My stand on the death penalty has been stated previously and simply, but for those of you who don't remember, I am one of those who does not believe the state has a right to take the life of a citizen. Capital punishment is revenge, not justice. Executing Saddam Hussein will do nothing to erase the bloodshed by him or anyone else, and it will only provide propaganda to our enemies, proving that we are as barbaric as those we label as such, and it will provide political capital to those who will say that our soldiers died for a worthy cause -- a death for deaths.
Lest you think that my point of view is hopelessly liberal, I have a lot of liberal friends who think the death penalty is just fine, and, on the other hand, I know of at least one conservative/libertarian blogger that I respect, John Cole at Balloon Juice, who thinks that capital punishment isn't a conservative value because it hands the power of life and death over to the state, something that goes against the nature of true conservatism.
In the end I think that humans are amazingly fallible creatures and our justice system, which is designed to both protect our frailties and allow for them, cannot contain a course of action that is so final.
I am also not looking forward to the breathless wall-to-wall coverage of this act that will be committed in secrecy. George Carlin was right. If, as the proponents of capital punishment proclaim, it is a worthy, humane, and justifiable exercise, let it take place in the public square, on live TV. Let us hear the muffled crack of the prisoner's neck. Let us see him twitch in his death throes. Let us watch as his body fluids escape when all his muscles let go, and let's watch as they cut him down. Let's watch the YouTube clip over and over. Then we will see just how humane we are.
One more thing. As a commenter on another blog noted (I forgot where), let's get the terminology right: condemned prisoners are "hanged." Horses are "hung."
(HT to Shakespeare's Sister for the Carlin link.)
