Thousands of journalists were clamoring to best describe the emotion that embodied Monday’s execution of Timothy McVeigh.
McVeigh was responsible for the worst terrorist attack on American soil — the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City April 19, 1995. The blast killed 168 people and McVeigh showed little to no remorse for the victims, blaming the attack on the U.S. government he said needed to be taught a lesson.
Despite the 24-hour news coverage, few journalists described the disgust I felt in watching my government kill one of its citizens.
We condemn murders for taking the lives of others, then we call it justice when we kill them for their heinous crimes. It just doesn’t seem right.
Few could passionately defend McVeigh because his actions were so cold and calculated. Still, the death penalty has not been proven to deter crime. It also is being used by a justice system that is flawed. As the result of investigative reporting by the Chicago Tribune last year that found several cases where innocent people were executed, Illinois’s Gov. George Ryan has placed a moratorium on the death penalty.
Despite mounting, compelling evidence against capital punishment, the United States does not seem poised to change.
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President Bush explained to angered Europeans, who have long since banned the use of the capital punishment, that the death penalty is “the will of the American people.” One U.S. reader responded to London-based The Economist’s objections to the death penalty by writing, “We don’t care what Europeans think of us because we’re right and you’re wrong.”
Nothing like good old-fashioned American arrogance to justify an act that few other civilized countries endorse, much less practice.
-Iliana Lim¢n Editor in chief
