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Moving Beyond the Rhetorics of Dignity and Depravity; or, Arguing About Capital Punishment
Ist Teil von
Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2005-10, Vol.8 (3), p.477-498
Ort / Verlag
East Lansing: Michigan State University Press
Erscheinungsjahr
2005
Link zum Volltext
Quelle
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Beschreibungen/Notizen
On and on it goes, with the death penalty dredging up stories of slavery, of murdered sons and daughters, of police lost in the course of duty, of innocents trapped in a bureaucracy that seems less interested in pursuing justice than in scoring prosecutions, with one side focusing on the inherent dignity of those who commit even the worst crimes and another side seeing this same group as inherently depraved. Opponents of the death penalty have claimed since the early antebellum period that hangings were part of the arsenal of violence used to sustain racism in general and slavery in particular. Offered as a written entry in the log book for a town meeting about the death penalty in Texas in 2002, the anonymous author suggested in aggravated handwriting, with multiple underlines and exclamation points, that the state should "Fry 'em All!!!" One can only imagine the anger and pain such an author carries around in his or her head, pounding like a toxic drum, blocking both critical thought and any sense of compassion.