CSotD: Standing our shaky ground
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If the guy in Oklahoma had actually been named "Fred Botched," I don't think we'd be seeing the phrase "Botched execution" any more often than we have.
But the debacle may indeed have finally brought the practice of killing people on purpose to the forefront, and it's been interesting to see the near-unanimity of commentary across the political spectrum.
Here's a mere sample of much more that is out there:
I'm not including those who oppose the death penalty for fear of executing an innocent person, because that's kind of beside the point. If that's your best argument against the death penalty, then the death penalty itself is not really a moral issue for you.
"Cruel and unusual" should cover the morality of the issue, in a world in which very, very few countries still kill people as punishment and, as Clay Jones and Mike Keefe note, the ones that do are rarely held up as models of morality and good government.
Though I wouldn't expect that argument to prevail at the Supreme Court, where they feel the original intent of the Founders was that a "well-regulated militia" means "a bunch of people who don't belong to an actual militia and who explicitly renounce the very notion of abiding by regulations."
We really can't expect them to feel that "unusual" could have possibly been intended to mean "unlike most others."
I haven't come across any cartoons defending the death penalty, but neither have I looked for them. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some, because anyone who knows that the pointy end of the pencil is the part that makes marks on paper can draw a cartoon. But there's a substantial difference between doing that and having clients who look forward to publishing your work.
For that matter, I'm sure there are newspapers declining to use any of these, because they are pro-death penalty. For them, there is a new flood of "Omigod Benghazi" cartoons coming in that they can choose from instead.
(My theory on Benghazi, by the way, is that Vince Foster, having recovered from his wounds, was hiding in the consulate clutching Obama's Kenyan birth certificate and NASA's records from the faked moon landing. We need to get to the bottom of this coverup before the 2014 elections.)
I have seen some chatter on the Intertubes about how, since the victim suffered, it's okay that the convict suffered, which is a pretty stark reminder of why we have laws in the first place. A lot of those other nations that still kill people as punishment also have a problem with ongoing, ever-escalating vendettas and other forms of crowd-sourced justice.
Moral arguments fail with those who see "vengeance" and "justice" as synonymous. It is futile to point out to them that the oft-quoted "an eye for an eye" was intended to limit, not specify, punishment, though admittedly that rule is not a lot of help in a murder case anyway, since it permits death for death.
Neither can you quote "Thou shalt not kill" unless you are willing to ignore the rest of the book in which it occurs, since it meant "thou shalt not kill other members of the group, except in the situations elsewhere discussed, but you certainly should kill other people."
That really isn't much of a prohibition, particularly in a society that views their own racial minorities as "other."
There is, of course, the one time Jesus Christ addressed the topic, at which time he declared that none of us has the moral standing to be inflicting the death penalty on anybody, but one hallmark of modern Christianity is the worship of Bizarro Jesus who said everything backwards and expected his followers to interpret his words in that context.
The Eleventh Commandment: "Do as was done to me, not as I said."
On a considerably lighter note
Ray Billingsley gets in a bit of synchronicity with today's Curtis, which happens to fall on Free Comic Book Day.
Today, comic book stores will be setting out stacks of free sampler comics, some of which are promotional and lame but many of which are quite good. I've even picked up some hardbound comics on Free Comic Book Day, which makes sense given that the goal is to show the public what you've got.
There's usually a good selection, with kids comics as well as action titles, though I continue to wish that kids' comics were priced for kids' allowances and available on spinner racks at the grocery store rather than expensive and confined to specialty shops.
But that's a losing battle, and it would be enough of a victory in our town for the guys to break off their "Magic the Gathering" conversation long enough to chat with the kids who come in, much less actually stock tomorrow the kid-friendly titles they'll be giving away today.
However, your mileage is extremely likely to vary on that count, and, if nothing else, it's the one day a year when you really can get a comic book that, 30 years from now, will be worth four or five times what you paid for it. Or a thousand times more. You do the math.
In any case, I'll go down there and pick up some for myself and some for the grandkids.
To read, not to collect.
I'll wait for free Beanie Baby Day or Free Tulip Bulb Day to round up some investment-grade collectibles.
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