A Bloodthirsty Society

I didn't get around to my melancholy monday post yesterday because I was too melancholy. I really was. Why, you ask? In part because I am sickened that a federal jury decided that Zacarias Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty. As you can imagine, I am opposed to the death penalty and consider it a barbaric form of punishment. But, the fact that this jury deemed Moussaoui "responsible" enough to face the death penalty as punishment for his terrorist activity just highlights to me the most barbaric aspects of our judicial system. This is downright medieval; to give this man the death penalty is to nurture the most inhumane and blood thirsty aspects of human nature.

Moussaoui is a nobody. He is insane. The simple fact is that he is a scapegoat for failures that our own intelligence agencies are responsible for. To kill Moussaoui is a way of feeding the worst human impulses of the family members of 9-11 victims. What peace will be achieved from killing this man? What sort of closure will we reach as a country?

I cannot stomach how disgusting this decision is and how ashamed it makes me as an American. It doesn't surprise me that this decision comes about nearly simultaneously with the SCOTUS decision to not hear Jose Padilla's case. The failure to observe Due Process, to reflect on the barbarity of killing a schizophrenic in order to feed repitilian blood lust, and the failure to consider the effect that these kinds of acts will have on the future of our democracy is stunning.