Life vs. Capitol Punishment

As a little kid I concluded that a life sentence was far worse than capitol punishment. What was the point of living, I asked myself, if you were denied the opportunity to live it?

The Federal Government’s expensive but failed bid to execute Zacharias Moussaoui helps demonstrate this point. In the face of rotting (that’s how the judge put it) the rest of his life away in a supermax prison Zacharias now says, I was just kidding. I didn’t realize you would really give me a fair trial. I’d rather not rot for the rest of my life in oblivion. I want a do over.

The pragmatist in me asks why I should spend taxpayer dollars to keep this man alive for the rest of his natural life. His response to the agony of people was two fold. He laughed at it and regretted that he hadn’t be able to help inflict it. The eye for an eye part of my brain thinks death is too good for him.

I get a little satisfaction every couple of years when I hear that Sirhan Sirhan has been turned down yet again for a pardon. Sirhan is the fellow who shot Robert Kennedy dead. He now serves a life sentence where he wakes every day knowing that the four corners of his cell are all he has to look forward to when he wakes on the morrow. Now that’s what I call punishment.

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