Today - 2013 11 20

Today is November 20.

That probably means very little to most of you - it is just another Wednesday. But today is an anniversary. A grim anniversary.

It was ten years ago, 2003 11 20, that the brother of one of my dearest friends died. He died at midnight, local time: a victim of the State.

Coincidentally, I have been an opponent of the death penalty for a considerable time: just coming up on ten years to this day. Wonder why.

My Death Penalty Comment

A comment to a post by the Campaign Against the Death Penalty group on Facebook today:-

"Troy knew he was innocent. His defense knew he was innocent. The prosecution knew he was innocent. The press knew he was innocent. Twitter knew he was innocent - and the public all knew he was innocent.

"And they didn't care.

"They all stopped their ears to the protests. Twitter even censored the feeds to keep them from trending and becoming an inconvenient voice of reason that could have brought this to a stop.

"Those who stopped their ears deliberately did so because they wanted someone to die, in order to get themselves a scapegoat to salve them from their sins. And for that reason, and also to gain some future votes, the Governor gave in to the voices of the baying, bloodthirsty crowd and gave them a death.

"The death penalty does not work. The people know it, and do not care because the rush and the blood lust are just too good. Like animals, corrupted by an addiction, state-sponsored murder gives the baying masses an endorphin rush that hooks them to death and murder like a heroin fix. And like pushers, the governors of states supporting the death penalty keep giving them their fix in exchange for future votes.

"Your whole damned country needs rehab. Because until your people can admit to being addicts glutted on a diet of death, murder, violence and greed, force-fed delusion and addiction by the large and small screen and hooked on the excitement of the glamour of bad sex and murder like junkies in a filthy squat shooting up heroin; until they can admit it and go and seek help and rehabilitation; there'll be a whole lot more Troys being marched down that hallway towards the sacrificial chamber, your modern version of the Aztec chacmool."