Molly Ivins: Don't Make a Martyr of Moussaoui

[Jack Rabbit]

From TruthDig.org
Dated Wednesday April 19

Don't Make a Martyr of Moussaoui
By Molly Ivins

—“Compare and contrast,” read the directions for essay exams in the old college blue books. Compare and contrast the trials of Zacarias Moussaoui and Jeffrey Skilling.

Moussaoui appears to be headed for the death penalty, despite having an alibi of the lead-pipe-cinch variety. He was in jail on Sept. 11, 2001, so we know he wasn’t out hijacking jets and killing people. He also appears to be seriously crazy, or at the very least a chronic liar, but that’s a separate argument. Although Moussaoui is a member of Al Qaeda, there is evidence that they thought he was a crazy screw-up, too. Peter Bergen, author of two books about Osama bin Laden, told The Washington Post, “Even al-Qaida tried to cut this guy loose” . . . .

If I were to make an argument against the death penalty for Moussaoui, it would be on grounds of practical public relations. Why let this guy have martyrdom and world fame when we could just put him away?

Meanwhile, back in Houston, we have our laughs, too. Jeff Skilling was testifying along about the great rip-off that almost pushed California into bankruptcy when he observed that the state formerly called “Golden” had a regulatory environment like that of Brazil.

Prosecutor Sean Berkowitz stared at him. “Do you think it was funny what happened in California? You’re smiling.”

Read more.

[ShortnFiery]

1. I agree ...

But the poor grieving families are being manipulated.

And the "ugly American" revenge oriented portion of our population will EXECUTE the schizo Zacarias Moussaoui for his psychotic mind crimes.

The day he's executed is the day scores of destitute young muslims around the world "sign on" to Al Quaeda.

Clueless MorAns presently hold the reigns of power in this Country!

[rodeodance]

8. yes, agree

[Warpy]

2. Moussaoui needs a nice hospital where they'll keep his arse

full of antipsyhotics. Oh, he needs a locked ward to make sure he gets his daily meds, but he'd likely be quite pleasant without his inner demons.

This is a show trial, pure and simple, a paroxysm of vengeance for simpletons in the heartland who will be the first to tell you how 9/11 affected them and how they'll never get over it. People on both coasts and especially people in NYC know better. This is a trial and punishment of the Bush variety: scapegoating. It's a hideous miscarriage of justice and it's to our deep shame that they're getting away with it.

Skilling will probably waltz out to a few months in Club Fed followed by an opulent retirement on whatever he stashed in offshore banks. He will be treated as a celebrity by money worshippers, and he hurt MILLIONS. This is also a miscarriage of justice, and it's to our deep shame that it's business as usual.

Nothing says more about what a twisted caricature our country has become than these two trials.

[Briar]

3. I don't understand

I am glad that someone is at last speaking out in condemnation of this despicable show trial, but why does Molly state: "If I were to make an argument against the death penalty for Moussaoui, it would be on grounds of practical public relations"?

The argument against it is the same as the argument against capital punishment in general. It's a debased and shameful practice that exposes the savagery of the State imposing it. There are other, practical and expedient considerations, but turning to those first appears to imply capital punishment is in and of itself acceptable in a civilised community. It isn't.

Is Molly being ironic?

I certainly detected irony when Americans objected to China's enthusiastic employment of capital punishment. No, wait. They weren't objecting to capital punishment in China but to the practical, even free-market-friendly, sale of the victims' organs afterwards. How very confusing...

[Selatius]

4. That depends on Molly's views on the death penalty in general.

I don't know her view on the death penalty in Texas.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Is Molly being ironic?

Like most good writers, Molly Ivins is at her best when being ironic.

One could argue against capital punishment as you do, but you'll never reach the other side who believe in the eye-for-an-eye ethic or, more importantly, persuade a fence sitter that capital punishment isn't a good idea. As you say, there are practical and expedient considerations to oppose capital punishment. If those of us who oppose capital punishment are going to carry the day, those are the arguments on which we must rely.

[Briar]

6. Somehow

that strikes me as arguing one should accept defeat on the substantive point as victory is impossible. I suppose what I feel is that to resort only to expedience and not to the moral repugnance of the practice is to concede validity to brute "eye for eye" kinds of response. I just can't do that - not anymore than I could have condeded Bliar's claim that his warmongering was as morally respectable as opposing the Iraq war.

Sooner or later such primitive ways of thought are defeated and acknowledged as unacceptable in advanced societies, as happened with slavery and racial discrimination. Laws now outlaw both, despite still simmering resentment in those parts of society which would still accept and promote them - but that could never have happened if people had not been prepared to stand up to the slavers and the racists and show them up.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. How to win friends and influence people

You're right. No one can win on that kind of substantive point. It's a little like a Christian trying to make a convert of an atheist by threatening him with Hell and damnation if he doesn't believe in Christ. You can take your substantive point and preach to the choir, but that's all it's good for.

The problem with your argument is that you can only support it with loaded words. For example, Capital punishment is primitive and barbaric. What is primitive or barbaric? Do you and the person you are trying to persuade have the same or similar ideas of what that is? Can you agree on a definitive of civilization (which. I suppose, is the opposite of primitive or barbaric)? And once that definition is agreed upon, is capital punishment still primitive or barbaric? This is Socratic method.

It would also do well to remember that a someone like Rousseau might very well say that capital punishment is quite civilized, but he used civilization as a dirty word. Assuming he thinks it as evil as you do, he would probably argue that the best way to get rid of capital punishment is to return to a state of nature. As far as Rousseau is concerned, we're better off being primitive or barbaric.

Of course, you could persuade those who support capital punishment to give up the idea the same way we persuaded slave owners to free their slaves. As I recall, that method of persuasion might also be thought primitive or barbaric.

[Briar]

9. Sooner or later

one has to decide what course of action one calls civilised and what one calls barbaric. Those decisions will, with luck, produce a coherent set of consistent beliefs reflecting certain core values. With those in mind, future decisions will be made, more or less consistent with what went before. Once you have chosen, one alternative is necessarily left behind. Some people mourn the loss of the social system that slavery supported and continue to discriminate against blacks, secure in their judgment that they are inferior and happier when controlled by whites (or whatever can rationalise such a system in their view). The rest of society killed that world, and I for one do not regret that. I would not want to live in a society with slavery. This is part and parcel of a view that also finds capital punishment disgusting and disgraceful (and I do not apologise for using such "loaded" terms. By my values they are remarkably accurate).

Don't forget that for the paedophile, say, his or her activities are perfectly normal - in their view, the child victim is a willing participant. The mere fact that such warped values are taken as normal and right by a group of people does not require us to accept them, nor even to treat them as worthy of consideration and equal respect as our own. I would not object to treating such people after the fact in an attempt to cure them: I certainly would not wait till I had persuaded them of their wrongness before saving their victims from them.