One Last Appeal In The Matter of Troy Davis

In one more attempt to bring reason to the case of Troy Davis, and every person The State sees fit to sentence to death, I wrote the following at the behest of Amnesty International UK:

I will not vouchsafe the merits of Mr. Davis' case; to me, they are irrelevant. What is relevant, in his case and the case of every inmate the State seeks to murder in the name of "public necessity," is that by taking such action, you drench your hands and mine in blood that need not be shed.

If we accept the proposition that a living, breathing human has the right to the integrity of their life, whether we are taught this as part of religious teachings or civics lessons, or simply because we enjoy our life and inherently understand the "wrongness" of the purposeful and premeditated ending of such a life, then we cannot, we should not, countenance the taking of life in our name, through the agency of the State, which we brought into existence as an extension of ourselves. If one person has no inherent right to take the life of another person, then we cannot logically conclude that hundreds upon hundreds of us -- in the guise of the State -- somehow has a greater right to do so, nor the implicit right to ignore the admonition against the murder of one person. Execution is a symptom of the hold of Medievalism on our modern society, and it has no place where we consider ourselves an enlightened, just, and fair people.

Do what you know in your heart to be right and end this despicable spectacle.

We cannot countenance murder in our name. Medievalism has no place in the 21st Century. If only each letter, each call, each FAX, each Tweet, each blog post, were a physical poke, like the pecking of hundreds of thousands of birds upon the conscience of everyone involved in this travesty. If only.

Georgia On My Mind

I wrote a letter. I signed petitions. I voiced my opinion wherever I could. I prayed. And I was not alone.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles did not hear. Did not listen. Did not want to listen. Could not accept even the simplest argument against putting Troy Davis to death: it is hypocritical. Hypocritical for a "Christian" nation to stand by the Biblical and moral admonition against the taking of another person's life, and yet have no trouble with allowing the State the power to do what we ourselves have stated we will not, as if the creation of the State imbues it with some form of shield against moral ambiguity, or worse, proclaims it to have some authority capable of overriding even the highest admonition in human society. Apparently, when handed to the State, a soul no longer has any meaning to anyone.

There is nothing of justice in this decision, only the need to quench a thirst for vengeance. One hesitates to pin ulterior motives on those who are left with the weighty responsibility of determining who shall live and who shall die, but even an iota of doubt should be sufficient for anyone to see it reasonable to choose life over death, for the system must always err to the side of conservation and justice. To beat a hasty path to the executioner's chamber in the face of reasonable doubts is the mark of those who would see their power unchallenged and their prejudices confirmed.

One would hope the merest hint of this execution would stick in the craw of a decent person, but if it were to do so only after the fact of a man's death, this would not say much for those who claim aegis over clemency or those who claim to revere life. Execution is a tool of emotion, a hearkening back to the Middle Ages, to the triumph of fear and prejudice over reason and humanity. It is a tool that is best relegated to the shed, abandoned like so many other ancestral barbarisms: stoning, crucifixion, inquisition, etc. A modern society such as ours should not hold on to the egregious behaviors of our past.

One can only hope that there is yet a bolt from the blue, that some reasonable, sensible member of the State moves to terminate this reprehensible act before its culmination. If not, the death of Troy Davis will be another stain upon our American society, heaped upon the many others we have yet to fully wipe away.