Death Penalty

The recent execution of Tookie Williams set me to thinking about the utility and cost of the practice. It took 25 years to finally do away with him, at an estimated cost of $1 million/year. (It may be less in less lawyer-infested States than California -- probably goes faster, too).

It is claimed by the execution-minded that the death penalty is a deterrant to further crime. This might be true if the execution were to happen within a reasonable time of the crime -- if a murderer, for instance, could expect to hang within a month of being caught and tried. But 25 YEARS?

Tookie Williams had more entertainment and better treatment from the whole world in the last 26 years of his life, than he did in the first 26. I submit that punks with shotguns that think of Tookie's sentence are going to laugh and say: "Bring it on, man!"

The way courts operate nowadays, the deterrance value of capital punishment is nil, and the cost is exhorbitant.

On the other hand, life imprisonment without possibility of parole is a WORSE punishment than death by hanging/frying/injection. The aforementioned punk with shotgun, aged 19 or 25, might just stop and think about living behind bars and electric fences for 30, 40, 60 years.

It costs the State of California about $40,000 per year to lock up an inmate -- but that is $960,000 a year less than it costs to pay lawyers to ram through a capital punishment case. Offing murderers legally just ain't cost-effective.

There are other issues here, too -- those of Justice and Morality.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the criminal "justice" system in the United States is heavily and unjustly biased toward the police and prosecution. The recent spate of prisoners turned loose after 20 or 40 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, and DNA evidence exculpating convicted "rapists" -- who didn't -- point up a real social problem.

It is very probable that we have executed not one, but several totally innocent people for crimes that they were framed for -- accused unjustly, and persecuted onto Death Row. American Jurisprudence is supposed to act on the principal of "Innocent until Proven Guilty" -- in actuality, it is more like "Guilty when accused, unless proven innocent by a high-priced lawyer." (By the way, it is no coincidence that most dialects of American English pronounce the words L*A*W*Y*E*R and L*I*A*R identically.)

Every year for the last 30 years, the FBI's statistical report on Crime in the US has shown that crime is _DE_creasing steadily. This is one of the judicially unintended consequences of Roe vs. Wade -- the young men who would be committing crimes in their late teens and 20s were simply never born.

The ideas of Nazi eugenics are alive and well -- in Planned Parenthood -- successfully this time. Given another half century, African-Americans will no longer be a measurable minority in the US.

Every year, for the past 30 years, the lawyers, the cops, the courts, and the media press their relentless campaign for MORE MONEY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT -- i.e. more tech toys to strip off what few civil liberties still exist. More money for more computers to collect data on every man, woman, and child. More money for the "War on Drugs".

It is fashionable now to hate, and to scream in public. Vengeance is mine, saith the persecuting attorney -- and the relatives of victims. The media encourages the screaming -- it makes good copy. Virtue and sobriety are boring.

It is immoral and depraved to rejoice at the death and suffering of another -- whatever the provocation.
Trumpeting over the execution of Tookie Williams is every bit the hyena's shreiking that marked the exaltation over the slaughter of David Pearl aired by al-Jazeerah. It is savagery and barbarism.

Catholic teaching supports capital punishment -- sort of. What it actually says is that it can be justified if no other way will serve to assure the safety of the public. In civilized countries (i.e. First World), one can be assured that a convicted criminal will serve his sentence, however long, and not simply be put back out in the street with an AK-47, as has been known to happen in some places. This leaves very little reason for any civilized country to continue with captial punishment.

The conscience of the Church -- notably led by the late Pope John Paul II -- is moving away from even the conditional approval which now prevails. It will move toward a complete opposition -- as it did towards slavery in the 19th Century.

So, there really remains no civilized, juridical, deterrent, or fiscal reason to continue the gruesome circus, where criminals are thrown to the ravening swine of the legal profession and the screaming jackals of the media, at taxpayer expense.

Enough, already!

"Churches" Closed On Christmas

The recent news that several of the sorta-Protestant mega-churches have decided not to open on Christmas day, because "...it takes 800 volunteers to service..." just serves to reinforce my perception that they are not really Christian in any meaningful sense. What they are is a mass-marketing "feel-good" operation.

I suppose that, after about 4 generations (~100 years) of relentless commercialization, that the religious aspects of Christmas have all worn off, and the only thing left is the party. For the past 50 years that I can remember, every Holiday season, as regular as clockwork, there have been adjurations from the Pulpit to "Put Christ back in Christmas!" and pious deploring of the tendency to spell it "Xmas".

Perhaps we who believe in Christianity should simply give up, and celebrate the "Feast of the Incarnation" instead. The Orthodox -- and various sects of Protestant blue-nosed wowsers -- deplore the name "Easter" for the other major Christian Holy Day, and prefer "Pascha" -- the Hebrew/Greek/Latin term.

The Christams Feast is the celebration of the Incarnation -- the ineffable and transcendant God pouring himself into human form -- sharing our suffering and mortality. As the Nicene Creed says: "I believe...in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven. And was made flesh by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. And on the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there shall be no end."

I don't know what kind of Gospel these mega-churches are preaching (if any), but obviously the concept of the Incaranation, and the clebration of it in communion with all the rest of Christendom is not a marketable concept. Which may help to explain the reported average stay in these churches by their target audience -- 18 months.

Crowd-pleasing whiz-bangs are amusing for about a year and a half,it seems, and then it's time to move on. And one has to admit that they are efficient machines for relieving their target audience from surplus cash -- if one credits the stories about senior "pastors" and 7-figure salaries, as well as their humongous edifices and high-tech audiovisual equipment.

I'm afraid I don't see Christ in these mega-money-machines -- only Elmer Gantry.