I just saw a poll at AOL.com that said that 85% of respondents supported the death penalty. Are you among them? Do you think we should kill people in order to stop people from killing people?
The question on the survey was straightforward enough: “Do you support the death penalty?”
I clicked on the NO icon, then on the VOTE icon, which I knew would show me the results of all the voting on this question. I don’t know why, but I expected to find the majority voting “no”. To my astonishment, not only did the majority vote “yes”–but the spread in favor was overwhelming.
Over 3,000 people had voted by the time I saw the poll, and more than 2,700 of them voted “yes.”
God, what kind of country are we living in? Or am I living in, I should say. I am aware that many readers of this blog are from outside the U.S.
I know this Death Penalty thing is an old subject…but how can anybody who is civilized believe in the death penalty…? What kind of barbaric society would imagine that authorized killing is an antedote to unauthorized killing?
Am I really that out-of-sync with the world in which I live?
Albert Einstein was reputed to have said (and I paraphrase here): You cannot solve any problem using the same energy that created it.
You cannot solve the problem of violence with violence, you cannot solve the problem of anger with anger, you cannot solve the problem of impatience with impatience, etc. All you are doing is throwing fuel on the fire.
Again, I ask, for the third time: How in the world can a civilized society kill people as a means of convincing people that they should not kill people? Am I the only one who sees a direct contradiction here?
I am, frankly, amazed at the results of that AOL poll. More than amazed. I am shocked. Boy, I must be living alongside of Alice, in Wonderland. Here I am thinking that we surely have grown up by now. Have we?
I think a big test, a huge test, will come on Nov. 4. Will Americans have the strength of character to elect a black man as president of the United States, or are there those who will oppose Barack Obama simply because of race, voting for a white man simply because he is white, even though he represents a party that has produced eight years of unending mistakes, mis-reads, and tragic errors?
Oh, and…speaking of John McCain…Washington Post syndicated columnist Richard Cohen asked a piercing question in his column on Oct. 14. He said it was one of as series of questions he wanted to ask the candidate during the last presidential debate Wednesday evening. Here was one particular question…which I thought was brilliant:

“Senator McCain, I’d like to ask you why you’ve attacked Senator Obama for associating with the former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, even though you have befriended G. Gordon Liddy, who was jailed for what amounts to subversion of the Constitution. Liddy also once told his radio listeners to deal with agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms by shooting them — “a head shot,” he recommended. What’s the difference between Liddy and Ayers? Take as much time as you want.”

Hmmm…I sure would like to hear Sen. McCain’s answer to that one…
Oh, and to end today’s blog on a smile…David Letterman noticed the other day that there were “a lot of things on sale on Columbus Day. … You could get a good deal on a dining room set, mattresses, General Motors…”
David also said that President Bush “is trying to reassure Americans that things are going to get better soon. And I was thinking well, sure, in three months he’ll be out of office.”
(ahem)