This European perspective on the US addiction to capital punishment is a must-read for everyone in the US. With imprisonment rates at a level that any tyrant would envy, execution methods that pet lovers and responsible veteranarians literally wouldn’t permit to be used on a dog, and ample evidence that innocent people end up being executed, the US persists in medieval sentencing practices.
So out of touch with reality have the American people become — and so hardened — that they comfort themselves with bizarre thoughts. Isn’t it wonderful that the bastards in prison can’t smoke anymore?, they tell themselves. That’s great news for their health, and the health of their jailers. Meanwhile, the underclass grows, and grows angrier. The streets can be kept safe only by police state tactics. Will America find a better way before it’s too late? When the day comes that people are no longer fried in electric chairs, and society is producing fewer violent sociopaths who must not be permitted to walk the streets, we’ll know progress has been made. The tragedy of our times is that no one has the foggiest idea of how to achieve such a result, so the political consensus and the public mood grows uglier and more brutal with every passing year.
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