The health and security of our great nation
by Michael Maiello

Well, I sure feel better, safer, and more secure knowing that the state of Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker this evening. When I woke up this morning, I was a complete package of anxiety, worried about crime, the economy, and how racial and economic disparities have made this country a dangerous place. But I sure felt better when that woman died. Now I know the System works, and I'm more at ease than if I had taken a massage and sauna this afternoon.

I'm sure I'll feel the same when they get around to Tim McVeigh, and the guy that murdered Polly Klaas. I feel a bit anxious about the world at large, though. Maybe if they go to England and grab the girl from that Nanny case in Boston I'll be able to put aside my global anxieties as well.

I sure feel better now. Hell, I can't even keep up the sarcastic front. It was barbaric. Texas is barbaric. So is California, and so is New Mexico, and so is the damned federal government for sanctioning these executions. Aren't we ever going to grow up? The death penalty doesn't work. It doesn't deter crime, it doesn't make anyone happy or secure, and it doesn't even save money.

But we do it. Because it's easy. Not easy to do maybe, there's lots of litigation, time and money involved. But it's an easy answer to sell to a confused and scared public. It fits in nicely with our other stimuli. Kill the germs that cause bad breath. Wipe out bacteria on your kitchen counters. Call the Orkin man to exterminate the critters in your walls. People aren't insects or microbes, no matter what crimes they commit. But people don't buy that idea.

The argument against the death penalty is tragically more complex than the argument for it, so it's harder to sell in a campaign. Arguments for the death penalty come right out of our childhood. Hit the bully hard in the nose and he might think twice about taking your lunch money. Actions deserve swift and equal retribution.

The arguments against ask us to give up old comfortable beliefs. Forgive even the seeming unforgivable. It's an old idea. Buddha had it, Christ had it, and here the two are in perfect agreement. Why should we teach ourselves to forgive? Because it's better for us. This is the real victim's right. The victim has a right to choose not to be hurt further. Forgiveness is the only sure way to make that choice. So that the memory of past crimes don't taint our future existence.

We must redeem the seeming unredeemable. Because a redeemed person might still contribute to society. Those contributions don't erase past deeds, but they stand on their own as contributions.

No one's crying "free all the murderers." Life in prison keeps us just as safe. It also has an added advantage: the wrongly accused can be released in the event of a mistake. Society can attempt restitution to the wrongly imprisoned. But a mistaken death is permanent. Don't think it can happen? It happened to five people in Chicago at the early part of the century. They were falsely accused of throwing a bomb at police officers at a union rally. They never through the bomb. But Chicago felt it could do with five less communists. It's funny to me that conservatives most vehemently support the detach penalty. The supposed champions of small government and tort reform actually have faith that the courts and lawyers are infallible and will not put a single innocent to death.

We've had two major debates over the death penalty in the last year. First was Tim McVeigh. Then, Karla Faye Tucker. The debates ended with a scheduled execution, and one carried out.

Both were bad cases to base this argument on. McVeigh faced the anger of an entire nation, an anger which stifled any meaningful exchange of moral ideas. The Tucker case raised the issues of gender and religious conversion. History has taught us that women kill, and so do Christians. We debated the fairer sex and word of God while missing the essential question: should our society kill it's own?

We learned to hide things as children. A throw rug over some spilled punch, a book in front of a broken statue. Death is the ultimate hiding place. When we don't want to admit responsibility for creating a society which has produced murderers, we hide them. We put them where they will never be seen again.

I just don't feel any better over this. So I wonder why we do it, and how it really benefits the living.

Despite his entreaties, Michael Maiello is still ambivalent about laying waste to rats in the attic.

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