Would You Kill for Your Freedom?
I've spent my forty years on earth as a conscientious objector, and have always vigorously opposed the death penalty. But all that righteous pacifism came screeching to a halt early this morning, when I gazed into the bathroom mirror and realized that our democracy was imperiled, and it was time to be prepared to use extreme force to defend it.
No, I don't mean by marching off to Iraq to fend off Baathist insurrection and help establish a civil society that Exxon's Board of Directors will find agreeable. I mean killing those responsible for threatening our way of life.
You know: the terrorists who want to disrupt our election.
The terrorists I refer to are not Islamic fundamentalists. They aren't suicide bombers or anthrax mailers. They're paid political functionaries.
There are concerted and probably connected efforts nationwide to prevent people from voting--sometimes by screwing with voter registration forms, sometimes by phoning people and giving them false information about polling places, dates and times and sometimes--most egregiously--by intimidation, often from law-enforcement agents sworn to uphold the Constitution.
These people get away with this because they serve the goals of the same entity that currently controls all branches of our government--and they seek to help the entity maintain that control.
And if there is no disincentive to meddling with democracy--a decided counterweight to the pecuniary and other benefits to be gained from illegally assisting the political entity in question--it will continue unabated.
Therefore, I suggest that anyone found guilty of authorizing nefarious interference with votes or voters should be put to death by lethal injection.
I know what you're going to say: Vote fraud is wrong, but it's not like murder. And you're right. It's worse.
A murderer takes a human life. But tampering with democracy kills the thing we ask our soldiers (and, by extension, our citizenry) to kill and die for. We must therefore be willing to punish this transgression the way we would punish someone who sold secrets to an enemy power, or, say, ordered a plane to be flown into a skyscraper.
Killing voting kills democracy, and democracy is the only safeguard against tyranny at home. Without it, we become a technocratic dictatorship. Meddling with the vote, then, is unquestionably treasonous. It subverts the foundation of our society in a way no foreign combatant could ever hope to do.
And since those who engage in this unconscionable activity are usually mercenaries, the death penalty will act as a profound disincentive for them--and as great leverage for prosecutors seeking the parties repsonsible for hiring said mercenaries and giving them their marching orders.
And if following such an investigative trail means our courts must put down key political figures like rabid canines, that is the price we pay for our wonderful democracy.
I'm ready to fight for freedom. Are you?
No, I don't mean by marching off to Iraq to fend off Baathist insurrection and help establish a civil society that Exxon's Board of Directors will find agreeable. I mean killing those responsible for threatening our way of life.
You know: the terrorists who want to disrupt our election.
The terrorists I refer to are not Islamic fundamentalists. They aren't suicide bombers or anthrax mailers. They're paid political functionaries.
There are concerted and probably connected efforts nationwide to prevent people from voting--sometimes by screwing with voter registration forms, sometimes by phoning people and giving them false information about polling places, dates and times and sometimes--most egregiously--by intimidation, often from law-enforcement agents sworn to uphold the Constitution.
These people get away with this because they serve the goals of the same entity that currently controls all branches of our government--and they seek to help the entity maintain that control.
And if there is no disincentive to meddling with democracy--a decided counterweight to the pecuniary and other benefits to be gained from illegally assisting the political entity in question--it will continue unabated.
Therefore, I suggest that anyone found guilty of authorizing nefarious interference with votes or voters should be put to death by lethal injection.
I know what you're going to say: Vote fraud is wrong, but it's not like murder. And you're right. It's worse.
A murderer takes a human life. But tampering with democracy kills the thing we ask our soldiers (and, by extension, our citizenry) to kill and die for. We must therefore be willing to punish this transgression the way we would punish someone who sold secrets to an enemy power, or, say, ordered a plane to be flown into a skyscraper.
Killing voting kills democracy, and democracy is the only safeguard against tyranny at home. Without it, we become a technocratic dictatorship. Meddling with the vote, then, is unquestionably treasonous. It subverts the foundation of our society in a way no foreign combatant could ever hope to do.
And since those who engage in this unconscionable activity are usually mercenaries, the death penalty will act as a profound disincentive for them--and as great leverage for prosecutors seeking the parties repsonsible for hiring said mercenaries and giving them their marching orders.
And if following such an investigative trail means our courts must put down key political figures like rabid canines, that is the price we pay for our wonderful democracy.
I'm ready to fight for freedom. Are you?
posted by Simon Glickman at 1:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home