Dear Death Penalty

Killing is still barbaric even if it’s allowed by the state. The United States has to stop doing it.

The 36th person in 2011 was executed this week in the United States. The death penalty is used often in the United States, on average three times a month.

The mentally incompetent have only been spared execution since 2002, and minors have only been exempted since 2005. Since 2005! In 2005, the United States had already been involved in “Operation Freedom” in Iraq for four years — all in the name of human rights. God only knows what other benefits of their civilization besides freedom the United States wants to export. It’s so absurd. I’m compelled to repeat myself. American freedom specialists march into other countries in order to liberate people from tyranny, while at home they put children and the mentally challenged to death.

And we eagerly jumped in to help the U.S. with the Afghanistan War! Obviously, we Europeans are deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to the United States. We criticize our government officials if we get the feeling that they’re not paying enough attention to human rights in the Near, Middle or Far East, but then we never criticize our chancellor for failing, during one of her many visits to the White House, to say: “George, you little Texas teddy bear, how about some civilization in your own country?” Or, “[l]ook, brother Barack. I’ve brought a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for you to browse through!”

Civilization’s Declaration of Surrender

According to Amnesty International, a total of 527 people were executed worldwide last year, plus “thousands in China.” Over 3,000 people currently await execution, plus “thousands in China.” The West’s slogan, “[w]e intervene wherever oppression exists,” appears to have been applied quite inconsistently in those countries that the West has actually invaded. In those nations with which the United States pursues close economic ties, the death penalty is regarded as a flaw in their system, whereas the United States considers capital punishment in those nations that are socially and politically inferior to be a sign that their whole system is evil.

Meanwhile, regardless of how economically advanced the nation or whatever political system it has in place, the death penalty is an archaic leftover and a declaration of surrender of civilization. Killing is still uncivilized and barbaric, even if it’s done by a nation or its government agencies. A nation that kills may as well pack in its entire judicial system. There is no just, and certainly no humane, way of executing anyone. Not even when it’s done, as it is in the United States, with all the trappings of legality, transparency and openness under sterile, almost clinical conditions.

The list of nations that executed the most people in 2010 reads as follows: Iran, North Korea, Yemen, the United States and Saudi Arabia. If the United States wants to look down on other countries, then it should first look at the countries on this list, shouldn’t it? For that reason alone — to keep someone like me from coming along and saying, “[y]ou’re not one bit better than the others” — the United States must abandon capital punishment