Progressives Oppose the Human Sacrifice Ritual of Execution

One essential difference between progressives and non-progressives is that progressives don’t believe in the magical power of rituals of human sacrifice. Many non-progressives do.

Oh, non-progressives don’t say that they believe in the magical power of rituals of human sacrifice. They phrase it differently. They say that holding executions has a special power to make the world a better place.

The clear reality is that killing prisoners doesn’t make the world better. The prisoners are already held prisoner, after all, and are already rendered incapable of inflicting further harm on society. The crimes that the prisoners have been convicted for are already in the past, and can never be undone.

Yet, people who support the idea of the ritual of executing prisoners don’t seem concerned with the obvious lack of tangible benefits of the executions. They claim that there are extraordinary benefits from the rituals that are so unconnected with reality that they can only be explained as a kind of magic.

George W. Bush’s celebration of that the ritual killing of Saddam Hussein is a prime example. President Bush claims that hanging Saddam Hussein from a noose will transform Iraq into a secure, stable democracy, saying, “it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.” The reality is that hanging a person until dead has no power to make an undemocratic nation into a democratic one.

It is as if George W. Bush and other non-progressives like him believe that the psychological power of killing another person can magically be transformed into a tool for improving society. It is as if they believe that by taking away the life of one person, a government can add that person’s power to its own.

Progressives don’t believe in this kind of magic, and don’t support ritual human sacrifices. Progressives recognize the simple truth expressed by Sophy Haynes, mother of Schuyler Haynes, a soldier killed in Iraq. Commenting on the execution of Saddam Hussein, Sophy Haynes stated plainly, “It has no meaning. We went into a place that I don’t believe we had any business going into.”

Progressives don’t support using the power of government to conduct rituals of dark magic such as public executions. Progressives oppose human sacrifice to an invisible God of Justice. That’s reason number 91 to vote for a progressive President in 2008.