This morning the federal government exchanged one heinous act with another by executing Timothy McVeigh this morning. A group of wack pro-death penalty protestors recited the Lord’s Prayer then one of them yelled “Die McVeigh!”. That’s very Christian of them. I’m sure they’re anti-abortionists too. The two contradictory attitudes go well with one another.
McVeigh left a 19th entury poem, Invictus by William Henley as his last words:
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“Invictus”
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scrolls,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
I think McVeigh selected Gore Vidal as a witness to his execution. I look forward to his reaction of it.
Timothy McVeigh killed people, including 19 children that he did not know, and with whom he had no connection. In otherwords, these people had had no impact at all on McVeigh’s life or the condition of his life prior to their own deaths. He killed believing he was making a political and social statement. He has the ability on his death bed to quote poets, but can’t write a letter to Congress. He had the mindset to create a powerful car bomb, but not the intellect to fight peacefully for the governmental reforms he thought needed to be enacted. All he succeeded in doing was securing his eternal identity as a murderer, and nothing more.
Perhaps the death penalty should be amended so that lethal injection is the standard nationwide for those states which currently have the penalty and enforce it. Lethal injection being considered the most considerate or humane form of execution for criminals convicted of murder.
I have no particular love of activists who use God’s name and spout words of prayer and love and then cry out for the death of another human being, but there in might be the crux of it…perhaps these people no longer considered McVeigh “human” in the best sense of the word, and as a result did not feel compelled socially or morally to save him from a penalty he so richly deserved. After all, we are but animals in the food chain of life, and and we the people have no problem ‘puttng down’ a mad dog, why do we suffer the question of killing (mercifully no less) a cold-blooded, premeditating murderer? The death penalty has always had one thing going for it, it is without doubt a guarantee that McVeigh and others like him will never, ever commit their atrocities again, and only those who have been victims can understand this.
Timothy McVeigh killed people, including 19 children that he did not know, and with whom he had no connection. In otherwords, these people had had no impact at all on McVeigh's life or the condition of his life prior to their own deaths. He killed believing he was making a political and social statement. He has the ability on his death bed to quote poets, but can't write a letter to Congress. He had the mindset to create a powerful car bomb, but not the intellect to fight peacefully for the governmental reforms he thought needed to be enacted. All he succeeded in doing was securing his eternal identity as a murderer, and nothing more.
Perhaps the death penalty should be amended so that lethal injection is the standard nationwide for those states which currently have the penalty and enforce it. Lethal injection being considered the most considerate or humane form of execution for criminals convicted of murder.
I have no particular love of activists who use God's name and spout words of prayer and love and then cry out for the death of another human being, but there in might be the crux of it…perhaps these people no longer considered McVeigh “human” in the best sense of the word, and as a result did not feel compelled socially or morally to save him from a penalty he so richly deserved. After all, we are but animals in the food chain of life, and and we the people have no problem 'puttng down' a mad dog, why do we suffer the question of killing (mercifully no less) a cold-blooded, premeditating murderer? The death penalty has always had one thing going for it, it is without doubt a guarantee that McVeigh and others like him will never, ever commit their atrocities again, and only those who have been victims can understand this.
Timothy McVeigh killed people, including 19 children that he did not know, and with whom he had no connection. In otherwords, these people had had no impact at all on McVeigh's life or the condition of his life prior to their own deaths. He killed believing he was making a political and social statement. He has the ability on his death bed to quote poets, but can't write a letter to Congress. He had the mindset to create a powerful car bomb, but not the intellect to fight peacefully for the governmental reforms he thought needed to be enacted. All he succeeded in doing was securing his eternal identity as a murderer, and nothing more.
Perhaps the death penalty should be amended so that lethal injection is the standard nationwide for those states which currently have the penalty and enforce it. Lethal injection being considered the most considerate or humane form of execution for criminals convicted of murder.
I have no particular love of activists who use God's name and spout words of prayer and love and then cry out for the death of another human being, but there in might be the crux of it…perhaps these people no longer considered McVeigh “human” in the best sense of the word, and as a result did not feel compelled socially or morally to save him from a penalty he so richly deserved. After all, we are but animals in the food chain of life, and and we the people have no problem 'puttng down' a mad dog, why do we suffer the question of killing (mercifully no less) a cold-blooded, premeditating murderer? The death penalty has always had one thing going for it, it is without doubt a guarantee that McVeigh and others like him will never, ever commit their atrocities again, and only those who have been victims can understand this.