Saturday, July 19, 2008

Dale Leo Bishop

I'm not an activist, or anything, and I think I've only written one post here (oh, and a brief follow-up) on the topic, but...

Capital punishment is fucked. I mean, I think it's so fucked that it really bugs me that I have to argue the point: if it's wrong to kill someone in cold blood, then the death penalty is fucking murder (and never mind the fact that killing murderers is nothing more than sheer laziness in whatever society still happens to practice this particular form of barbarism). And what really sticks in my craw is how many death penalty proponents claim (falsely, so it seems) to be Christians. I hate to tell you this, assholes, but you cannot be both a Christian and support the death penalty. I guess you'll all be seein' my atheist ass in hell (assuming you all believe a single fucking word of the shit you spew, that is).

So why am I on about this tonight? Why am I interrupting an otherwise enjoyable evening of getting drunk, listening to tunes, and generally annoying my friends on the web? This is why:
Next week, the State of Mississippi is going to strap Dale Leo Bishop to a prison gurney and shoot him full of deadly chemicals. He's going to die for murder although he killed no one. He's going to die even though his case was grossly mishandled by a lawyer who refused to present mitigating evidence of the horrible abuse Bishop suffered as a child and his life-long struggle with mental illness. He's going to die even though the man whom prosecutors admit is the one who committed the murder has been spared, while Bishop has been condemned to execution by lethal injection.

Please, read the whole story. There's a link at the end where you can write the Governor of Mississippi (at this point Bishop's only hope). If I can do it from here in Japan (and I did), you can do it too, wherever you are.

3 comments:

  1. Absolutely outrageous. Only one example of how the sistem fails.

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  2. Why do you feel the need to use profanities in your blog? Is it because you aren't intelligent enough to get your point across with them? This man was not innocent by any stretch. He did participate in the MURDER of a man. He may not have struck the fatal blow but he did participate. I do agree that it is not fair the his sentence was not the same as the others involved but don't you dare say he was put to death for not doing anything. YOU ARE WRONG>

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  3. Dear Anonymous,

    Thank you for visiting and commenting, and thank you for being (I think) the first visitor here to to insult me in the comments section. Like they say, good things come to those who wait...

    Anyway, let me address the substance (such as it is) of your comments.

    Regarding my use of "profanities": I'll be the first to admit that I have a foul mouth, but I'm not going to apologize for swearing on my own blog. And as for not being "intelligent enough to get [my] point across without them," well, an insult is an insult, isn't it, regardless of the language employed?

    I pointed out the logical (and moral) inconsistency of being both a "Christian" and a supporter of the death penalty. I think I made the point rather clearly, but you chose not to address it.

    What did you address with your comment? You addressed nothing, I'm afraid, because nowhere in my post did I say (or infer) that Bishop was "put to death for not doing anything."

    Forget about all of the clearly mitigating circumstances in this particular case, because they're unnecessary to my argument that the death penalty is wrong, immoral, and barbaric in any circumstances. The death penalty is morally lazy, because as we've seen, any fucking idiot can pull a trigger...

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