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2001-06-11 | 2:08 p.m.

I don't believe in the death penalty. I don't think the state teaches us to value life by taking it. I understand the survivor's hunger for vengeance; I know I would feel it myself. I don't get out and protest the death penalty because there are so many causes that are easier to get behind. (Supporting human rights, for instance, which in most of the world's living rooms includes opposition to the death penalty.) I don't lose any sleep over it. But intellectually, morally, I feel it is wrong.

I think the best way for a heinous murderer to die is the way Jeffrey Dahmer died: killed violently by another prisoner. Knifed to death in the prison laundry, I think it was. He didn't get to make his peace with God. He didn't get to request a favorite final meal. Timothy McVeigh died by lethal injection in front of a V.I.P. audience after eating two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. That's practically a birthday party compared to the way Jeffrey Dahmer died. I prefer the idea of them always looking over their shoulder. That is poetic justice. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

The hunger for public executions also supports my longstanding notion that America's Christian legions don't really buy their own dogma. Why kill a prisoner on earth if you believe that God will judge him in heaven? Especially when there's a commandment that says 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'? They're hedging their bets, that's why. Along the same lines, why grieve so painfully over a loved one's death if you really believe you will see them again in heaven, for all eternity?

Of course, there are always a few who can smile through their tears. They are the true believers, I guess.

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