Somehow, Troy Davis's execution has been the last straw for me.

[Brigid]

I had not been following the case closely until quite recently, but I have been a death penalty opponent for a long time, former supporter of it before that. I had come to believe that a country that allows the state to decide when your life should end is dangerously close to barbarism. And for some (not here at DU, happily) to be cheering it sounds like something out of the Middle Ages, when executions were public spectacles. First, teabaggers cheering the record number of executions taking place in Texas under the current governor, then cheering about the prospect of a person dying due to lack of medical coverage, then this. And this is just the past week or so. Shit, we can't even organize funding for hurricane and earthquake relief without fighting about it. Nor can we care for our elderly and indigent or educate our children. This country might as well be the setting for a Mad Max movie; that mindset has already taken over. See "The Road Warrior," or better yet, the original "Mad Max," for further details.

[gateley]

1. There are always those who cheer at an execution - I remember

my mother's friend being so upset at those who were celebrating Ted Bundy's execution.

It is beyond me how people can be so uncaring and brutal. I just don't understand it -- truly.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. If you think that's bad, you should read about Phoebe Harris

I think her execution might have played some part in the prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Constitution:

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/phoebe.html

[sabrina 1]

3. Horrible! I used to read stories from history similar to this

when I was a kid, and was sure it was all in the past, that today, nothing like that could ever happen. I remember trying to figure out why people 'back then' were so cruel and felt fortunate not to have been during those times. For some reason I was convinced we had evolved as a species and the only reason those things happened was because 'very bad people' were in charge.

I don't know when I realized that we have not evolved at all, or changed and if there were executions in public like that one, they would have audiences in the millions. But we don't have to feed the sickness, which apparently will always be part of the human race. We should starve it. Catering to the worst of human nature doesn't make for a very healthy society. But that's what we are doing. Then, otoh, we claim to be the 'greatest country on earth'.

I hope a movement against the death penalty grows as a result of the death of Troy Davis and in his name, it is ended. I know support for it is diminishing, but not nearly enough.

[Cleita]

5. We are the richest country on earth, not the greatest.

Also, the riches are concentrated in the hands of 1% of our population, if the stats are right, and I believe they are. So the majority of us aren't much better off than those in developing nations.

[Brigid]

6. Yep, there is a difference.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Sadly, I think you're right

If the Constitution were being written today, I have a feeling that some of the mental midgets we have as representatives would not only NOT want to include a prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment", but would insist on including a provision for funding public executions.

I remember the Gary Gilmore controversy of 1976-77. Gilmore had murdered some people and was going to be the first person executed in the US after a moratorium of several years. I had mixed feelings about that because on the one hand, Gilmore had done some pretty bad things to his victims, he confessed, and said he wanted to die. On the other hand, that was going to start a precedent, and no doubt innocent people were going to end up being executed, which seems to be the case with Mr. Davis. Like you, I hope a movement against the death penalty grows as a result of Mr. Davis's execution.

[LAGC]

4. When the moderator posed the question at the Republican debate last week...

Asking how Rick Perry felt about the record number of executions in his state and the entire Republican audience cheered, even before he answered the question -- that told me all I needed to know about the state of this country.

We are truly fucked.

[coalition_unwilling]

7. For some reason, your post makes me very, very sad, probably

because your post captures a fundamental truth in so few words.

Please remember, though, that the current Republican Party does not speak for all Americans or even a majority.

[Selatius]

8. It doesn't need to.

Paul Krugman, when talking about how Republicans used the debt ceiling as a hostage in negotiations to get spending cuts enacted remarked that how can a democracy function or endure if one party is so willing to destroy the very economy itself to get what it wants, and the answer is, it probably can't.

[BadgerKid]

9. Here's that disgusting video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXB8avpzMyI

[B Calm]

10. If the death penalty is a determent, then why are so many in Texas being executed?

[gateley]

11. Hasn't it been proven that it ISN'T a deterrent? As your question/statement

shows!

I think these are just barbaric people - and I'm not just tossing "barbaric" out there. Truly, those who get off on this are tapping into something dark and primal in their psyches.