Keep Your Chin Up

Since we can’t extract beauty from life, let’s at least try to extract beauty from not being able to extract beauty from life.  Let’s make our failure into a victory, into something positive and lofty, endowed with columns, majesty and our mind’s consent.


-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

The Morality of the Death Penalty re: Troy Davis

Even if it were true that his case were a slam dunk, and all the witness recantations turned out to be credible, the dilemma of an innocent man dying so that, say, nine hundred ninety nine actually guilty murderers are put to death is not going to advance the cause of anti-death penalty advocates.  While this sort of situation does tug at the heart strings (we think, "What if I were innocent? I wouldn't want to be put to death."), it isn't going to convince those who believe in such an extreme form of retributive punishment: those who are willing to accept the possibility of an innocent person dying in order to carry out absolute punishment on murderers in their respective states.  I'm not sure what it will take to convince people that the death penalty is wrong, but I do know that publicity stunts like the one performed at the expense of Troy Davis and his family are not advancing the debate.  Although I am sure Troy Davis and his loved ones were heartened by the outpouring of support for his cause, I cannot help but think that it also filled them with a sense of false hope only to be realized by a painful let-down.


Started writing while listening to: Arcade Fire - Well and the Lighthouse