[Support for the death penalty] is often framed in terms of high morality, the argument being that only in taking an offender's life can a society truly express its revulsion over certain heinous crimes.—Leonard Pitts, in a great column about the death penalty, a punishment faced by Troy Davis this Wednesday, if the Georgia statehouse does not hear the pleas for clemency arising from across the nation.
But when the audience at a recent GOP presidential debate cheered the observation that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has overseen a record 234 executions, that fig leaf was swept away. You knew this was not about some profound question for philosophers and august men. No, this was downturned thumbs in a Roman arena, vengeance putting on airs of justice, the need to see someone die.
People dress that need in rags of righteousness and ethicality, but occasionally, the disguise slips and it shows itself for what it is: the atavistic impulse of those for whom justice is synonymous with blood. If people really meant the arguments of high morality, you'd expect them to regard the death penalty with reverent sobriety. You would not expect them to cheer.
[H/T to @veronicaeye.]
