The Hyperion Chronicles
"There's something to be said for a little Vicious Beauty"
#506 Execution Elocution
"There's something to be said for a little Vicious Beauty"
#506 Execution Elocution
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James
The enemy fought with savage fury, and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining: not one asked to be spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit.
Davy Crockett
Last month the Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law allowing execution for child rape. (In this particular case it was a man and his eight year old stepdaughter.) For various reasons (some dudgeon, a little circumforanity; mostly my hirudinean nature), I chose not to launch into full fulminations at that time. The Court, in its finite 5-4 wisdom, noted that America's "evolving standards of decency" made child rape not a crime deserving of the ultimate punishment.1
[Let us pause for a moment to acknowledge there are many people who philosophically disagree with the Death Penalty, both on ethical and efficacy grounds. Let us also freely admit that there are many proponents who are troubled by strong possibilities that other factors (such as race, wealth, intelligence) play a heavy role in Execution's execution. (I would have a foot in this camp.) These are important questions, and we can (and if you want: we will) discuss them another time. However, for the rest of this column, we are going forward with the understanding that the Death Penalty is in place in most of America, and it is not going away.]
So then, I ask you, why not execute child rapists? If we're going to make decisions on who gets put away, why can't these people be in line? When you break down the Court's Majority Opinion, it comes down to the argument that Capital Punishment is reserved only for the most heinous of crimes, which they define as murder.
( There is also Treason, which they can't do anything about. Trust me when I tell you that 5 members of that Court would have gotten rid of the Treason reason had they not been hamstrung by a little thing I like to call explicitly made licit by the Constitution.2 These same five members have been steadily narrowing Capital Punishment's scope for years in a thinly veiled quest to get rid of the practice. Hey: if that's the debate, let's as a nation have that debate. What frosts me is Justices using tortuous interpretations of the Constitution to come up with "rights" that are not there in the first place. Sigh. Again: another time.)
Back to the kiddie diddlers. Why can't we kill them? If the argument is only the worst crimes, wouldn't child rape qualify? Not to take a way the catastrophic effect of Murder, but one can make a compelling case that raping a child is worse. When you kill someone, you end that life permanently, often deprive the community of the person's value and worth, and in many cases scar friends and family forever. No one is arguing that ain't horrific.
However: when you rape a child, you not only (often; very fucking often) ruin that person's life, but you set in motion a chain of events that will ruin countless other lives to come. I have written about this extensively before3, so there is no need to belabor the point, but we all know (or should know) what happens: raped little boys often grow up and abuse/rape other little kids. Raped little girls often grow up and have the little kids, then unwittingly find the grown up abused boys and let the cycle begin again. And again. And again.
(This doesn't always happen. The lucky ones can just look forward to a lifetime of dysfunctional interpersonal relationships and sexual hangups. Some make it past that. No one is judging, and no one is making any accusations about you and the people you love. But you're dreaming if you think the above paragraph is not the norm. It is. Get used to it. And start getting mad.)
So I ask again: why can't we kill child rapists? Murder is (at least in most circumstances) not a pathology. A man might murder once for many reasons; it does not mean he will do it again. A "normal" man might be driven to murder in a horrific moment of weakness, shock, or rage. He will most likely never do it again. (Some will of course, but I'm just setting up my next point.)
It doesn't work that way with child rapists. Our best "understanding" is that pedophiles brains are different. (Often started from that abuse they suffered as kids.) Pedophiles--those who would rape children--almost always have a pathology. They have a compulsion, and for many, it is virtually impossible to stop.
You see where I'm going with this. I'm not claiming most murderers can be rehabilitated. What I am saying is that far fewer child rapists can. These are people who want to rape children. No, that's not quite right. Whether they want to or not, these are people who need to rape children. More important, these are people who will rape children given the chance (escape, parole, Vermont law). Most important of all: these are people who have raped children.
I have been against Megan's Law from the start, because I find the logic ridiculous. It is punishing people twice, by ruining their lives on the outside. Yet I understand the motivation; faced with possible predators in your neighborhood, you use any means you can to protect your children.
The answer, though, is not fliers and websites and signs. The answer is to quit letting these people out. The answer is to step up as a society and acknowledge there is a Social Compact that everyone must follow if they want to live here. There isn't that much to it, but if you violate it egregiously, you forfeit your right to live.
Look: we all can imagine times when we might kill. To protect our families. Fear. Jealousy. Revenge. I am not saying these are valid reasons by any means, but there are times when, if sitting in a jury, even if you could not excuse the behavior, you'd at least understand. However, no one you know, no one I know, no one any one knows could ever see themselves sitting there in a court room thinking, "Yeah, I can see how he misunderstood the four-year old. The way she dressed. She was asking for it."
It sounds almost silly, huh? You can't come up with a scenario where you could ever understand. Ever. Surely that could be our threshold. In fact, I would be willing to make a trade: let the murderers rot in jail in exchange for wiping the child rapists out.
If you find yourself nodding your head, thinking, "If that were the only way to swing it, I'd go for it," then you realize I'm right. If we are to have a Death Penalty at all, let's put Child Rapists at the front of the line.
And so we don't end on such a downer......(WARNING: MAJOR SHIFT IN TONE)
As long as we're killing people, how about the fine folks who make computer viruses? I do not even understand the point of this crime. Viruses are set to hit random people, and the vast majority of the time the creator gets no credit. (To get "credit" means you've been caught, which no virus maker wants.)
I don't condone robbery, but at least I "get" it.
Joe wants beer
Joe has no money
Joe stuffs beer cans down his pants and walks out of the store
Joe now has beer
In the above "scenario," I'm not saying Joe is right. I'm not saying anything about Joe (other than: if he had anything down his pants to begin with, he couldn't fit all the beer). I am saying that we can follow the logic, even if silly.
What's the logic about a computer virus?
If I seem bitter, it's because I am. I'm writing this column not on my computer, and I may not get to use my computer for some time. Why? Because someone I have never met and have never wronged (unless, of course, I meet him) unleashed into the world a "trojan" virus, which found its way to my family's computer, only to let other viruses through the door. This has cost everyone their time, could potentially cost a lot of money, threatens hard work and all that jazz. I've been through it before; likely you have too.
(This isn't even to mention: is there anything in today's society that causes more rage than technology impotence? All the people I'm likely to meet in the next few days are likely to have their days worsened having to deal with me, and then they'll ruin other people's days, and so on.4)
I see no value to society for computer virus people. Off with their heads, I say! Then there's the Identity Theft Monsters. Targeting someone, ruining their life. Do we need them? I say No! And I'm just getting started. You got people who almost cause crashes while talking on their cell phones, and people who talk in the Theater and whoever invented Rick-Rolling. Sigh. I suppose it's a slippery slope.5
But all kidding aside, I meant what I wrote up above. Let those people be first in line. I'll even do it myself if everyone is squeamish.
But somehow I suspect there will be a line there, too.
Bloodthirsty as always but in a plenipotentiary6 way,
Hyperion
July 23, 2008
Notes
1Click to read the pdf of the the case and the majority/minority opinions.
2 The last sentence in Article III of the Constitution, if you're interested.
3 See my columns #300 (The Wall) and #352 (Both Barrels)
4 I kid you not: ten seconds after I wrote about technology screw-ups, the power went out, killing the computer. As the unit I'm on has no Word, I am writing on Google Documents, and since this is an emotional rant, I wrote it all at once without taking time to even save it. I calmly thought to myself as I booted back up: "if my column is gone, I am going to murder someone." Thankfully it's still here. I love youFirefox and Google Dox.
5 Pretty soon it will be people who put fresh mint in Graitch.
6 I used a bunch of big words at the beginning and again at the end. That was an inside joke on myself. I called the column (after some argument) "Execution Elocution," knowing that in my angry tired state I was anything but eloquent. The big words were an attempt to make me look better, while mocking myself by acknowledging that they do not.
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