"A Bloodthirsty Society" (Moussaoui & the Death Penalty)

[bloom]

A Bloodthirsty Society
April 4, 2006

I didn't get around to my melancholy monday post yesterday because I was too melancholy. I really was. Why, you ask? In part because I am sickened that a federal jury decided that Zacarias Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty. As you can imagine, I am opposed to the death penalty and consider it a barbaric form of punishment. But, the fact that this jury deemed Moussaoui "responsible" enough to face the death penalty as punishment for his terrorist activity just highlights to me the most barbaric aspects of our judicial system. This is downright medieval; to give this man the death penalty is to nurture the most inhumane and blood thirsty aspects of human nature.

Moussaoui is a nobody. He is insane. The simple fact is that he is a scapegoat for failures that our own intelligence agencies are responsible for. To kill Moussaoui is a way of feeding the worst human impulses of the family members of 9-11 victims. What peace will be achieved from killing this man? What sort of closure will we reach as a country?

I cannot stomach how disgusting this decision is and how ashamed it makes me as an American. It doesn't surprise me that this decision comes about nearly simultaneously with the SCOTUS decision to not hear Jose Padilla's case. The failure to observe Due Process, to reflect on the barbarity of killing a schizophrenic in order to feed repitilian blood lust, and the failure to consider the effect that these kinds of acts will have on the future of our democracy is stunning.

http://melancholicfeminista.blogspot.com/

[Warpy]

1. Agreed. He needs a trip to a hospital for the criminally insane

and a lifetime of forced medication to keep it under control. Killing him won't solve anything and will only add to the load of bad karma this country is already dealing with.

My guess is that he was a wannabe. The real hijackers all got jobs with "flight schools" that by all indication were fronts for drug running with ties to the CIA.

He's sick. He needs to be taken care of, not killed.

[hlthe2b]

2. I'm having a lot of trouble with this too...

Then again, I never thought we would be embracing torture as policy,preemptive war without cause, and execution for those who FAIL to do something. Imprisonment as a (passive) accessory to murder, yes... absolutely. But, the death penalty?

I don't recognize my country anymore.

[AllieB]

3. I caught something about our local 9/11 families in Boston

they're overwhelmingly opposed to giving Moussaoui the death penalty, saying that he's obviously insane. One 9/11 widow wondered if the jury was watching the same trial as the 9/11 families.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Yes, once again I am sickened and amazed....

by the rush to kill, as if killing in response to killing will ever solve anything. An eye for an eye eventually leaves the whole world blind.

Moussaoui is a pathetic wannabe whose own deranged comrades didn't think him worth the effort to include in their plans. Since his arrest he has constantly changed his story to make himself a martyr and executing him will only legitimize his own delusions-- he is committing suicide by jury.

The mind once again boggles-- the government that fights assisted suicide to bitterly is now demanding to assist in this suicide.

[genie_weenie]

5. The State is only refreshed by Blood!

The Nation-State is a jealous God and needs to be constantly satiated with gifts of blood from it's thralls...

[gratuitous]

7. Spot on

Violence is redemptive. That's the true national religion of the United States, and in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, so many people believe that the only way to counter violence is with more violence. When you ask these people what they would do if the victims of their violence should fight back with violence of their own, their only response is more violence. And so the cycle keeps spinning with no end in sight.

[Sapphire Blue]

6. Yes, this is "A Bloodthirsty Society" : (

For those who don't lust for blood...

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: http://www.ncadp.org

Links to anti-DP sites: http://www.punkerslut.com/deathlinks.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Any jury that has to decide on the death penalty

is already pre-disposed to favor the death penalty.

People who are opposed to the death penalty are screened out at the beginning of the process BEFORE jury selection, leaving only those who approve of the death penalty. It has been shown, repeatedly, that those who agree with the death penalty are those who are most likely to trust the prosecution, and mistrust the defense. They believe government witnesses, like police and FBI, but give less credence to defense witnesses like psychologists or psychiatrists. Then, the prosecuters weed out of that pool those least likely to approve the death penalty.

It's a rigged game.