A Joke About Death

"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Death."
"Death wh-AUUGKKK"

Like all my great jokes, that one was inspired by Utah. I'll get to that in a minute.

I have mixed feelings about the death penalty. It reduces our ability to be compassionate, but maybe this is a worthy price for retribution. I've noticed though that the death penalty debate is no longer about morality vs. justice. The yardstick is which method would make the criminal suffer more. During the D.C. sniper trial, I read and heard comments like "They don't deserve to live" v. "we should keep them alive so they suffer for their entire lives."

This reflects a general philosophy about incarceration in America. The idea of rehabilitation rarely enters the debate anymore. The focus is on making criminals suffer. Utah is currently debating whether to do away with execution by firing squad. Because shooting someone is a cruel way to kill a person? Not exactly:

During the Senate debate on Thursday, Sen. Ron Allen, a Democrat, said allowing murderers to choose firing squads so they can "go out in a blaze of glory" makes heroes of criminals and causes victims' families more pain.

But Sen. Dave Thomas, a Republican, argued that media circuses are "exactly what we want" in executions.

"We don't want these sentences to be carried out in the dead of night so no one knows," said Thomas, adding that lethal injection is painless and "the easy way out."

It's easier to hate someone than forgive him or her. It's often easier to point out what's wrong instead of what's right. Maybe this is just me, but I find the good parts of humanity a little harder to reach than the bad parts. We can be tough on crime, but perhaps we should be tougher on ourselves.