If there’s one thing Republicans love, it’s their executions. If there’s one thing they love more than executions, it’s money. If there’s one thing they love more than executions and money, it’s politics. If there’s one thin- fundraisers. That’s what I’m getting to.
So what happens when two public spectacles which exist only for the purpose of pandering to the lowest common denominator collide? Money wins.
Kids: money always wins.
And so Pam Bondi, Attorney effing General of the State of Florida got her buddy Rick “Let’s Speed Up Executions Because We’re Doing Such A Fine Job Of Making Sure We Always Have The Right Guy” Scott to nonchalantly postpone an execution scheduled to take place on Monday.
Because Bondi needed to get some money to keep her job.
After Scott last month rescheduled the execution for Sept. 10, the date of Bondi’s “hometown campaign kickoff” at her South Tampa home, Bondi’s office asked that it be postponed. The new date is Oct. 1.
Scott said Monday that he did not know the reason for the request, and he declined to answer when asked whether he considers a campaign fundraiser an appropriate reason to reschedule an execution.
Here, laid before you in the barest terms possible is your “victim’s rights”. Here is your “tough on crime” and “vengeance” and “justice” and all that supposedly makes it worth having a death penalty.
All of that. An inconvenience to a politician who wants money. Here it lies before you, exposed as nothing more than another tool to get your vote and your dollar.
Do half of these blood-thirsty politicians even care about the death penalty by itself? Or do they care more about it as an instrument that legitimizes their existence?
And, despite your best efforts to convince yourself otherwise, is there no part of you that cringes at the thought that a man’s life is being toyed with so?
Is the irony lost? We, who seek to punish those who kill to teach a lesson about the value of life do so without any notion of exhibiting that very value. Human life is precious and must be treated with respect, we say as we cavalierly bring a man to the precipice of the after-life and then yank him back at the last minute because something shiny caught our attention.
We kill to teach that killing is bad, but we do it with such haphazard and imprecise abandon that one is but forced to come away with the opinion that maybe this killing thing isn’t such a big deal at all.
I want no part of any of this and neither should you.