The incoming Biden administration will, of course, overturn many of the current president's policies. It is no secret. So, the current administration is on a pace to do whatever can be done before Inauguration Day, 2021.
One of those that is being rushed is not one that will ever sound important to be rushed. Only a few might believe it has a high priority.
To execute as many federal death row inmates as possible before January 20, 2021.
Federal executions were restarted only this past summer--on July 14th. Yes, ironically, on Bastille Day--a month after the storming of the prison led to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The current administration and its staunchest supporters do not think that the powerful state using its machinery to end of life of humans has anything to do with the Rights of Man or the words humane and humanity. And, yes, even more ironical that they are the supposedly pro-life religious party that eagerly seeks to end lives. The late Christopher Hitchens articulated well this blood-thirst of the religious:
The point of the penalty was that it was death. It expressed righteous revulsion and symbolized rectitude and retribution. Voila tout! The reason why the United States is alone among comparable countries in its commitment to doing this is that it is the most religious of those countries. (Take away only China, which is run by a very nervous oligarchy, and the remaining death-penalty states in the world will generally be noticeable as theocratic ones.)
What we do with the mighty power of the government machinery is “a mirror” on ourselves.
The reflection in the mirror is not what I want to see.
The Justice Department published a rule change, set to take effect this month, allowing federal executions by methods other than lethal injection, including firing squads or electrocution, in certain circumstances.
They are so pro-life that they want to bring back the firing squads!
These are the same anti-government people who have the utmost faith that the government is doing the right thing really, really well!
when you hear Republicans moan about the bureaucratic burdens and failures of government-run education, health care, and disaster-relief systems, doesn't any part of you wonder why they have such boundless confidence in the capital justice system?
So, if their plans work out well, "the period from July 14, 2020, the date of the first of Trump’s federal executions, through January 20, 2021 will be the deadliest in the history of federal capital punishment in nearly a century."
All these in addition to the nearly 300,000 that they condemned to die because of a pandemic that they couldn't care about, and do not care about even now.
What a tragedy that the sanctity of the fertilized ovum is the only one that qualifies as worthy of their support!
No comments:
Post a Comment