Timothy McVeigh Executed
A reminder that we are not marching towards a blissful and peaceful future: The U.S. executed Timothy McVeigh today.
What do you think of that?
For the obvious reason.
I haven't decided if 'rehabilitation' is a buzzword or if it's possible (I think it totally depends on the case), but there must be another alternative that nobody's thinking of.
I think he was given the easy way out.
Also, as much as people say he was a monster, there is obviously some monster in all the people who wanted to watch the execution and have it videotaped. I find that disgusting. Isn't it enough that they know he's dead?
Maybe I don't understand because I've never lost family in a terrorist act.
This weekend, a co-worker loaned me his CD-ROM of wild 'n' wacky pics and movies. So for the most part it's the typical array of funny stuff, wild porn and some nasty footage of skateboarders breaking their arms.
Then I open a movie in which a battered young woman, strapped in a chair and pleading for her life, gets shot in the forehead. It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life.
Part of me wishes the execution was public. I don't think anyone seeing it could think it's any sort of resolution.
Anyone else stumble onto horrifying stuff online?
But if you already know that (like I did), it's just something to try to forget.
There are some fucked up people in this fucked up world, but let's face it, we live in a voyeuristic society in which we love to see the most horrible acts play out before us. For years, cable news has been showing us images of plane crashes, car crashes, terrorist bombings, school shootings, and we all sit there, mesmerised.
And then we forget about it.
I'm willing to bet that Kirby has seen someone else get his head blown off before. Remember the Zapruder film? Remember Kennedy? Now you do.
After seeing things like that, we all get traumatised for life. And then it goes away.
We should all be mad as hell that Timothy McVeigh was killed today.
Jeff Coll
>We should all be mad as hell that Timothy McVeigh was killed today.
Why?
I think it is possible to be against the death penalty yet not find fundamental flaw with the execution of McVeigh. I think that cuz, at least for now, that's what I think.
He saw himself as a soldier and his death as the sacrifice all soldiers are (at least partially) willing to make. It seems, according to some reports of those close to him in the past few days, that he felt sadness at the individual deaths (something like a fighter pilot who drops a bomb on Baghdad) but felt no remorse whatsoever.
If it was left to me (personally) I would not execute; I think living his entire life behind bars would be a much greater punishment and would avoid advancing his cause through martyrdom.
Even so, I have absolutely no moral grounds upon which to object to his execution other than the sanctity of life itself which, whether we like to admit it or not, varies considerably with convenience.
We used to do our hangings in public. Why not our lethal injections?
Rob, you say it's cheaper to execute. From what I understand, this is not true. It's far more expensive than (see my unreliable source).
Rob also hits on the interesting point that he can't understand as he is not a victim in this case. I would argue that this puts you at an advantage, not a disadvantage. The fate of criminals should not be determined by (understandably) angry and vengful victims. Rather, their fate should be determined by (supposedly) level-headed law makers.
One more point: perhaps executions should be uglier. Isn't something like a lethal injection just a way to make it all more palatable? The guillotine is probably just as humane, and it's honest about what it does.
Just a reminder that we are all Canadian (aren't we?) -- we don't kill our criminals.
As for the MPEG in question, it sounds like a fake I've seen a while back. Does she say "snuff films do not exist" before he fires? If so, I know for a fact that it's a fake, years ago I had the URL of the page of which it originated. Actually very few of the Stuff films you see on the net are actually real, and if they are you'd probably be able to find some news about it on the net.
Slightly related: Back in '99 the movie theater I worked at (Empire Theaters in Charlottetown) opened the movie 8mm featuring Nicolas Cage. The movie is mostly about Stuff films and was rated 'R' with disturbing scenes. When we got the fax in the office with the movie ratings, my manager misread the 'R' as an 'A' and opened the movie for people 14 years of age and older. Did we ever get in shit for that, they actually had someone in the ratings board come in the next day and threaten to sue. Since I thought the movie was rated 'A' I assumed that it wasn't too bad and actually took a date the next night. FYI, snuff films do not impress your date.
Ideally, as a profession, I would like to do something in the medical field. Not a surgeon or doctor, but like an occupational therapist, physiotherapist, or even a radiologist. But the thought of dissecting cadavers as part of my training totally turns me off that. All my friends who are in that field say it's nothing once you get used to it. Which I guess is true, but that first step is the hardest one I guess.
I mean, the thought of seeing your own small intestine every day could be considered gross. But, as a new ostomate, I see mine every day and I'm cool with it, but it took me a good week or so before I could actually clean it and stuff, now it's totally normal. Maybe I just have to edge my way up to full blown gore and then it'll be alright.
universal pacifism may be an incredibly naive idea, but i don't think it's good to be desensitized.
just with the stuff that's available for us to read in our morning paper, we should all be weeping in our cheerios.
As far as being desensitized, it's just my opinion really. It's not for everyone.
The video Kirby was talking about earlier is in fact a fake. I remember it from a movie magic company site I was forwarded during my online support days.
Still very upsetting, not suggested for the meek.
NOTE: The link to the video in question was removed at Vince's request. Email him if you really want to see it - Steven
"Then I open a movie in which a battered young woman, strapped in a chair and pleading for her life, gets shot in the forehead. It was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life."
It's not real:
"That woman is great!"
What the fuck is wrong with you? Because it's only pretending to be a snuff movie, it's cool? Or is that an extremely poor attempt at humour?
<sarcasm type="heavy">"That woman is great!"</sarcasm>
Calm down, Yada(?). I didn't say it was cool, I'm just saying I bought her performance -- she totally fooled me. Relax.
And nobody else in here is anonymous -- why you? If you're gonna get belligerent, don't hide.
The whole numbing yourself to life's gross stuff seems a little weird to me (Don't get me wrong, I like watching cops as much as the next guy). EMS, Police, and Doctors all are "numbed" in their real lives, NOT by a screen. A EMS worker holding someone's guts in while the ambulance races for the hospital doesn't choose to do so. I bet you they wish they just drove around all day putting bandaids on kid's knees. They deal with real people's guts. They know their names. The cops shooting back at the Bank Robbers or Mobsters watch themselves, their partners and bystanders get killed. It affects their REAL lives.
I think that watching something on screen over and over again makes you numb to it.... But not in the good "I never want this to happen ever again" numbing. I think it might make you numb in the "this isn't real" sense.
Just my humble opinion from my experience watching cops and playing half-life. :-)
Nope. I want the guy dead. And he is. And I can't help but feel better. Now... how about Paul Bernardo?
Interesting you mentioned Bernardo.
I was fervently against capital punishment until I heard the few details of his crimes that I was unable to avoid. They were overwhelming -- I could think of nothing else for days. I wanted him dead and still want him dead; for me, there is no other possibility.
I do not believe in "an eye for an eye" and objectivity is always my holy grail but I feel so strongly about Bernardo's fate that I don't dare dismiss it. It is a feeling that comes from so deep within my spirit that I can only quantify it as pure and indivisible. It is one that I have to trust (which is probably how McVeigh felt and probably how most Francs-Tireurs felt, alas).
Because of Bernardo, I can no longer say I am against capital punishment and given the opportunity he would die by my hand.
It's your choice to remain anonymous. However, you say that we are all anonymous unless we know eachother outside AOV. Most of us do, but many of us came to know eachother through media like this Reply board.
Kirby, Sandy, Dave, Peter, ll coolbreeze, KBJ, Vince, etc. These are all people I have come to know (in varying degrees) through the web.
Bernado has to live with the fact that the majority of the population will hate him for the rest of his life, and I'm sure the harden criminals in prison don't think too much of his actions either. Try to imagine living in a world for the next 60 years and never being considered anything less than a monster. Everything he's learned to love in life is gone, and will never be back again.
As for the Yada situation, I say let him stay anonymous. I know that I don't respect his opinion, and I'm sure that alot of people here share my opinion. I think he's a dipshit, and knowing his real name or email address isn't going to change my opinion.
I just saw a dead body.
I was walking back to my office thru DT Vancouver, on the low part of East Hastings where the junkies and the winos come to die.
There was an aboriginal girl, maybe 30, maybe 14, lying limp on the ground; I circled the block.
When I came back by the grizzly scene there was an ambulance and two police cars they are never far from the area as I dropped my cigarette and reached the door of my office, I noticed them covering her over with a cheap hospital blanket. This hits me hard right now 10 floors above it. A million miles away. Makes me think of McVeigh.
On McVeigh; well I think it is astounding that the "media" has not focussed more on the fact that he was an American war hero, trained to kill by the government he grew to loathe. It is surely not an easy thing to kill 168 people in one fell swoop, he must have learnt well, and while I was saddened the day of the blast (tho not really because if I remember correctly it was in April of 95 and I had a finance final the same day). I view it much the same way that Malcolm X viewed the killing of JFK; a case of the chickens coming home to roost.
Now easily the most amusing thing of the entire episode is the supposed "loss of innocence" that America endured after the bombing.
Innocence?
For a country that routinely kills over things like oil (see: The Gulf War, in which McVeigh was decorated) and or political influence (see: Vietnam where US senator and possible 2004 presidential candidate Bob Kerrey has admitted to killing women and children). Innocence was lost a hundred years ago and the tears we shed for the victims of the bombing, people McVeigh referred to as "collateral damage" in a letter to the Buffalo News, are easier than crying for some beaten down area of Mexico, or Vietnam, or Colombia (or some aboriginal girl dead on the streets of my hometown).
The term "collateral damage" by the way is a construct of the Vietnam War, meant to imply that in any military action, where a goal is to be achieved, one must accept a degree of human casualty. As McVeigh himself announced, "it's the nature of the beast." Indeed.
The killing of McVeigh, ho-hum, a minor PR blip on a furious World Wide war that comes from one place. No wonder its citizens its fucking soldiers no less view the US government as the archetype of evil and cruelty. They should know best.
I cry for the girl on the street. She at least deserves my sympathy, my time, and my patience.
Is it just because I've never posted much before? Is this the greeting everyone gets when they first arrive?
If you have reasons for concealing your identity, that's fine. However, if you are someone that we may know though whatever means, it's nice to have that context (so we can better judge you!).
As for coolbreeze, I witnessed the the infamous fainting with my own eyes!
Everything Better Now In Oklahoma CityOKLAHOMA CITY, OK-- Timothy McVeigh's death by lethal injection Monday has made everything perfect in Oklahoma City, his 168 victims' loved ones describing themselves as feeling "100 percent better." "I just know my baby girl is up there in heaven, smiling down on this execution, happy as can be," said a beaming George Browne, whose 7-year-old daughter Brianna died in the 1995 federal-building blast. "Her death is avenged, and everything's great." Said Oklahoma City schoolteacher Sherrie Olsacher, 37, who was blinded in the bombing: "You can't imagine how healing this is. My eyesight's even returned." Moments after McVeigh was pronounced dead, 168 white doves were seen soaring over the city, racing toward a suddenly cloudless horizon that beckoned the dawn of a glorious new day.
I was walking across the street for my daily 11:00am blueberry tea break, when I came upon a poster for a "special dramatic presentation" to be held Sunday, June 24, 2001 entitled: "The Execution of Timothy McVeigh". The presentation is going to be held at the Benevolent Irish Society hall and is presented by the Island Celebration Church. What intrigued me the most was the catch phrase "A Devastating True Story That Will Grip Your Heart".
Can I ask the obvious? Why? I don't mean to offend anyone who may be connected to both this presentation and to aov, but come on! What purpose will this serve? Surely not to educate us; we can get that from CNN...and it's a bit late...what possible reason would the Island Celebration Church have to delve into the execution of this man? Admission is free, thankfully...it would say a great deal about the church if it accepted money for an event which is capitalizing on the sensationalism of this case. Any thoughts?
Let's ask the question of why did the people have to die, to fulfill his plan?
You ask why did he have to die, but what about them, the children, the parents the friends. A person that I worked with at the time was talking on the phone with a contact that she had become good friends with over the years in the building. They were sharing tales of their children, taking a minute to enjoy each others company, as they had done many times over the years, when the phone went suddenly quiet. Then not being able to get back through on the phone, figured it was a problem with the phone lines, only to later find out she was one of the 168 innocent dead, or as they have been called, "collateral damage".
Another question that should be asked - Would you want to be collateral damage? What about your child? What about your parent? What about your friend?
Well now McVeigh is collateral damage!
Jeff Coll stated we should be mad as hell that McVeigh was executed today. Why not be mad as hell because 168 family members, and friends are dead today! And executed, McVeigh was not treated with the torture and pain that many went through, the lucky being the ones that died instantly.
I guess the whole point of this is stop asking "why McVeigh", but "why 168 innocent women, men, and especially children!" Don't martyr McVeigh, but martyr the ones that he punished for no real reason other than his own hatred.
My statement, as Sean quoted in the previous post, was meant to show that as human beings we should not take it lightly when a person dies unnecessarily. Any person. Like the people that he killed, McVeigh died unnecessarily.
People die unnecessarily every day, but the difference between McVeigh's death and most other unnecessary deaths is that it could have been easily prevented. It was not the result of a mechanical error or a deviant mindit was the result of a government that fails to see the incongruity in its own laws.
Every execution represents a step backwards. That is what is so infuriating.
That's a tough question.
Ice
