Vengence is ours?
My Catholic teachings are a bit fuzzy, but there is one thing I took from it: The power of redemption. The belief that a person can attone and receive forgiveness. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case in the good ol' yew ess of A.
Tookie Willams may or may not have done what he did - we'll never know. Personally, I think that the chances of a black guy or a poor guy getting an honest trial in this country are pretty much nil, so we'll never know for sure. But beyond that is the fact that he tried to attone, to do the right thing, and to keep people from making the same mistakes he has. And what did he get for it? Bupkis. And who did he get it from? A has-been movie star with big old man-boobs who balls are in hock to his red-meat, mouth-breathing base.
And one last thing, before we move back to furnishings and china: The schmucks who pontificate on the radio and around the water cooler with the timeless retort "Yeah, well what would you do if it were your (insert relative here) he killed?" Well, I know a wonderful family that had a darling daughter who was killed in a horrible, public way right after Thanksgiving several years back. When the killer was captured, did they scream in the public square for blood? No. Did they go from cable channel to cable channel to babble about closure? No. Suprisingly enough, they responded in an intelligent and thoughtful way, and made a simple, dignified statement about their desire for privacy, and their wish to have justice take its course.
Since the state they live in does not have the death penalty, every gun nut, every death penalty freak, every "Christian" weirdo took this as "opposition to the death penalty" and came out of the woodwork to call into radio shows and send them vicious, anonymous letters about how wrong they were. These simian freaks didn't give a fuck about the dead girl, they just wanted more blood.
My point is this: until that happens to you - and I hope it never does - you don't know how you'd react "if it were your (insert relative here)" And to try and even guess is morbid in the extreme. Show me someone who asks that rhetorical question, and I'll show you a real asshole.
Tookie Willams may or may not have done what he did - we'll never know. Personally, I think that the chances of a black guy or a poor guy getting an honest trial in this country are pretty much nil, so we'll never know for sure. But beyond that is the fact that he tried to attone, to do the right thing, and to keep people from making the same mistakes he has. And what did he get for it? Bupkis. And who did he get it from? A has-been movie star with big old man-boobs who balls are in hock to his red-meat, mouth-breathing base.
And one last thing, before we move back to furnishings and china: The schmucks who pontificate on the radio and around the water cooler with the timeless retort "Yeah, well what would you do if it were your (insert relative here) he killed?" Well, I know a wonderful family that had a darling daughter who was killed in a horrible, public way right after Thanksgiving several years back. When the killer was captured, did they scream in the public square for blood? No. Did they go from cable channel to cable channel to babble about closure? No. Suprisingly enough, they responded in an intelligent and thoughtful way, and made a simple, dignified statement about their desire for privacy, and their wish to have justice take its course.
Since the state they live in does not have the death penalty, every gun nut, every death penalty freak, every "Christian" weirdo took this as "opposition to the death penalty" and came out of the woodwork to call into radio shows and send them vicious, anonymous letters about how wrong they were. These simian freaks didn't give a fuck about the dead girl, they just wanted more blood.
My point is this: until that happens to you - and I hope it never does - you don't know how you'd react "if it were your (insert relative here)" And to try and even guess is morbid in the extreme. Show me someone who asks that rhetorical question, and I'll show you a real asshole.
posted by Catalina Vel-DuRay @ Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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