Taking Em Out In The Good Ol' U.S. Of Fucking A.

Today is Thursday July 14th 2005.
On Tuesday July 12th 2005 the State of Georgia put to death a one, Robert Dale Conklin. He was killed using a lethal injection in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Conklin, a parolee for a burglary conviction met a 28 year old attorney named George Grant Crooks after his release and the two began a short affair. During an altercation at one of the mens apartments, Conklin stabbed Crooks in the ear with a screwdriver, killing him.
The rest is merely facts and fictions belonging specifically to this case.
After all, nothing else matters.
An eye for an eye.
Since January 1st of this year the United States has maintained its unified stance on execution, and taken 29 eyes retributively.
Since January 17th, 1977 when Gary Gilmore stood before a firing squad in Utah, the United States has taken 973 visual organs to compensate for horrendous criminal acts.
No charges are laid against the people present at executions.
The 'bystander effect' does not exist there.
The LAW, does not exist there.
This is where murder becomes legal because it is a form of punishment.
Shoot them, inject them with poison or have them inhale it. Have them hanged, or maybe electrocution suits your fancy.
Whatever way they go, they're going to go for good, and good riddance to the lousy fuckers too....
right?
What of the good doctor who injects the criminal. We've all thought it. Are they not just as guilty?
The criminal is expected to be penitent, but the executioner is simply doing a job.
Both have killed someone.
'An eye for an eye', but only in certain cases of course.
"They deserve it for what they did"
Ah yes, sure they do, and it is within our rights as humans to decide that the only plausible punishment for certain acts is murder.
'You killed them, now we'll kill you'.
I can't believe I didn't see it before.
It's like when children breaks a dinner plate, they deserve to be spanked so they'll learn their lesson.
We learn from violence to be better people, and the better people punish the criminals with more violence.
I'm designing my PRO-EXECUTION banner in my head as I am writing this.
Sadly I have to travel all the way down to Oklahoma to support the execution of Michael J. Pennington this coming Tuesday.
Too bad I couldn't just go to toronto and see someone getting hanged at Nathan Phillips Square.
I wonder why i can't?
Oh right. I'm in Canada.
We don't 'do' that.
Why?
Well, the idea that rehabilitation is somtimes possible, or that a life incarcerated is more punishment than death.
OR....
Someone is telling us 'impressionable canucks' that murder is never okay.
Must be all the beer we drink, but we fucking bought it.
We don't kill the killers.
We punish them.
We don't hold ourselves above the law.
We stand in support of it.
An eye for an eye isn't emblazened in our minds growing up.
My mom didn't punch me after I punched my brother. I didn't get my hair pulled by my school teachers after I pulled a classmates hair.
I got 'punished'.
It doesn't always 'fit the crime', but it's never above the law that our country has created for itself.
I'd rather be swilling beer in a country where the law may be too lenient, than living in a country where the law doesn't apply to everyone.

On a side note....The most disturbing piece of information I found during some online research;
Between 1984 and 2000 the USA executed 34 people who showed "EVIDENCE OF MENTAL RETARDATION."