One way less to kill

People are killing each other off since forever… And there are many ways in how this is done. Taking on purpose a human life will always be a sorry act. Could we at least reduce this list by one?

One can be killed by a murderer, regardless of reason… Become victim of a terrorist act, very much in “fashion” nowadays… Fall on the battlefield by the enemy or die as a result of war, an “old time classic”… Perish by a genocide act, become a target for an assassin…

 
Now somewhere here I’m slowing down on my list, because there is nothing more I can think of (excuse me if I skipped something) so maybe, I got the general idea covered. We have been living with those ways of killing our entire human history and it doesn’t look like we will dispose or get rid of any of them, soon… well, not today anyway or the distant future…

When we think of a murderer, a terrorist, a soldier at war, a mass murderer, an assassin or any suchlike, the healthy mind goes to one direction and one only… Will we be able some day to stop them, or at least stop some of them, for good?! Which of this killing ways will become a “thing of the past” one day?! Will it be the soldier, for we will need to war no more? Will it be the terrorist, for there will be no need for something as lunatic?

You see, in our minds we don’t hesitate for a second, in trying to reduce this list. And as for those who die by such actions, regardless by whom, we sympathize… we endlessly sympathize.

Now please keep that momentum and think of the following question…
Why is it that we do think it the other way round, when it comes to sentence a man to death for his crimes? Why is it that our attention does go to the one who will die, and we totally forget that it is the executioner that puts a man to his death? In any other case we concentrate on the murderer, the soldier, the assassin… But here, in the case of a condemned to death person, we look at the “dead man walking” and we ignore the executioner.
And please keep in mind that this (text) is not about sympathizing a person that is on a death-row. To make it more clear, let me put it this way… I don’t give a rat’s ass about him… end of story. My issue lies with one thing only… I totally despise the system and the logic of creating executioners and the sick ways that have been maintained and further “developed” in the direction of executing someone.

All the above sons of bitches (excuse my French) mentioned in my entry list, have at least wrong reasons in doing what they do… while an executioner doesn’t even have that!

And still we support him by willingly ignoring that he exists… When it comes to put a criminal to his death we dedicate our entire concentration on him, like if we are with a daisy in our hands (should he die, should he die not… should he die should he die not…) totally forgetting about the person/s that performs this discussing act… People fight and argue about if it is fair or not to sentence “this man to death” when the issue is, shall we permit executioners to continue having “a job”? And if this is an acceptable situation and I am wrong here please tell me this: Why is it that from a number of executioners, which press a series of buttons simultaneously, only one does execute the convict? Why is it that from ten guns in a firing squad only one has a live bullet? Let me guess! Is it because an executioner takes so much pride in his profession that they want to keep him… humble? Wrong guess, I guess…

When you have caught someone for his crimes, you don’t go ahead and execute him, simply because you have him in your custody, he can’t go anywhere and he can’t do anything.

This is so much different from when a police sniper has a dangerous person on his “sight”. He acts upon a threatening situation and he guns him down in order to save the day and the life of one or more persons.

The ways of execution are truly despiteful. The use of gas chambers (is that still on?) electric chairs and injections of toxic poison… What is this “legal torture” thing anyway? They make the traditional beheading with a sword by the Samurai look like an act of mercy… One stroke and you’re done with. Not that I would stretch my neck with pleasure, but who would like to sit on the chair and do the twist? No? What about the needles? Don’t run away yet, we also offer the choke as an option! …see what I mean?

We above all, in the civilized free world, should also re-think this, and eliminate one way of killing, because we can, because this is now possible and within our grasp… Proof of this stands the fact that among us… right next door sometimes, exist states and countries with strong laws against crime, which nevertheless have put behind them the execution system as means for justice. And I say “civilized free world” because I don’t want even to refer to those “countries” which stone their people to death… The theory that prisoners cost too much so you kill them in order to reduce their number doesn’t apply either. There are ways to put to labor those people so that they earn their daily meal and their four by two prison cell. How hard is that?

This is not a question of opinion. It is disgusting and inhumane to execute someone (you already hold) by any torture-to-death method (or not!) on the grounds that “he had it coming”.

More than this, as a Martial Artist, I cannot see the benefit of putting someone to his death by execution, because it does not solve anything… since death is no punishment, but only a destination we are all heading for. And under that point of view you somehow “relieve” the person you execute a bit earlier. Sending someone into oblivion is “easy” and our final common fate.

The death penalty is a dead-end of justice. By going there you prove that you have absolutely nothing to propose. Does this mean that someone who has committed terrible crimes should go unpunished?  No, not at all! True punishment already exists, and it’s called lifetime imprisonment. You hold in custody a person for his crimes and you jail him for good, into his own personal eternity…

You see what happens?! In these last paragraphs I also lost my momentum, and talked about the fate of a person that is sentenced to death. But our focus, and mostly the focus of those whose job is to structure laws, should firmly remain on something else… It is to create laws that will not allow society, the “job” of an executioner. Just put executioners in the history books of mankind.
There will always be, and I mean always, men that by their acts have earned it to be sentenced to death… but the question remains, are executioners even considered to be a proper response? And even if you have in mind of putting to death those who “deserve it” would you want your son, your daughter, your student, to “learn the art?”

January 10, 2010