anesthesiologists willing to play the part of government-sponsored murderers. We stand proudly unique among the “developed” nations in our trifecta of state-sanctioned murder, no national health care and rampant gun use. Occasionally we have partners in one of the three, such as Japan in the death penalty or Switzerland in the gun nut deal (and I'll take my chances with the Swiss on guns), but we are the kings of the barbaric triple play.
How odd that we try to prettify death. I think we were a lot more honest about the blood lust when we had public hangings and invited the young ones to come along and observe. It’s been said that no one who worked in a slaughterhouse would eat beef or pork again. I know that isn’t true, being acquainted with a fellow who told me about working in a pigslaughter facility as he chowed down on a BLT, but I think for many of us that would be the case. My philosophy? Ask yourself what you could personally kill and eat only that. For me, right now, it’s poultry and fish. Not pleasant at all, but there are levels of sentience. However, I think it’s a way station for me on the road to a no-kill zone. I had been eating “humanely raised and slaughtered” beef and pork for a while, but on a road trip back from Ashland saw a calf frolicking delightedly in a large sweeping field and it hit me: That calf is at least as aware as my brainless black lab, Duke, so what’s the distinction? Of course, in some cultures they don’t make the distinction, and we are horrified. What kind of barbarians can eat dogs, we exclaim, as we munch on our grass-fed, free-roaming Niman Ranch.
In the same vein, we are horrified at the barbarism of the Islamo-fascist beheadings, as we neatly pump our victims with a 3 drug cocktail, safely out of view, or drop smart bombs from 3000 feet on a distancing black and white video screen, so we don't see the carnage on the ground, or simply turn the other cheek as our multinationals aid and abet the most vile treatment all over Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. I am glad that the judge called the state (us) on our shit vis-a-vis the Morales murder. Camus still has the best essay on capital punishment I have ever read, “reflections on the guillotine.” In it he argues that the only way that execution is a deterrent is if one is able to hold the freshly severed bloody head in front of the potential murderer as he is about to commit the vile homicide. Even then…as for the standard boilerplate “but wouldn’t you want to kill someone who killed your family member?” the question that flummoxed a flu-ridden and too programmed Dukakis. OF COURSE I WOULD! I would want to tear the son of a bitch in half. However, I know rationally that would not bring my family member back, and fess up: How many of you have had momentary homicidal urges toward the prick who cut you off on the highway, or screwed you over for a job promotion? One of the ways we have allegedly evolved past fossil brain status is that we don’t act on our immediate emotional impulses to wreak havoc for every imaginary (or real) wrong. We have, all too imperfectly since W is in power instead of behind bars for war crimes, drawn up a system of laws to deal.
I think, as we watch manipulated forms of mass insanity such as embassy burnings over cartoons, entire demographics played like marionettes on such faux issues as gay marriage and such, that the least we can do is not have the state in the business of murder. Am I an absolutist? Of course not. If I had the chance and I were brave enough, I would have taken out Hitler. Not sure it would have changed the culture of noxious anti-semitic hate that had grown, plague-like in Germany ever since Martin Luther started the whole deal, but it might have. That is justifiable self-defense. A dude locked in max security for life is no threat to anyone, so at that point, all we are doing is revenge killings, and that, as they say, leaves the whole world blind.
So you go, Judge Fogel. There is no way, barring medical intervention, to guarantee an execution that does not bring excruciating physical pain, and I think torture is supposed to be barred under the Geneva convention (though W and Cheney differ.) Since our doctors are increasingly refusing to be drafted as our modern day Mengeles, let’s just be honest about it, have public beheadings and leave the severed skulls on pikes as warnings to trasngressors. Burgers, anyone?
How odd that we try to prettify death. I think we were a lot more honest about the blood lust when we had public hangings and invited the young ones to come along and observe. It’s been said that no one who worked in a slaughterhouse would eat beef or pork again. I know that isn’t true, being acquainted with a fellow who told me about working in a pigslaughter facility as he chowed down on a BLT, but I think for many of us that would be the case. My philosophy? Ask yourself what you could personally kill and eat only that. For me, right now, it’s poultry and fish. Not pleasant at all, but there are levels of sentience. However, I think it’s a way station for me on the road to a no-kill zone. I had been eating “humanely raised and slaughtered” beef and pork for a while, but on a road trip back from Ashland saw a calf frolicking delightedly in a large sweeping field and it hit me: That calf is at least as aware as my brainless black lab, Duke, so what’s the distinction? Of course, in some cultures they don’t make the distinction, and we are horrified. What kind of barbarians can eat dogs, we exclaim, as we munch on our grass-fed, free-roaming Niman Ranch.
In the same vein, we are horrified at the barbarism of the Islamo-fascist beheadings, as we neatly pump our victims with a 3 drug cocktail, safely out of view, or drop smart bombs from 3000 feet on a distancing black and white video screen, so we don't see the carnage on the ground, or simply turn the other cheek as our multinationals aid and abet the most vile treatment all over Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. I am glad that the judge called the state (us) on our shit vis-a-vis the Morales murder. Camus still has the best essay on capital punishment I have ever read, “reflections on the guillotine.” In it he argues that the only way that execution is a deterrent is if one is able to hold the freshly severed bloody head in front of the potential murderer as he is about to commit the vile homicide. Even then…as for the standard boilerplate “but wouldn’t you want to kill someone who killed your family member?” the question that flummoxed a flu-ridden and too programmed Dukakis. OF COURSE I WOULD! I would want to tear the son of a bitch in half. However, I know rationally that would not bring my family member back, and fess up: How many of you have had momentary homicidal urges toward the prick who cut you off on the highway, or screwed you over for a job promotion? One of the ways we have allegedly evolved past fossil brain status is that we don’t act on our immediate emotional impulses to wreak havoc for every imaginary (or real) wrong. We have, all too imperfectly since W is in power instead of behind bars for war crimes, drawn up a system of laws to deal.
I think, as we watch manipulated forms of mass insanity such as embassy burnings over cartoons, entire demographics played like marionettes on such faux issues as gay marriage and such, that the least we can do is not have the state in the business of murder. Am I an absolutist? Of course not. If I had the chance and I were brave enough, I would have taken out Hitler. Not sure it would have changed the culture of noxious anti-semitic hate that had grown, plague-like in Germany ever since Martin Luther started the whole deal, but it might have. That is justifiable self-defense. A dude locked in max security for life is no threat to anyone, so at that point, all we are doing is revenge killings, and that, as they say, leaves the whole world blind.
So you go, Judge Fogel. There is no way, barring medical intervention, to guarantee an execution that does not bring excruciating physical pain, and I think torture is supposed to be barred under the Geneva convention (though W and Cheney differ.) Since our doctors are increasingly refusing to be drafted as our modern day Mengeles, let’s just be honest about it, have public beheadings and leave the severed skulls on pikes as warnings to trasngressors. Burgers, anyone?
posted by Michael Zilber at 10:35 AM
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