I’ve been wrestling with my views on Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams and whether he should be granted clemency. It’s been a tough call for me.<\/p>\n
I’ve come to be generally opposed to the death penalty. Why?<\/p>\n
Two reasons.<\/p>\n
One is simple: to kill someone in cold blood…not in the heat of defense or battle…seems to me to be simply inhumane. The deliberateness and spectacle of it contradict much of what I believe I would be willing to fight to defend about our society.<\/p>\n
The other is simple as well: the justice system is deeply flawed. It doesn’t make sense to make irrevocable decisions using a system as imperfect as ours – even if it is likely to be better than anyone else’s.
\nOn the other hand – there’s always another hand – I’d have no qualms seeing Saddam executed. Or Hitler. <\/p>\n
It’s not to prevent recidivism; it’s not likely that the 1950’s would have presented Hitler much chance to retake the reins of power in Germany. <\/p>\n
It’s because certain acts are so far beyond what we can and should accept that they deserve some special, significant sanction. It’s not because I believe that vengeance should be served, or blood repaid; Saddam could never – not if he were tortured unimaginably for decades – repay the debt that he’s incurred.<\/p>\n
It’s a way of setting up boundary stones at the edges of our human culture. You and me, over here. Saddam, Hitler, over there. Ted Bundy…over there as well, I’d say.<\/p>\n
There are criminals whose crimes are so great, and whose guilt is adequately certain, that I’d probably put them on the other side of the markers as well.<\/p>\n
Not ordinary criminals; not the ordinary stickup-gone-bad killer, or the sullen wife murderer. Not even the glassy-eyed killer of one’s own child.<\/p>\n
But the extraordinary criminals. The truly evil.<\/p>\n
And, I have to say, I’d put Tookie in that camp, which puts him on the far side of the marker, and scheduled for the table, restraints, and sharp needle.<\/p>\n
Not because of the four people he killed in cheap stickups, and mocked to his friends afterward.<\/p>\n
Those were cheap crimes, and not worthy of more than a locked door and a forgotten man behind it.<\/p>\n
Because of the twenty thousand young black men (and women) who died in the gang wars he helped trigger.<\/p>\n
For that crime, he should pay.<\/p>\n
It may well be that if Tookie hadn’t come along, the social conditions would have given that role to someone else.<\/p>\n
And if someone else had bought Sierra DOS, Bill Gates would be an upper-middle class techie.<\/p>\n
Yes, he’s written books, and lectured. I’ve read them, and read his work. And I’ve listened for the voice of redemption in it, and not heard it.<\/p>\n
He may be redeemed; I hope he is. But he’s still on the wrong side of the boundary marker. His redemption is a matter for him and whatever God he may accept, not for the powers of this world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Armed Liberal thinks “Tookie” Williams should be executed – for the twenty thousand murders where he did not pull the trigger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}