Land Of a Thousand (and One) Executions

A few days ago the United States hit an unfortunate milestone in capital punishment. North Carolina executed a convicted double murderer on Friday, making him the one thousandth death row inmate executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to be reinstated in 1976 (the last execution before the Court's moratorium on the death penalty was in 1966).

The United States remains the only Western country that allows the use of capital punishment, on the federal level and in 38 states. This form of punishment - which has mainly been titled towards people of color - is a shameful blot on what passes for our civilization,. It's also an attempt by the state to play God in determining who lives and who dies, which is why the Vatican opposes it. The Republican Party, of course, supports capital punishment whole hog. And don't expect Democrats to do anything about it; Clinton executed a man as governor of Arkansas to demonstrate his toughness on crime while running for President in 1992. (A fat load of good support for the death penalty did Al Gore!) To be fair, though, while there have been a thousand executions here in the best twenty-eight years, only two have been at the federal level, and a good deal of the rest have been in Texas!

The first execution since the moratorium ended was in Utah in 1977, when Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad, so you might say capital punishment in America resumed with a bang! :-O The fact that Gilmore wanted to be executed doesn't make the practice any less barbaric.