Justice Antonin Scalia was once quoted as saying, "Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached." When I read that, I tried to imagine a context in which that statement wouldn't seem so obscene. I failed.
When Troy Davis' execution was stayed yesterday, while the Supreme Court deliberated his fate, I didn't hold out much hope. Justice Scalia's statement is only one of the many reasons why.
There was another execution yesterday. Lawrence Brewer was put to death in Texas for the murder of James Byrd Jr. I don't believe he should have been put to death, either. Not because there was any doubt about his guilt. There wasn't.
It was, in fact, one of the most heinous crimes I've ever read about. Testimony showed Brewer, John William King, and Shawn Berry, offered Byrd, 49, a ride in Berry's pickup June 7, 1998. Byrd wound up bound by his ankles with a heavy 24-foot logging chain attached to the bumper, bouncing from side to side as he desperately tried to limit his injuries by lifting himself. At a sharp left curve in the road, he whipsawed to the right and struck a concrete culvert, which decapitated him.
A pathologist testified that Byrd had been alive until that point.
I must admit that I won't lose sleep over the execution of brewer, but I'm still against the death penalty. In this case, for a different reason. Some people will never be dead enough. And there are things in this world worse than death. Life in prison is one of them.
But my main reasoning is that the taking of a life is the ultimate crime, the ultimate selfishness. There's no coming back from it, no way to make it right if a mistake is made.
So, a State that would sanction such a thing can, in no way, call itself civilized. You would think such simple logic would be self-evident. Apparently not.
Rememberance
I told myself that I wouldn't write a 9/11 post. There are certainly those more
What changed my mind was talking to some of the kids I work with. They're all college-aged, and most hadn't even completed their first decade of existence in 2001. They don't really see what the big deal is. To them, those deaths are as remote as any other they hear about in the news. I can't really blame them for that. It's impossible to feel a sense of loss for something one has never experienced. They have no idea what life was like before 9/11, anymore than I have any idea what it was like before Pearl Harbor, or Hiroshima.
Like most, I remember that day vividly. Though, to some, it seems like yesterday. To me, it seems like a million years ago - Another lifetime. In truth, I suppose it was.
I was living in a small town in northern Arizona. As it happened, I had stayed home sick from work that day. I was about to become much more ill. I'd gone back to bed after calling in sick to work, and was in that place between wakefulness and sleep, when you're not sure whether you're either. My wife decided to stay up and make coffee.
I thought I heard my wife's voice repeating, "Oh, God no." Something in her voice - fear, shock, grief, and something that to this day I can't put a name to - brought me fully awake. I walked into the living room, and saw my wife standing there, frozen, in front of the TV. I noticed the TV just in time to see video of the plane hitting the first tower. That video, among others, seemed to play on an endless loop during the course of the day.
It took a few seconds. There was a disconnect between what I was seeing, and my mind's desperate attempt to find some other - any other - explanation for it.
We sat on the couch, barely speaking. Barely breathing. We watched as the second plane hit, then the Pentagon, then flight 93. We watched as people waved from smoking windows. Then as some of them fell, choosing their fate, rather than having it chosen for them. Then, as the towers themselves fell. It seemed like things were snowballing out of control. I wasn't worried for our own safety. After all, what self-respecting terrorist would attack Chino Valley, AZ?
I remember the sound of my wife crying. A combination of empathy, a pretty good imagination, and the flu, caused me to retreat into the bathroom a couple of times to throw up. But I wasn't angry. Not yet.
It was about mid-afternoon, and the news was showing people on the streets - relatives and friends of those missing, pictures of their loved ones in hand, desperately searching. The looks on their faces was heart-wrenching, and haunt me to this day. I was angry, and I wanted justice for them.
No, that's wrong. I wanted vengeance. I wanted them all dead. I wanted to see their collective heads on a pike. My rage was such that it wouldn't let me even ask who "they" were.
I had heard Osama Bin Laden's name before. I'd even felt sympathy for the way we left him hanging during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Our foreign policy is consistent, if nothing else. What sympathy I had, evaporated with the attack on the USS Cole.
I understand their anger, even their hatred of us. The rage I felt for a relatively short time has been theirs for a lifetime. And it would have been so easy to hate them, coming from a culture foreign, alien, and of which I had little knowledge.
For most of the people on this planet, life is hard, brutal, and short. As Americans, we've been spared many of the horrors that others face daily. Though, I fear those times are coming to an end. There are those in this country who believe that we have some sort of divine right to a risk-free existence, as if there were truly such a thing, or should be. The irony is, that these same people are the ones putting what safety and security we do have, at risk. They do this by their revisionist history (or as I like to put it, lying), and vilification of the ideals that made this country great. They would have it replaced with a sort of corporate theocracy - their twisted vision of utopia.
As I lie awake in bed that night, I worried about how we would respond as a nation, and how it would change us. Some things ended up being worse than the scenarios that were going through my head.
Three months after 9/11, my mother died. Two weeks after that, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. We lost him 6 months later. The next few years are covered in my last post. Suffice to say that, for me, 9/11 didn't end until around 2007.
I know that evil exists. I've seen it. But I still believe that, as hard as life is, most people are decent, and good, and just trying to do the best they can. And that's what I hold onto.
Pardon Me
I have a bit of a confession to make. About 10 years ago, I had a drug problem. It progressed as one might expect, and, as a result, I ended up a convicted felon. Stop for a moment, and think about those last two words. I'm betting that, without even a thought, they evoked an immediate negative response. It's not your fault. We've been conditioned to respond that way, myself included. The problem is, in a society where just about every human endeavor carries with it a zero-tolerance policy, it takes relatively little to become a felon.
When I first got out of prison, I was curious as to how I would be welcomed back into society, if at all. So, I posted my background (anonymously, of course) on a number of internet forums. I tried to make them as varied as possible. I wrote that I'd recently gotten released from prison for drug possession, and that I'd done 2½ years for what the state deemed a "non-dangerous, non-repetitive" crime.
The responses I got were, for the most part, negative. I expected that. I did commit a crime, after all. Though, in my defense, I can honestly say that I never committed any of the crimes usually associated with drug use (theft, fraud, domestic violence, and the like).
What I didn't expect was the level of venom associated with those negative responses. Up to, and including, death threats (posted anonymously, of course). What I learned from it was that, by and large, most believe that my debt to society will never be fully paid. That even my small trespass warrants a lifetime of second-class citizenship, no matter how well I live my life from here on.
So, I've come to accept that because of my mistakes, there will be certain things I will never have in this life.
I'll never have a job that will pay enough for me to own my own home, or retire, or have anything other than basic first aid as health care. I won't be able to buy my right to vote back, or own a firearm. (on that point, the only thing that would make me consider owning a firearm is the complete collapse of civilization, in which case, having permission to do so would be moot).
I've resigned myself to spending the rest of my days doing menial work in one service industry or another. So be it. In the scheme of things, I still have it better than most of the people on this planet, whose lives are often hard, brutal, and short. So, if I'm to serve, I'll endeavor to do it well.
Back in the days of sailing ships, if a sailor was found guilty of some transgression, the punishment was usually swift and severe. But afterward, when the 40 lashes, or whatever were done with, he was once again a member of the crew, and the incident was never spoken of again. It was simple economics, of course. There were a finite number of able-bodied men aboard ship, so they were of value. Now, there are more of us. So many, in fact, that even the best of us are considered inherently expendable.
So, I have a question for those of you who would wish me, and those like me, dead; Those for whom the claim of good citizenship is marked by the simple ability to follow orders. What happens when there are more of us, than there are of you?
Yeah, I don't know, either.
The responses I got were, for the most part, negative. I expected that. I did commit a crime, after all. Though, in my defense, I can honestly say that I never committed any of the crimes usually associated with drug use (theft, fraud, domestic violence, and the like).
What I didn't expect was the level of venom associated with those negative responses. Up to, and including, death threats (posted anonymously, of course). What I learned from it was that, by and large, most believe that my debt to society will never be fully paid. That even my small trespass warrants a lifetime of second-class citizenship, no matter how well I live my life from here on.
So, I've come to accept that because of my mistakes, there will be certain things I will never have in this life.
I'll never have a job that will pay enough for me to own my own home, or retire, or have anything other than basic first aid as health care. I won't be able to buy my right to vote back, or own a firearm. (on that point, the only thing that would make me consider owning a firearm is the complete collapse of civilization, in which case, having permission to do so would be moot).
I've resigned myself to spending the rest of my days doing menial work in one service industry or another. So be it. In the scheme of things, I still have it better than most of the people on this planet, whose lives are often hard, brutal, and short. So, if I'm to serve, I'll endeavor to do it well.
Back in the days of sailing ships, if a sailor was found guilty of some transgression, the punishment was usually swift and severe. But afterward, when the 40 lashes, or whatever were done with, he was once again a member of the crew, and the incident was never spoken of again. It was simple economics, of course. There were a finite number of able-bodied men aboard ship, so they were of value. Now, there are more of us. So many, in fact, that even the best of us are considered inherently expendable.
So, I have a question for those of you who would wish me, and those like me, dead; Those for whom the claim of good citizenship is marked by the simple ability to follow orders. What happens when there are more of us, than there are of you?
Yeah, I don't know, either.
Infinitely Perfect
When someone asks me why I don't believe in God, my response is usually, "It's not that I don't believe in God, per se. I never even got to the point of not believing in Him". There are a couple of other things I don't believe in, which, to me, precludes His existence.
I don't believe in perfection. In half a century of existence, I've never seen an example of it. Nothing is perfect, nor should it be. Back when Persia was still called that, the rugmakers would weave one deliberate mistake into each rug on the principle that only God could make something perfect. Hence the term, Persian Flaw. But the universe, by it very nature, is imperfect. Perfection is what existed before the universe -- except that the words, "existed" and "before" really don't apply. Let me try again. Perfection is nothingness. In the absolute. An absence of both the light and the dark. So, if God exists, it's a good bet he's no fun at parties.
You can probably guess the second item. Forever. I don't believe in infinity. Again, no example to be seen anywhere in nature. It's apparent from the previous paragraph that I believe that the universe began at some point. This belief is not borne of faith. I believe it because I can do just enough math for it to become apparent to me. Everything that begins, ends. So too will the universe one day. In about 5 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will come crashing into the Milky Way. It would be a great light show on Earth. Of course our sun will be well into old age, becoming a red giant and enveloping Mercury, Venus, perhaps even earth, which will have been uninhabitable for millions of years by that point.
Besides, think about the afterlife. It might be fun for a few hundred years, maybe even a thousand. But even another plane of existence would begin to wear on one if it resembled this one too closely. In order to make it different enough, we'd have to evolve into something as different from us, as we are from the atoms we are made of. You can't think 11-dimensional thoughts with a three-dimensional brain, after all. In essence, the very same thing as death. Though, in this case, I think the simpler explanation prevails.
I don't believe in perfection. In half a century of existence, I've never seen an example of it. Nothing is perfect, nor should it be. Back when Persia was still called that, the rugmakers would weave one deliberate mistake into each rug on the principle that only God could make something perfect. Hence the term, Persian Flaw. But the universe, by it very nature, is imperfect. Perfection is what existed before the universe -- except that the words, "existed" and "before" really don't apply. Let me try again. Perfection is nothingness. In the absolute. An absence of both the light and the dark. So, if God exists, it's a good bet he's no fun at parties.
You can probably guess the second item. Forever. I don't believe in infinity. Again, no example to be seen anywhere in nature. It's apparent from the previous paragraph that I believe that the universe began at some point. This belief is not borne of faith. I believe it because I can do just enough math for it to become apparent to me. Everything that begins, ends. So too will the universe one day. In about 5 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy will come crashing into the Milky Way. It would be a great light show on Earth. Of course our sun will be well into old age, becoming a red giant and enveloping Mercury, Venus, perhaps even earth, which will have been uninhabitable for millions of years by that point.
Besides, think about the afterlife. It might be fun for a few hundred years, maybe even a thousand. But even another plane of existence would begin to wear on one if it resembled this one too closely. In order to make it different enough, we'd have to evolve into something as different from us, as we are from the atoms we are made of. You can't think 11-dimensional thoughts with a three-dimensional brain, after all. In essence, the very same thing as death. Though, in this case, I think the simpler explanation prevails.
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