Category: Activism


Why I Oppose the Death Penalty (Part 1)

August 12th, 2008 — 1:05pm

I recently posted a note about my friend Patrick’s wife Mary and her act of Christian Civil Disobedience. Several people have emailed me and also commented on other places on the Internet with various responses, a common one being that Mary broke the law and thus deserved to go to jail. Others have expressed concern for the victim and wondered where his rights are in all this.  I thought I would respond here and explain why I am against capital punishment.

First, I want to say that I fully understand that this is a subject on which good people can disagree, which is why the title of this missive is Why I Oppose the Death Penalty and not Why You Should Oppose the Death Penalty. In addition, some of those who disagreed with me were and are, people I deeply love and will continue to love regardless of whether we ever reach agreement on this issue.

The reasons I oppose the death penalty can be grouped into two broad categories; philosophical and practical. In the interest of length I have broken this topic into several posts. In this one, I deal with the philosophical reasons I am against the death penalty.

* * * * * * *

I am a follower of Jesus, and I take his teachings seriously. As a result, I believe he meant what he said when he told us to not respond to evil with violence. In addition, I believe that when he told us to love our enemies, he probably meant, among other things, to not kill them. Violence always begets violence and, as Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”.  This is the first plank in my platform and, honestly, although I have more, I need no other.

One of the earliest of the Judeo-Christian beliefs is that all humans are made in the image of God (this would include murderers).  Because of my faith I am pro-all-human-life, not just pro-the-life of an unborn fetus. This is the lens through which I see a wide variety of issues, ranging from poverty and health care to how we treat the elderly to the war in Iraq to the death penalty. I do not believe that I, nor any government that purports to represent me, has the right to take a life.

Death is, to state the obvious, permanent and killing someone says, in effect, “we hold no hope for your redemption”. I believe in a God who can redeem and change the hearts of those who oppose him and who believes that no one is beyond that redemption.  I have friends who have seen acts of forgiveness between the the families of victims and the families of murderers. If we believe that God cannot change the hearts of those who commit acts of violence, we would have to disregard the 2/3 of the New Testament that was written by the reformed religious terrorist Saul of Tarsus.

I grieve deeply for all the victims of violence (whoever perpetrates it) and dream of a world where such things no longer happen. I believe that the death penalty does not so much punish the murderer as it does the family of the murderer, causing them to feel the pain and agony the victims family did at the loss of their loved one.  I oppose any system designed to inflict pain on those who had nothing to do with the crime and I reject any teaching that says violence can solve problems.

I should point out that I do believe in law and order and I do believe in the right of the state to arrest and try people who commit crimes. I believe that those who are convicted after a fair and just trial should be locked away from us where they can reflect on the evils they have committed and where we will be protected from their actions.

I reject the authority of the state to commit murder in my name and call it justice and I, along with followers of Jesus throughout the ages am willing to protest, to disobey and to speak truth to the powers that be until we no longer kill people under the guise of teaching the rest of us not to kill. Mary is a proud part of that tradition. She chose to be jailed rather than to pay a fine into a system that kills in her name. In allowing herself to go to jail, she has submitted to the government, without endorsing or obeying the government.

Admittedly, this post is filled with qualifiers, with my often stating ‘I believe”. But, that is what a philosophy is – what we believe. In my next post I will spend some time with concrete, practical reasons I oppose the death penalty.

Feel free to comment, but remember, be nice.

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Mother of Eight Goes to Jail… Willingly

August 10th, 2008 — 9:00pm

My friend Patrick O’Neil and his wife run the Catholic Worker house in Garner. In August of 2006 she and some others were arrested for “trespass” when they were praying at an execution. Last week her case finally went to trial and she received 15 days of jail time. Below is Patrick’s write-up of how it all went down. I have repeated it here by his permission.

My wife, Mary Rider, a mother of eight children, received a 15-day jail sentence for praying during a North Carolina execution.

Mary, cofounder of the Fr. Charlie Mulholland Catholic Worker House in Garner, N.C., was sentenced to 15 days in the Wake County Jail on August 7, stemming from her August 18, 2006 arrest for trespass during a protest of the execution of Sammy Flippen at Raleigh’s Central Prison.

Mary and three others attempted to symbolically enter the prison to stop the execution. At a police line, the four knelt in prayer in the driveway where witnesses enter the prison.

Mary, 48, who has six children age 14 or less, was sentenced to jail after telling Wake County Superior Court Judge Michael Morgan that her conscience would not allow her to pay a $100 fine and $130 court costs into a system that oppressed the poor and carried out executions in her name. A social worker, Mary told the judge she would agree to perform community service in lieu of the fine and court costs.

The judge, a firm and cold man, who frequently undercut Mary’s attempts to defend herself based on Catholic Moral Teaching and the First Amendment, seemed to take personally Mary’s conviction that the “judicial system” is racist and oppressive.

“Ms. Rider has stated that the judicial system is one too flawed and too imperfect,” Morgan said. “I am a member of this system.”

By agreeing to give Mary community service, he was in a sense validating her criticisms of the system, Morgan said.

“It’s easy to open your wallet, pay that money and walk out of court,” Mary’s pro bono lawyer, Tim Vanderweert, told the judge. “It’s much more difficult to perform community service.”

In the course of the three-day jury trial, Morgan did not allow expert witness – renowned Constitutional law professor Dan Pollitt – to testify to the jury as to why Mary’s actions in trying to stop Sammy’s execution were legally valid under the Constitution. Doing so “would invade the providence of the jury,” Morgan said.

He also limited the testimony of Duke Divinity School professor of Christian ethics Stanley Hauerwas, who tried to make the case that Mary’s actions in defense of life were justified by Papal decree and Church teaching.

“I am a Christian theologian, and the subject of theology is God,” Hauerwas told the court. “Catholic moral teaching is the longest tradition of Church history. Since Christians are a people who worship a person who died at the hands of the state, that being capital punishment, Christianity’s relationship to the state is at the heart of what Catholic ethics is about … Christians are not allowed to give their ultimate loyalties to there state.”

In her testimony, Mary shared a story about a time she was called to jury duty at age 18 in Eastern North Carolina. Although she was not selected to sit for the capital murder trial, Mary, who is also a mitigation specialist, said she was surprised to learn that only jurors who supported the death penalty could be seated.

“The only people in the jury are those who believe firmly in the death penalty,” Mary said. “It seems like you’re stacking the cards against the defendant already.”

The judge instructed the jury to only consider the question of whether Mary trespassed or not. Although the jurors were out more than an hour, those initially opposed to conviction were won over. One juror told me after the verdict that since they didn’t get to hear Prof. Pollitt, they were unable to acquit her.

In her sentencing, Mary read the story from Acts when Peter said he “must obey God and not men.”

“I am choosing to suffer for my faith and fidelity to Jesus,” Mary told the judge. “Spending time in jail for me would be an honor. Rather than a deterrent, it would be a privilege to encourage others to do the same.”

The judge said he had no choice but to sentence Mary to 15 days. The jailers placed handcuffs on Mary as her children openly sobbed on the front row of the gallery.

“You’re lucky to have a wife like that, and you’re lucky to have a mother like that,” Professor Pollitt told me and my daughter, Veronica.

Indeed we are.

Mary is expected to be in the Wake County Jail until Aug. 21. To write her:
Mary Rider
Wake County Jail
P.O. Box 2419
Raleigh, NC 27602

3 comments » | Activism, me

The Great Wall of America

August 6th, 2008 — 12:43pm

In our ever growing quest for empire, we are now erecting a wall along our southern border. Some quotes of note from the article [along with my commentary]:

To meet his deadline, Chertoff is using sweeping authority Congress granted in 2005 to waive 36 federal laws protecting water, air quality, endangered animals, and native American sites. [Good thing we have that constitution, or else we would be totally screwed!]

The structure is designed to push would-be illegal immigrants and drug smugglers out into the desert where they are more easily caught, said Border Patrol Agent Martin Hernandez. [Uhhhm, isn't it more dangerous for humans in the desert? And this is our strategy?]

According to Garcia, ten years ago some 100 people died annually illegally crossing the border, most by dehydration in the desert or drowning as they tried to cross the Rio Grande.

The figure has been around 500 since the border crackdown intensified in 2005. “In other words, the same number or more people are crossing the border,” he claims. [so, our efforts are killing more people who want a better life for their family. And this is why we suspended the constitution?]

Frikking insanity. I still maintain that the ‘imigration problem’ is a racist concept. After all, no one seriously suggests that we build a wall across our Canadian border. but, after all, they are white people, so they cannot be terrorists.

1 comment » | Activism

Funny, yet True

July 24th, 2008 — 12:51am

Sorry about the language, but she does have a point…

Screwing for Virginity

credit:carldashjonesdotcom

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Making Green Choices When We Buy

April 9th, 2008 — 8:26am

These days, everybody is going green. We are told to cut emissions, to buy fair trade coffee and to cut our driving. There is so much conflicting information, or at least information that appears to conflict. Where do we turn to get the real scoop?

Here is a site I like a lot. Greener Choices is a website ran by the folks at Consumer Reports. They will give you the straight dope on labels on your food, the truth about alternative automobile fuels and much more.

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