Our Monster Is Dead (OT)
dougbaker
to the Incinerator: Not just the Earthly one, but also the Cosmic one, if
one exists. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Those of you who know me also know that I, myself, am no great lover of
what our so-called government has become since 1980. But violence is not
the answer. It has never been the answer. Timothy McVeigh was nothing but
a chickenshit punk. Despite that, he went out without much of a wimper.
Can you really blame him? He got off entirely too gently and he knew it.
Euthanasia is not the proper sendoff for such a sociopathic, cold-blooded
killer, allowing him to just drift off peacefully into the Abyss. He should
have went out screaming every inch of the way. Drifting off to sleep is the
way for Peaceful folks to go, or good, faithful dogs who went bad at the
very end. Not mass murderers with no conscience, emotions, or sense of
remorse.
McVeigh would have suffered much more being if he had been held in a
tiny prison cell for the rest of his natural days. As far as death
sentences go, I do not normally believe in capital punishment. As a matter
of fact, this may be the very first time in my lifetime that I truly did.
In the case of McVeigh, not only do I temporarily suspend my beliefs, but I,
a total pacifist, could almost have pushed the Kill Switch myself.
The executioners should have murdered him in kind, strapping tiny
ladyfinger firecrackers to him and exploding them individually for weeks
until he was dead. Every minute on the minute. The Death of a Thousand
Cuts. That's a deterrent, not merciful euthanasia.
No, forget I said that. It's not the kind of thing a pacifist is proud
of saying. I have so many conflicting emotions about this case. It's just
one of those demented thoughts that occasionally pass through without
sticking. It's the lack of sleep and all my other troubles speaking. My
god, that's a worse thought that I slam dubya, ashcroft, and hutchison for
having. It sounds like something they'd have cooked up at the torture
school at Fort Benning, the School Of the Americas. It's not like me to
have thoughts like this... totally out of character.
It's just that after six years, 168 dead victims, and 275,000,000 living
ones, I know in my heart that Timmy McVeigh went out without ever knowing
the error of his thinking. That is far too anticlimactic for all of us who
have suffered at his hands.
So it goes.
---doug
ĞTÜ�Ñkë�ğ
wrote:
> Our long nightmare is gone, at 7:14 a.m., Indiana time, now on his way
>to the Incinerator: Not just the Earthly one, but also the Cosmic one, if
>one exists. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I have sort of an odd perspective.
I've worked as a state corrections officer (prison guard) for the
last 14 years in all security levels including maximum.
It's strange how you become accustomed to being around people
who've done things like raping and murdering children and other
horrible acts. I guess it just takes too much mental effort to walk
around hating the people you're surrounded by all day.
No matter how disgusted you are by what they did, eventually you
accept it as the social norm and find yourself swapping jokes etc.
with them. You sort of get into this weird frame of mind where you
think things like "He's a nice guy other than the time he killed that
nun".
That said, I have yet to meet a guy who was truly sorry for what
he did. If released, most of them would go right out (as many do) and
commit the same sort of acts.
I guess it comes down to this: there are some people in this world
who just don't have whatever it is that keeps most of us from doing
whatever pops into the dark side of our minds.
My constant exposure to them after all these years has left me
without the ability to hate them for what they are but I also
recognize that they are who they are and simply do not become "normal
people" when placed in an environment where everyone else has been
deemed too dangerous to be out in society.
If the lethal injection of 1000 of these "broken" individuals can
scare just one of them away from killing someone's sister, mother or
other family, I think it needs to be done.
There is no death penalty in the state where I work yet but I think
there needs to be. I don't know if I could administer the poison
myself but it has to be done. It sounds easy enough in the abstract
but in the real world, normal people just aren't wired to kill someone
they've come to know personally.
I say this not out of hate or the lust for revenge but out of the
knowledge that nothing will stop most of the true killers from doing
what they do. The drive for self-preservation, however, will make some
of the borderline ones stop and think before they stick the knife into
that old lady.
It's us or them. I say them.
Joel Cooney
dougbaker <zap...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3b252efe$0$88189$4c5e...@news.erinet.com...
Sorry mate... have to disagree. I don't think anyone has the right to kill
anyone but themselves. I think its hard for the US to attack other
"barbaric" countries for human rights abuses while they still administer
death.
ĞTÜ�Ñkë�ğ
<jco...@NOSPAMntlworld.com> wrote:
>Sorry mate... have to disagree. I don't think anyone has the right to kill
>anyone but themselves. I think its hard for the US to attack other
>"barbaric" countries for human rights abuses while they still administer
>death.
So we shouldn't have shot back at the Nazi soldiers?
I'm not the most patriotic "Yank" in the country. In fact, our
government has done things that have made me seriously consider
seeking Swiss citizenship.
I do, however, recognize the difference between executing an
admitted unrepentant mass-murderer in the most painless way possible
after paying his legal team millions of dollars to spend years looking
for any shadow of doubt and what are commonly called "Human rights
abuses".
What do you do with someone like Timothy Mcveigh who blows up a
building knowing that it's full of children? Should we support him
for the next 50 years so he can be interviewed on television, write
letters and articles to magazines to "inspire" others and torment the
families of his victims?
I just can't see how his sentence can be compared to China
slaughtering hundreds of its own young people for staging a peaceful
demonstration in Tiennamen square or the Albanian "ethnic cleansing".
I apologize for perpetuating this thread here. If you'd care to
debate this further, I suggest we take it to a more appropriate group.
I do feel though that the "capitol punishment" debate is just one
of those things where everyone has an opinion and there's little
chance of changing anyone's mind.
In any event, best wishes from the barbaric states of America.
Joel Cooney
ĞTÜ�Ñkë�ğ <tur...@tir.com> wrote in message
news:l1hbitca6gk8t89t3...@4ax.com...
SNIP
> I do feel though that the "capitol punishment" debate is just one
> of those things where everyone has an opinion and there's little
> chance of changing anyone's mind.
>
> In any event, best wishes from the barbaric states of America.
<grinz> fair enough... :-)
dougbaker
I welcome and respect everyone's opinions on this. I'm not quite sure
exactly where I stand on this one, myself, so it's quite impossible for me
to formulate a definitive response to someone else's opinion.
I am the type of person who will capture bugs in the house and release
them outdoors. I have to walk downstairs to let them go. I think what I'm
trying to say is, I am a great respecter of life. McVeigh makes me question
my basic philosophy. My feelings were so ambiguous in his case.
Guys that look like nice guys can be monsters, too. Hollywood trains us
to believe that only ugly people can be so evil. McVeigh didn't look like a
monster. He looked like a Marine recruitment poster, or the typical
good-natured farm kid that grew up to be a basketball star.
I feel terrible for being glad that he, too, was murdered.
I agree, Joel, that our country is one of the worst offenders in Human
Rights violations. I don't feel McVeigh's trial was very objective
and/or fair, and even he deserved better. Even in a fair trial, there was
no doubt that the end results would have been the same. There was no sense
in stacking the deck.
On the other hand, what's fair about loading a U-Haul completely full of
high explosives, parking it outside a building full of office workers and
their babies, and walking away like a chickenshit punk? It was a very, very
cowardly thing to do. How did he expect to win people over to his side by
doing such a horrible thing? Whatever his movement is, he set it back at
least a hundred years.
You don't make converts with senseless violence.
So I was glad to see him go. I'm very ashamed of myself for feeling
that way. Like I said, that's a new one on me.
I've protested the death penalty personally. I hated to see GW
"elected" as our president. He is one of the very worst Human Rights
offenders, and he comes from a long line of them.
I can't imagine what you go through every day, Turnkey. I've only seen
a few cases where I could even consider the death penalty, and it was never
an option, then. The true animals seem to get out in ten years or so. I
can see why you feel that way. Keep them locked up for life, at least. I
used to bartend. I've seen people who were just released from prison. Some
of them seem to be in a great hurry to go back. They did their part, and I
was forced to do mine. I never condoned violence in my bars, especially
brutal and senseless violence.
Wild Animals belong in pens.
I was especially touched by this:
"My constant exposure to them after all these years has left me
without the ability to hate them for what they are but I also
recognize that they are who they are and simply do not become
'normal people' when placed in an environment where everyone
else has been deemed too dangerous to be out in society."
That's a terrible dilemma. We have to do something with them, but most
of them only get worse living in packs. That must be a real tight-wire act
for you every day. If a prison environment rubs off on hardened criminals,
what does it do to people who are "normal?"
How do you keep it off of you, when you are around those people all the
time, Turnkey?
I only know two people personally who were in prison. They were both in
for pot. They did not make their livings dealing drugs. They had regular
jobs. Pot was only a hobby. They were very nice people when they went in.
They're not even nice to themselves now. Prison did not make them better,
more productive members of society.
I have seen what "rehabilitation" does to people. It's not pretty. It
is a dilemma.
---doug
ĞTÜ�Ñkë�ğ
wrote:
> How do you keep it off of you, when you are around those people all the
>time, Turnkey?
I guess I sort of look at my life in general as sort of a
surrealistic thing that unfolds before me. I have developed kind of a
"That was interesting. I wonder what will happen next?" attitude and
don't see anything as really happening.
I'm sure that's not a healthy thing but it seems to be true. I'm
not sure if it's zen, denial or depression but I can't say I feel
sorry for myself. I assume everyone feels this way to some degree.
Perhaps that's why I can feel so comfortable in the "realities"
that Vonnegut portrays in his novels.
Hi Ho
Vinny Hrovat
>On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 14:14:07 -0700, "dougbaker" <zap...@voyager.net>
>wrote:
>
>> How do you keep it off of you, when you are around those people all the
>>time, Turnkey?
>
> I guess I sort of look at my life in general as sort of a
>surrealistic thing that unfolds before me. I have developed kind of a
>"That was interesting. I wonder what will happen next?" attitude and
>don't see anything as really happening.
>
> I'm sure that's not a healthy thing but it seems to be true. I'm
I don't think that's unhealthy, as long as the "That was interesting" doesn't
become "What the hell is going on now?" too often. The way i see it, you can't
close all the open manholes on all the streets of the world but you can at least
step to one side to avoid the open manholes in front of you. Then you look
inside them as you walk by and say, "That was interesting." Or, "What the hell
was that?"
Reminds me of a quote from Theodore Roethke: "I feel my fate in what i cannot
fear; i learn by going where i have to go." Or, as a friend of mine paraphrased
it, "Fate drags me around by my nose hairs sometimes."
Vincent J. Hrovat | "Well maybe you can find some neat way
vhrovat@ remove earthlink.net | to die, too." It was a Bokononist
| thing to say . . . .
dougbaker
"«TÜ®Ñk륻" <tur...@tir.com> wrote in message
news:ch0git0a460vqnv7k...@4ax.com...
I think it is healthy that you can desensitize yourself of all that
negative energy and stay detached from it, Turnkey. I think you're right
about everyone feeling this way to a degree. Thanks for answering my
question so well.
While it was no prison, I bartended in a very rough nightclub for five
years during the 70s. Lots of pissed off, drunken bikers, the outlaw gang
type. Like you said, "This is interesting. I wonder what will happen
next?" For us, it was also,"This is insane. Please don't let it happen
here or now. Oh, no, there they go again. Please, no weapons! I wonder if
I can get them to take it outside without my being slaughtered?"
I didn't feel sorry for myself, either. I had ways of dealing with it.
One way was my constantly quitting and coming back. I'd quit, and everyone
would tell me how badly it got out of hand without me. I'd feel guilty and
come back. I still don't know why, but most of the bikers respected me.
The other way I dealt with it was knowing that no matter how bad it
got, at 2:30 a.m., they would have to leave. Thankfully, our city cops
usually parked right next door at the filling station at closing time, which
was usually the time for trouble. The cops and I weren't exactly on each
others' Christmas card list, but I was always very glad to know they were
there.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me about KV is that he makes
everyone in his novels seem rational, even lovable to a degree, no matter
how pronounced their antisocial behavior is. One thing about the bikers
that amazed me was that even the worst of them seemed nice, even
good-hearted, if they came in alone. I think the pack mentality was the
culprit.
--doug