A Moral Void

I was going to expand on my post about the internecine struggle within the administration for Junior’s empty soul by looking at the contrast between George Ryan’s principled decision to commute the sentences of every person on death row due to the incurable flaws of the justice system in Illinois, and the cavalier faith-based assumption of judicial perfection of the President of the United States.

Jeanne D’Arc already nailed it.

And the moral struggle implicit in this passage — I spent a good deal of time reviewing these death row cases. My staff, many of whom are lawyers, spent busy days and many sleepless nights answering my questions. — brought to mind George Bush’s contrasting refusal to engage in thought, let alone an honest moral reckoning, when he responded to an AP reporter who asked about the possibility of innocent people being executed in Texas: “If you’re asking me whether or not as to the innocence or guilt or if people have had adequate access to the courts in Texas, I believe they have.” A report had indicated that the death penalty in Texas was a knot of racial bias and incompetent defense, but Bush didn’t even think it was worth looking into the issue. The refusal to bother asking yourself ethical questions must be the worst form of laziness. As Governor Ryan put it, “Many people express the desire to have capital punishment. Few, however, seem prepared to address the tough questions that arise when the system fails. It is easier and more comfortable for politicians to be tough on crime and support the death penalty. It wins votes. But when it comes to admitting that we have a problem, most run for cover.” Cowardice, as well as moral sloth.

As I listened to the Sabbath Gasbag Shows this morning, I found my stomach churning in visceral reaction to the cold-hearted, unmerciful attitudes of the majority of conservatives on this

issue. So many were completely unmoved that the judicial system in Illinois was so corrupt and incompetent that 17 death row inmates have been exonerated. Conservatives, in fact, seemed to take the position that the larger miscarriage of justice is that Ryan commuted the death sentences of over a hundred inmates to the “soft on crime” sentence of life without parole — even though the system that put them there has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt to be so unreliable that 17 innocent people lived with a sword hanging over their heads for years — a fact that only the hard work of volunteers and students brought to light. This commutation “sends the wrong message,” and is “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” despite the fact that the message that was already being sent is that the State of Illinois doesn’t care if it executes innocent people, so the baby in the bathwater had already drowned.

They seemed to have absolutely no empathy for the human beings, people who could be them or members of their family in a different life, who were caught in a horrible Kafkaesque nightmare in which despite their innocence the State brought it’s full power and authority to bear to kill them, refused to admit it when caught red handed and continued to defend its actions in the face of absolute proof of its corruption or error. Not only do they betray a singular lack of simple human compassion and heart, they betray the principles they fought for for over 50 years when they railed against the totalitarian Communist state and it’s rejection of individual rights.

Can we get down to brass tacks on this? When the judicial system is as arbitrary, corrupt and prone to error as the Illinois judicial system (along with most jurisdictions in America) it is immoral to entrust it with the ultimate punishment of death. And if one defends such systems in the name of the authority of the State, and believes that it is destructive to the State to question its infallibility, then one is a Totalitarian.

Many conservatives are flirting openly with Totalitarianism these days and their lack of empathy and moral judgment, even in the face of a gross miscarriage of justice, is indicative of a frightening will to power. All those years of studying Stalinism in order to defeat it seems to have evolved into a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which the student has come to identify with the subject.

I think it is time for conservatives to take a hiatus from their Sabbath Gasbag assignments and check in with their priests. Because if they are unmoved when the State is willing to execute innocent people in their name, then their problems run much deeper than the moral relativism they love to pin on the left. They are operating in a moral void.