Utah is phasing out firing squads because of the media attention and bad image they cause, legislators and corrections officials said. NY Times, April 25, 2010
Seriously? Because they don’t want America to think that they are killing anybody?
How about that– an unusually naked moment for America. Because of the “bad image” they cause! We wouldn’t want anybody to think we’re cold-hearted killers, oh no– so no firing squads.
One of the more outrageous perversities of current American politics is the violent determination of many people to have it both ways. We are kind, decent human beings. We admire Mark Twain and Martin Luther King Jr. We read the Bible and go to church. And we like to kill people.
But shooting someone with a firing squad– well, that makes it look like we’re killing people.
Lethal injection– now that looks nice and peaceful and humane!
That looks like the way a kind, compassionate society deals with murderers. We murder them quietly.
That’s the way a civilized society behaves.