I was mixed on use of the death penalty for some time. Reading about someone like John Wayne Gacy or others who really are completely beyond the pale, you have to wonder if society is better off just culling them from the pool, to absolutely eliminate any influence they might have, even from behind bars. Yet, the ability of the State to take human life is one that is ominous in the extreme.

What finally solidified my opinion was something I heard on NPR a couple of years ago. It was a radio documentary about execution, in death-happy Texas, I believe. It followed the entire final process of an execution, spoke to the guards and the families. As each person fulfilled their proscribed part of the ritual, you could see the cold horror. These were men acting not in the inflamed rage or anger or madness of the offender, it was quiet and, well, volitional. The guards and escorts suffer from nightmares and psychological aftereffects. the doctors act in a way that is pposed to everythingthey have learned. And no one person is required to take responsibility.

To gather together to kill a man is wrong, just wrong. It is not the best of humanity, it is the most superstitious and primal.

Now, if someone destroyed my children, I would spend the rest of my life with visions of terrible retribution but it is the role of the community to encourage the best of what a human can achieve.

On Sep't 11, America could have been a model of this ideal. Bush could have exhorted us first to grasp hands with our neighbors, to come together in community and do good to each other in return for this pain. The trumpet of vengence could have been set down with the assurance of seeking justice, not retribution.

RE: Executed Offenders - My thoughts on the death penalty.