Death Penalty? Why?
Zacarias Massaoui admitted to everything we said he had done. He was part of the team of terrorists working on crashing commercial aircraft into buildings, and his target was to have been the White House. Whether or not you think that would have been any real disaster based on the man who called it home at the time, the building is of historical value. That said, we should not execute Massaoui.
Let's clear the air right now. I don't support the death penalty, though death penalty proponents would do well to get behind me in this case. No, it's not because Europe, most notably Massasoui's home country of France, is opposed to the death penalty, especially for people who are citizens of countries other than those carrying out the sentence. Nope. No, my reason is rather different, and perhaps more mean-spirited.
Massaoui, following in the tradition of the order originally called assassins, probably believes that if he dies because of his commission of (or attempt to commit) an act of violence against the enemies of Islam (as defined by his hash connection, if we wish to make a joke about the original order), he will go to heaven and be rewarded with all the pleasures he could want: women, drugs, fine food, etc.
By refusing to execute Massaoui, we stick him in a prison cell. And while he could probably get his drugs, and perhaps a few men to treat as women, he's not going to get the food, the clothes, the palatial quarters. By choosing imprisonment over execution, we deny Massaoui that which he was promised for his part in all of this. Think I'm nuts? Why, then, would he confess to everything with no expectation of leniency and no deal in place? What? He wanted to save the taxpayers money? After all, the 9/11 attacks were all about saving the U.S. economy. Let's see this confession for what it is—Massaoui's best shot at getting to the good part quickly—and mete out the punishment that will most hurt: life in prison.
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 10:15 PM
5 Comments:
you blog is displaying weirdly on my computer. doing something to it?
Detail is important. Is it re-arranging things? Putting in huge gaps? Appearing in god-awful blues and greys?
Well, some people think that the death penalty should be imposed for things done, and not for some pragmatic reason. I does not matter what he wants, he should pay for whatever he did. Your argument should not sway people who have this premise. From what I gather that is the majority, and this being a somewhat democratic coutry, we should defer to the will of the people on some points, this one is a prime example. There is always an alternative argument. Oooh, dare I say a better one. I do. So no getting behind the Andrew in this case ;;)
I have seen, in the last year, studies that show majorities for both sides of the issue, so I am a little dubious of claims by either side that it has the majority of support by Americans. The one thing they do show is that more states, though generally less populous ones, support the death penalty. New York and California, both death penalty states, seem unable to make up their minds.
My point was merely this: if we want to punish someone, which ostensibly is the purpose of the death penalty, then we would do better to deny this man the joy of his death. To kill him because we can and because we want revenge shows more barbarism than civilization, and I would hate to think that our blood lust has risen so far that we would sink that far. Then again, my suggestion may be demonstrate more cruelty.
actually, it's displaying weirdly on all the computers i've been using. which are all PCs, should that have anything to do with it.
detail: text is spread out across the whole screen, there are no division fields. some text is cut off and i have to horizontal scroll to read whole lines. also, your profile info (which i used to see on the right side of the display,) is no longer visible at all.
is it just me?
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