White People Killing Black People
"It's what we do."
The Republican Mainstream:
1.) Mainstream Republicans Applaud Rick Perry’s Record Number of Executions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixMvyaZmcoQ By God, Perry even beat Dubyah's record. Here's "43" mocking born-again Karla Fae Tucker, the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War - http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/02/03/1998-karla-faye-tucker/)
2.) Mainstream Republicans cheer the death of uninsured Americans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irx_QXsJiao
3.) Herman Cain calls for electrocution of Mexicans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO-q5lI7618
How many "conservatives" qualify as human?
In my view, these neo-necrophiliac "cheerleaders" are beyond the pale.
FACT: In the last 13 years, while the number of executions has trended downward in the United States, so too has the murder rate. Currently, the U.S. murder rate is lower than it was in 1960 when capital punishment was standard procedure and "no one" opposed the practice - http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Broadly speaking, I discern two kinds of Americans: those who are fond of Old Testament morality, and those who are fond of New Testament morality.
Against this backdrop, capital punishment impresses me as the cultural debris of Antiquity - an anachronistic survival of Human Sacrifice.
Consider the following list of actions that require the death penalty in the Old Testament: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Actions_which_demand_the_death_penalty_in_the_Old_Testament (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21is illuminating. According to this requirement - more brutal than any Quranic sura, I know no one who wouldn't have been stoned to death by every adult in his community - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21%3A18-21&version=ERV
On the other hand, even the most aggressive interpreters of the Bible identify only 11 (questionable) instances in which the New Testament endorses Capital Punishment. Of these 11 instances, only two are found in the Gospels themselves, and in these 2 instances, my reading of the texts shows that Jesus is actually arguing against rigid adherence to The Law rather than supporting it as "conservatives" contend. (If you are interested in these 11 verses, I am posting them following Ben Sargent's cartoon. In approximate parallel to the 2 Gospel verses, Sargent seems to suggest that "Leon the Monster" deserves to be executed, while in the background, "the putative authorities" reveal themselves as the real monsters, killing with malice aforethought and teaching our young that violence is an admirable (and honorable) way to resolve conflict.
Death Penalty in the New Testament:
- And I heard the angel of the waters saying: "You are righteous, O Lord... because You have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due." Rev. 16:5-6
- And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. Rev. 11:5
- ...he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Rev. 13:10
- Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Rom. 12:19
- "For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar." Acts 25:11
- Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities... For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Rom. 13:1, 3
- For [the governing authority] is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Rom. 13:4
- Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies (present tense) without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot... Heb. 10:28-29 (A.A. Although "duelling bible verses" is a thankless enterprise, I marvel that Paul emphasizes punishment when the master himself, while in process of being trampled, asked God to "forgive them for they know not what they do."
- Temporal punishment through the law teaches men of the certainty of God's eternal punishment. If the government neglects the death penalty, then the people will scoff at the second death (Rev. 2:11; Rev. Rev. 21:8).
The above itemization was provided by "Theology Online" - http://www.theologyonline.com/DEATH.HTML
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Political and Economic Reading List:
1.) “The American Dream” by foul-mouthed (but brilliant) George Carlin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
10.) Benjamin Franklin “on Property and Taxes” - http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html
"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” ”Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander” - http://alanarchibald.homestead.com/ThomasMerton.html
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