Margaret, Nancy, and I were on Capital Hill today...  The Supreme Court in the picture below is an appropriate image to go with my journal/blog writing today.

Now tell me again why Sharia Law is scary and millions of American Christians are comforted by the laws in their states that allow juries and judges to impose the death penalty on criminals... even though there is no evidence that capital punishment discourages other citizens from committing murder or other horrible crimes... and even though other strategies are available for imposing punishment and restraint on murderers and have been adopted by the vast majority of civil societies, capital punishment is legal in 32 U.S. states where a majority of citizens continue to support and eye-for-an-eye, retributive justice system that requires the state to murder citizens who are found guilty of certain heinous crimes.  Actually, requires in that last sentence should be changed to “may impose.”  The reality is that that in America a person of color is much more likely than a white person to be executed for committing murder. 

Washington Post reports today the response of a couple of Oklahoma citizens who are shocked and angry... not about the botched execution but by “outsiders” who have expressed outrage that it could have happened in America:  

McALESTER, Okla. — Geneva Miller was a bit annoyed as she dug into an egg salad sandwich at the Heavenly Delights bakery, where wooden signs line the walls bearing affirmations of food and family.

She can’t believe that her state, with its strong support for capital punishment, is being pilloried across the nation because of one botched execution.

“We’re just crazy about how everybody thinks Oklahoma is bad for supporting the death penalty,” Miller said. “We just don’t understand how they could think otherwise — that it wouldn’t be right.”

and

Brett Sexton, and his father, F.D. Sexton, at the Boomarang Diner in Checotah, Okla., said the botched execution hasn’t changed their minds on the death penalty. “It’s like the Lord said: You reap what you sow,” the elder man said.

and

“I think he got what’s coming to him,” said James Barr, who was buying a coffee at the Harbor Mountain Coffee House in McAlester, about two miles from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the site of the botched execution.

and

But Ron Grubis, a retired high school principal, says he believes that it was a medical accident and thinks that an ongoing legislative controversy in Oklahoma over where the execution drugs are obtained is unwarranted. But he doesn’t understand why and how an execution should go bad.

“Why is it so hard to kill anybody with drugs? Shouldn’t it be simple?” Grubis asked.

Grubis, a staunch supporter of capital punishment, said he believes that death row inmates should be able to choose how they die. “We can go back to giving people a choice,” he said. “Let’s go back to the firing squad. There’s no such thing as a totally painless execution.”

--The Washington Post, Saturday, April 3, 2014

  These people are saying, “but what about the victims... the poor 19-year-old girl murdered?” ...Or they think it’s about the miserable loser, the murderer who was cruelly tortured in the process of execution.  The victim and the murderer are both dead.  They’re out of it... gone... defunct... dead. It is no longer about them.  It’s not even about the inept execution staff.  It’s about us.  An execution is carried out by a state, by a nation that sanctions it.  We are the state. We are the nation.