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Thou Shalt Not Kill

When I was growing up in the 60s, the United States didn’t have the death penalty. Only nasty, brutal countries like the Soviet Union and the racist South Africa killed people. That was Michigan, where they still don’t have the death penalty. Now I live in Ohio, a state where they think nothing of taking an hour and a half behind closed curtains to viciously execute a man while, the Columbus Dispatch reported, “moaning, crying out and guttural noises” could be heard by the witnesses. Joseph Clark, the man who was tortured to death in the execution gone bad, died after the second attempt to kill him.

Any doctor or medical personnel who takes part in cold blooded murder by the state should lose their license as a health care provider. Any doctor taking part in an execution is clearly violating the Hippocratic oath. Remember, it was the Nazis who brought us the medical injection for killing their own “defective” citizens. While the Nazis gassed Jews, gypsies and gays, they preferred the medical injection for their own German inferiors.

As governor, I will immediately call for a moratorium on the death penalty and commute all death penalty sentences to life in prison without parole. I pledge to also review all cases to make sure that no prisoners were railroaded and order DNA tests if possible when a plausible claim of true innocence is put forward.

I will also immediately fire Terry Collins, the Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections for drawing the curtains to hide the brutal nature of the botched execution he is responsible for. I take seriously the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Whether it be the 100,000 innocent civilians we’ve killed in Iraq or the men and women we murder on death row.

I believe the words of Joseph Clark are prophetic: “It don’t work.”

/by
3 replies
  2. Dave Kovacs
    Dave Kovacs says:

    A moratorium on the death penalty is long overdue, both in Ohio and in America.

    But, we live in a land where the bloodthirsty desire that some people have for revenge is catered to by politicians more often than any sense of right or wrong is considered.

  3. axinar
    axinar says:

    Actually I think I prefer the ancient Jewish interpretation that there is nothing inherently wrong with the Death Penalty, but any nation that would actually USE it more than twice in a century is inherently grievously savage.

    I generally go with this interpretation with a bit of a tweak – yes, there is a certain brand of scum out there capable of such unthinkable depravity that they DO deserve to be rendered down to nothing larger than a thumb …

    HOWEVER …

    I cannot think of a single mortal human with the depth of judgement sufficient to decide whether another should live or die.

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