Thoughts on Capital Punishment

Here's the problem in the US, we have capital punishment but we kill the wrong people, in the wrong way, for the wrong things.

The Death Penalty is not a deterrent to gang bangin' accidental nihilists or people strung out on meth robbing liquor stores, those dummies are gonna do what they do heedless of the consequences. Naturally, I understand that if your loved one is senselessly killed in a robbery you think whoever did it should be put to death and I have trouble disagreeing with that sentiment. Idiots who kill because it's easier and quicker to pull a trigger rather than spend five minutes tying someone up probably deserve to die for being lazy and stupid.

Then there's the matter of how we go about putting people to death. A lethal injection 10 years after the fact that no one sees? BORING!! When executions go down usually all you ever see is people marching outside the prison talking about how the death penalty is inhumane, blah, blah, fucking blah and precious little talk about the victim and their family. Where is the spouse of the victim or their kids talking about recovering from the emotional and financial scars of having a family member killed? Just once I would like to see the victim's spouse/sibling/parent/child looking the killer right in the eyes as they throw the switch on the electric chair and tell them, "See you in Hell!"

But let's not kid ourselves, we value money more than we do human life in this country. If we didn't we wouldn't give corporations the same rights as people, but with none of the responsibilities or have insurance companies denying people coverage because they aren't a good risk. I'm complicit in all of this, I'm a capitalist that owns a condo with granite counter tops and shiny appliances, but I think we should update our criminal code to reflect what our true values are and make destroying shareholder value a capital offense.

Junkies and career criminals don't worry about the death penalty much, but I suspect that CEOs and other top level corporate execs might act a little more carefully if they knew a date with the executioner could be in the cards if they fuck up badly enough. We could set the bar high too, you have to destroy a billion dollars in shareholder value before a case even gets reviewed by the HillRat Star Chamber ®. If it's an honest mistake; new technology renders the company's primary product irrelevant, bad year for crops causes wild fluctuations in prices, judgment errors, etc.; you're off the hook and you may even be allowed to keep your golden parachute. For the most part that's what I would expect to find judgment errors.

However, in the case of accounting fraud and other kinds of shady shit that's kind of legal but ethically dubious, well that's a whole different story. The very top cut of corporate officers, (CEO, CFO, and COO) who profited from false earnings reports or other fraud or gross negligence that ultimately leads to a corporate meltdown that cost shareholders more than $1B, would become eligible for the death penalty.

Executions would be vastly different too, no sanitized room where you get strapped down to a gurney to meet your maker. I'm talking about sending in MOB Six to their gated communities, where these thieving motherfuckers would be snatched up and killed in front of their families live on pay-per-view. Or maybe we could get all Running Man (the book, not the movie) and see how far one of these coddled jerkoffs gets with a few grand, his wits, and every person in the country calling a tip line to get themselves paid and to see the dude killed live without having to buy the PPV.

Now that's change I can believe in!

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