Rather than turning this into (yet another) debate about Capital Punishment, how does this particular execution make you feel? Does it bother you that people are deliberately going to kill another person in a cold, bureaucratic manner? How would you feel knowing the exact date and time of your death?
Normally this is asked when someone disbelieves the statement being made, but in this case I’m just not familiar with the story you are referencing. All of this leading up to that one word so often found in Great Debates…
Cite?
Thanks 
I would much rather pay for him to sit around for the rest of his life, provided there was no media coverage of his eating meals and watching cable television. The spotlight he has been given as a result of the upcoming execution is something that this guy wants. I like your idea of keeping some criminals in a zoo-type environment, rather than the death penalty, but for a person like McVeigh, I actually think he would enjoy that role.
It does bother me that he is going to be executed. I personally don’t care a fig if he is stressed out by knowing the time and date of his death. He might have thought of that before death came like a bolt from the blue for his victims. In his case, the death penalty is not cruel.
In his case. That’s exactly why it bothers me. I think it is too easy to use McVeigh as a symbol of why the death penalty is OK. He is a poster boy for capital punishment – he clearly did it, he has no remorse, he has no mental handicap, once sentenced he asked for the execution to be swift. He’s even white.
The problem I have is that the law must be the same for everyone, and that right now, I believe the studies that show that not everyone is treated equally in capital punishment cases. In a nation of this size and complexity, I’m not sure it will ever be possible for that to happen. I am against capital punishment because I believe that protecting a small number of innocent people is more important than punishing the admittedly greater number of guilty people.
While I admit that capital punishment (in this case, McVeigh’s execution) won’t solve anything, I don’t think imprisonment solves anything, either. Certainly, life imprisonment is no more a deterrent than the death penalty (and less-than-life terms even less so).
The truth is, we may make noises about how civilized we are and all of that, but deep down, humans (in general; there are, of course, specific exceptions) are still brutal savages. There will always be those who will commit atrocities, regardless of the possible consequences society dreams up. And there will always be victims who scream out for vengeance.
From a moralistic stand-point, murder is murder, no matter what (if one wishes to be consistent, anyway). But then, what does a humanitarian society do with these inevitable recalcitrant monsters? If we can’t kill them (it’s immoral), we have to let them live. But then, we can’t allow them to wander the streets, where they will be free to commit the same, or worse, acts again. And if we simply lock them away, they become a financial burden. Any other options are severely limited by the ‘cruel and unusual’ clause in our Constitution.
So what the heck do we do, especially since we are still a bit away from being a true humanitarian society? I sure as heck don’t know (yes, I am being wishy-washy).
Normally ambivalent to capital punishment
I am not bothered in the least by this guy being executed by the government.
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I’ve accepted the fact I’m going to die, knowing exactly when might even be liberating.
While I strongly oppose the DP, McVeigh’s case makes an excellent argument for a compromise proposal I’ve had for some time.
Capital murder juries are currently death-qualified–that is, if you tell them that you could not give someone the death penalty, you are automatically excused from the jury. I think this is a bad idea, since support for the DP does not exist in a vacuum and probably correlates with a decreased threshold for guilt. (I don’t have a cite, but I recall reading studies that said DQ’d juries convict and convict incorrectly more often than non-DQ’d ones.)
Thus, my proposal–end the death qualification of juries. Better yet, see specifically to it that people who oppose the DP are represented on the jury in proportion to their prevalence in the population, which usually wavers between 1/4 and 1/3. If you want the death penalty, you have to convince those 3-4 jurors that the crime was heinous enough and that guilt is certain enough to overcome their general opposition to the DP. Thus, the DP would be reserved for rare cases like McVeigh.
Like I said, I oppose the DP, but not because I don’t feel like some people deserve to die. I am more concerned about the possible execution of the innocent, the disproportionate execution of the poor and minorities, and the general attitude of bloodthirstiness that often surrounds the DP. I think my proposal would make execution of the innocent vanishingly unlikely, and would make us take the DP more seriously–it is our most severe punishment, and it will be reserved for the most severe cases.
Dr. J
Okay, so suppose Timothy McVeigh should die for what he did - planning the murder of hundreds of random people and not showing any remorse for it. Compare his crime to the crimes of anyone on death row right now, like Mumia Abu-Jamal in PA and that retarded guy in Texas that just had his death sentence overturned. Most of these people killed one, possibly two people, some in an act of passion, and many of them do express remorse. And they get the exact same penalty as McVeigh? Justify this, please, if you maintain that eyes should be given for eyes and teeth for teeth.
And I see that a few of you have unabashedly admitted that the death penalty is revenge rather than deterrence or any high-minded social engineering tactic, and you don’t seem to have a problem with it. Fine, how do you justify putting McVeigh into the same category as the rest of the USA’s death row inmates, precisely NONE of whose crimes come close to the severity of McVeigh’s?
I don’t see your point here. Are you saying the other murderes should get less severe penalties for killing fewer people with possible extenuating circumstances? Or should McVeigh get a harser punishment, like a bigger needle for his lethal injection? Once you hit rock bottom (and premeditated murder is rock bottom in this society) you pretty much have to put a floor on the class system and say anybody under this score is the bottom of the barrel.
If there is a more severe category to put him in, please let me know what it is and I’ll put him in that category. Right now death row inmate is the bottom rung on the ladder, IMO. And why is it a problem that he is in this category? Is he making all the other death row inmates look bad? It’s not as if they were fine upstanding citizens before McVeigh joined their number.
So, is an infant worthy of being executed because they have the brain functions, but not the ethics to operate in a society? Are they “things” to?
And, I doubt any OKC “survivors” will find closure while Terry Nichols is still appealing his sentence and trying very hard to get a new trial.
I personally think that we should try to rehabilitate people like Timothy McVeigh. Nothing would be a worse punishment for him than taking his beliefs and destroying him. He probably fears a life that could lead to him regretting all those deaths much more than death.
Killing him satisfies us, but it does not really hurt him. We cannot punish him the same way he could punish himself.
I’m all for rehabilitation, but I don’t think the throngs that would like nothing more than McVeigh’s death could be rehabilitated toward re-accepting him into society.
We’re not that smart, us Americans. 
Still not in gread debates yet? Maybe now
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I don’t think anyone is on Death Row for crimes of passion, including Abdu-Jamal (who I believe is 100% guilty, and contibuted heavily to the nature of his trial, in case you were holding back that card). At some point enough is enough. I don’t care if it’s one or one thousand. Killing a witness to a crime vs. blowing up a building equates pretty nicely on mu outrage-o-meter.
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I think I addressed it above.
posted by Montford
And the infant killed who? Don’t recall any toddlers being on death row either.
posted by Sterra
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Surely you’re not serious. We can’t rehabilatate bank robbers an rapist, but you’re advocating it for someone who blew up a 100+ people!!! And if we could, what, we let him out?
Well, Timothy McVeigh wants to die. To me that shows that he already would be punished less by dying than living. My problem with the death penalty has always been about suicidal people. What if Timothy McVeigh who is suicidal is too afraid to kill himself so he kills other people. With the end result that he doesen’t have to kill himself.
You say we can’t rehabilitate bank robbers and rapists, but do we even try? Most people just want to distance themselves from the guy and go back to make believing that this sort of thing will go away. If we can make Timothy McVeigh regret his actions that will be a much better deterrent than death. People commit crimes because they think that doing that is superior to whatever they are doing now. If the goverment can show that criminals regret their actions instead of often making prison life superior to some peoples average lives then crime will go down. People who kill generally don’t have that much fear of death.
Well Sterra, the only way I could see it working is by making prison life so much harder, but then there is that whole “cruel and unusual punishment” thing.
That is sooo out of context and you know it. An infant argubly is just begining the process of self awareness and haven’t begun to be taught right from wrong. People are born innocent, not guilty… even McVeigh.
“People” in the category of McVeigh (at least the ones I am familiar with) all have one thing in common. The knew exactly what they were doing. I am not talking about a mentally deficiant 12 year old, but the Bundy’s, Dahlmers et al.
Any I can not even begin to know how OKC survivors feel. I don’t even feel comfortable guessing, but I would not be suprised if some of them may see this as part of the healing process. Whether you or I agree its not relevant. As long as a few of them get some good out of his death, thats more than a good enough reason for me. He killed 168 totally innocent people. He sure as hell doesn’t deserve to live.
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Most people who commit violent acts are quite sane. You don’t have to be insane to murder someone.
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Typically we don’t hold insane people to the same standards of the sane.
It doesn’t end. Do you think an abolishment of the death penalty would end murder?
Marc
Lets take this one step further. Timothy McVeigh considered all those people he killed “things”. Therefore he felt no remorse when he killed them.
I don’t see your ethics when you can classify people as “things” and feel no remorse when they are executed. You lack ethics.
McVeigh should either be executed, or put into the general population of the Oklahoma City jail. Or maybe someone who thinks he shouldn’t be executed and could be rehabilitated should agree to take him into their home (letting their address be published) and take care of him.
Do you know why this isn’t a Great Debate? Because everyone already has their minds made up about this. Nobody’s going to change my mind and I’m not going to change anybody’s. It probably depends on the relative importance an individual assigns to various abstract concepts like “Justice”, “Vengeance”, “The Sanctity of Human Life”, etc. So it’s all subjective, and there’s no debate to be had.
Anyway…
No. It makes us look bad. We’re in very bad company as a retentionist nation. That puts us in a class with Iran, Serbia, Russia… no wonder they threw us off that Human Rights commission.
What does anyone’s birthday have to do with this?
Sorry, but I don’t get it. Did they forget to check with people before they set the date or something? Whether you are for the execution of against it, please do not take it so personal that it ruins a day of celebration for you or someone you love!
Quasi