ah-nuld has denied clemency for “tookie” williams.

in america, taking away a man’s freedom is not enough. killing him is the best we can do. it’s barbaric.

an eye for an eye, right? well, you know what? there aren’t enough eyes in the world, pal.

unless there is some miracle, stan “tookie” williams will be executed one minute after midnight tonight. and tomorrow, there will be one less murderer in the world. one less human in the world. one less mouth to feed. one less death row inmate to pay for. and we can rest easy, knowing that we made it happen.

let’s look at some capital punishment statistics. we’re going to focus on the united states, because most other democratic countries (australia, new zealand, canada, mexico, and europe—except belarus) have abolished capital punishment. those fools! they must be overrun with crime and decay, and their prisons are probably bursting at the seams!

since 1976, there have been 355 executions in texas. when they say: “don’t mess with texas.” they mean it. or else they will kill your ass.

in the last 19 years, over 1,000 people have been executed in the united states. couldn’t we just put them on an island somewhere and make a reality tv show out of it? that’s what i call a win-win situation.

as of july 1, 2005, there were 648 people on death row in the state of california alone.

stemshul wrote an excellent post about the death penalty, but i have a slightly different perspective. it comes from a documentary i watched last night, and i think it deserves a bit of analysis. so, allow me to anal-yze it.

the documentary was about serial killer john wayne gacy. he killed 33 people and buried most of them under the floorboards of his house. he was a model citizen and much loved by his community (before they found out about his bad habit).

gacy was executed on may 10, 1994. in the documentary, they showed footage from outside the penitentiary where he was being executed, and the people were singing and partying and having a merry old time. almost like a pep rally.

to tell you the truth, i was more disturbed by these people than anything gacy did. what kind of people would celebrate death in this manner? even for such a heinous individual such as gacy.

the fact of the matter is that any one of those people would have gladly pushed the button, pulled the trigger, or thrown the switch to have that man killed, and what does that say about them? what does that say about humanity?

john gacy was one of the worst people imaginable. there was no doubt about that. and there was no evidence that he would ever have given anything back to society, but that doesn’t give us the right to play god.

killing is still killing, whether the law allows it or not. we should know that. and people who take pleasure in the deaths of others disgust me more than any murderer ever could.