Death Penalty Moratorium -- an idea whose time has come.
A proposed worldwide moratorium on the Death Penalty is an idea whose time has come. The Death Penalty is a penalty in which justice is not served because there is too much of a chance that an innocent person might have been killed. This country, to its shame, is one of only 25 countries around the world in which the Death Penalty is carried out.
There have been hundreds of innocent people who have been wrongly convicted of their crimes; there are entire groups in this country that specialize in overturning wrongful convictions.
And there are other problems with the Death Penalty as well. One is that it is cruel and unusual punishment. Many times, the person being put to death feels pain. And there is the matter of Saddam -- regardless of the fact that he was a monster who deserved justice for his numerous crimes, the fact of the matter is that he was put to death by a lynch-style mob.
Too often, the Death Penalty is about revenge and not about justice. Yet if we are to believe the Bible -- the very book that the right-wingers rely on -- the fact of the matter is that we are not to rely on revenge to satisfy our needs. Revenge leads to a vicious cycle in which parties feel a desire to get even with the other person.
Way back when, people realized that there was a better way than just trying to take revenge on other people. They turned to people that were respected on both sides to judge between them. That was the sort of thing that led to the formation of governments and courts. Even today, the concept is still maintained in law-abiding countries; it is not always the most experienced lawyer who is elected judge, but the person who is the most respected in the community.
And using the government as an instrument of revenge instead of an instrument of justice is exactly the sort of thing that leads down to the breakdown of society and the breakdown of the rule of law. When judges and governments rule on personal whim instead of the rule of law, people respect the rule of law less and less; the logical extreme of this is failed states like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obamathon
