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It's sure hard to get excited about Whitewater. As nearly as I can tell, it works like this:
Many people have gained power and wealth under the current system of health care in this country. But they can't defend the system on its merits. So they have to attack any proposal for change.
Given modern media politics, it's easier to attack the proponent than to grapple with a complex issue. So the trick is find a scandal and get it on the front pages, thereby discrediting the Clintons and, by extension, health-care reform.
Alas, the only scandal they could find was Whitewater, which is almost as complicated as health care reform. But Whitewater must be more important, since it's getting all the calls for immediate congressional hearings.
Isn't it wonderful to live in a country which solved so many other problems that the hottest item on the public agenda is whether the governor of Arkansas did a questionable but probably legal favor for a campaign contributor?
So let's move to capital punishment, today's hot topic. Proponents of capital punishment continue to trot out trite statements about deterrence; for some reason, they never bring up the good arguments in its favor:
· Would you want to be a prison guard in a cell block where all the prisoners were serving life sentences with no possibility of parole? Without a death penalty, what do those felons have to lose by attacking you? Since prisons are a growth sector in the modern economy, we'll need more and more guards, and how are we going to attract them without the death penalty for their protection? Prisons are replacing national defense in the nation's pork-barrel, and we can't afford to lose the benefits of prison construction by making it difficult to attract personnel.
· The death penalty is clearly constitutional,
since the Fifth Amendment says no citizen can be
deprived of life . . . without due process of law.
Justice Harry Blackmun notwithstanding, the Founding
Fathers obviously approved of capital punishment. There is
nothing in the constitution to forbid only the execution of
poor people who can't afford Alan Dershowitz.
· Capital punishment also lies within Judeo-Christian tradition. Isn't that what happened to Jesus? The cross carries all manner of symbolism today, but it began as a cruel instrument of capital punishment. Buddhists might have a religious argument against the death penalty, but Christians don't.
· The presence of the death penalty makes it
cheap and simple for ambitious politicians to fight crime
by adding to the roster of capital offenses: pornography
during one election cycle, drugs during the next, three
strikes and you're dead
in a couple of years.
Further, under the current system -- the penalty is on the books but seldom applied -- they can safely call for more capital crimes, serene in the knowledge that they won't be launching a state-sponsored bloodbath.
The current death penalty is a good deal for politicians. They get the benefit of a tough anti-crime stance without the risk of any significant fall-out from the electric chairs, gas chambers and injection gurneys of this great land.
The death penalty may or may not deter, but it puts people in office and keeps them there. Isn't that enough?
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