[Crime and Punishment]

Lowry Makes the Case for Revenge

Right on cue, the National Review's Rich Lowry demonstrates American bloodlust in the case of Stanley Williams, set to be killed on Dec 13. The facts of the case are relevent for those with mixed feelings about executions, but not Lowry. For him, it's as simple as this:

Williams has indeed seemingly changed in jail. He has put down the shank and picked up the pen. And his anti-gang work may well have done some good. No one should discount the power of redemption. But redemption begins not with fine sentiments and celebrity friends, but with repentance. Stanley Williams is a liar who hasn’t yet taken responsibility for his horrific crimes. He deserves justice, and is scheduled to get it on Dec. 13.

For Rich Lowry, repentence, meted out by government, can only mean blood. You couldn't ask for a purer statement of the impulse for revenge. Is this what our country stands for? It does now, in George Bush's America, when ultra-privileged white men like Lowry get to define the rules of morality.