PENN-sieve

The news wire reports that Saddam Hussein will be executed by Sunday and I can't help but feel a little sad. No, I don't feel sad for Saddam; I feel sad for the world. Two seconds after he is killed, the world won't be a better place. It still won't be better in a week or in a month. His death will not bring back the people he is responsible for murdering; it will not repair the lives he destroyed; it will not bring peace to the middle east; and it won't bring our soldiers home sooner. His death serves the world no purpose.

I struggle with the concept of the death penalty not from a humanitarian perspective but from one focused on the concept of vengeance and the additional damage done to those left behind. After Mandy was killed, I know I thought about her murderer being put to death but that was more because I wanted to see someone else feel that pain that my friend felt, to avenge those who were wronged. I remember when Timothy McVeigh was executed and they interviewed a father of one of the Oklahoma bombing victims. The father cried because he thought his life would change once McVeigh was gone, but it didn't, and all of that anger that he had built up had no where else to go after the execution.

Saddam, Timothy McVeigh, and Valentine Underwood do not deserve to live in this world of love, hope, and prosperity - that's why we have prisons. If there was a way for their deaths to bring back the innocent, I'd be all supportive but more important than them deserving to live is the belief that they do not deserve to die. They should not be allowed to escape this world and the consequences of their actions. They do not deserve to move on to whatever is next before they have endless years to reflect on what they did.

"Barbarians. That's what we have become. We kill each other and instead of mourning the tragedy, we want the state to satisfy our bloodlust by killing the offender...we must learn to deal with these people in our midst - punish them, but do not become them."
-Posting to a Denver feedback forum, 1999-MAR-2

"As I read the New Testament, I don't see anywhere in there that killing bad people is a very high calling for Christians. I see an awful lot about redemption and forgiveness."
-James W.L. Park, former execution officer, San Quentin, California

"We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us: it offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life."
-Most Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza, President, National Conference of Catholic Bishops / U.S. Catholic Conference, 1999.