Letters to the editor

Witness to the execution

"Although I personally have no desire to watch the execution of Timothy McVeigh, I believe it is a good idea and should be carried through. I say that even though many years ago as a young man I was horrified to listen to the execution of Caryl Chessman, when it was broadcast over the radio. That moment, at that time, turned me against capital punishment. I have since reconsidered.
  
"It seems to me that Lara Frumkin's point ("I don't think that watching this execution or knowing that McVeigh has been executed will bring any real closure. It will just be one more detail.") may confuse the difference between grieving and the satisfaction that justice brings. With justice done, the grieving will not stop. There will be no "closure" on the death of a loved one, especially in such a hideous case as this. One comes to terms with grief by degrees and never turns away from it finally. More importantly in this case, "justice" means retribution, payment indeed that one's family can no longer exact as in the old days.

"I think we know by now that retribution (including its less favorable sense of "revenge") is an essential part of one's conceding to capital punishment. I don't fear that the imagery of McVeigh upon execution will traumatize further the families of his victims, but rather that these images may become commercial property and appear on the T-shirts of those ignorant and misguided people who support him. For most people of decency and common sense, such imagery will serve to remind that there are indeed limits for all of us who succumb to the monsters within our own hearts. Such an execution will, I think, be shocking, and should be shocking. It will be a catharsis that releases anew grief with satisfaction. A relative of a victim may scream with joy and weep simultaneously. And approval of McVeigh's execution will not turn that relative or anyone else who approves into a similar monster. The essential difference is an act carried out with extraordinary deliberation in the interests of justice, and part of that a "lesson" or serious reminder.

"A dose of realism will do no harm to a public both cynical of the justice system and inclined to see the monster as somehow "victim" and to be forgiven for a devastating absence of humanity. McVeigh's self righteousness belongs in a class with other more notorious monsters of history, including Hitler and Goering. All of these individuals lacked the ability to empathize (which is a first step to being a human in contrast to a lower animal form) and gave way to a self righteousness that destroyed their judgment and self control. Failing to execute McVeigh will do far more harm than executing him ever could."

Peter Bollington
Lecturer in English, UMUC - Asia
Taegu, Korea