what say you, wingnuts, about public executions?

* talkleft has a post up about some guy who is gonna get murdered by the state the death penalty in CA today.

you know my thoughts on the death penalty - but the death sentence is disgusting even in its implementation - by design, on purpose. the spectacle, the crowd, the big ugly chair, the viewing window and all that. it's foul. even if we assume that death-penalty-lovers are correct in all of their arguments - deterrence and revenge and all that - is their position enhanced in the slightest by an ugly, public execution?

wouldn't it be much more reasonable to try to mimic a euthanasia-type setting? perhaps in a bed in a quiet hospital room with friends and family around as appropriate? the wingnuts get all blathery when they spout about the horrors of videod beheadings - but how is that different to a public execution? sure, the beheadees generally appear to be 'innocent', vs the presumably guilty death-rower, but the guilt/innocence isn't the issue that upsets the wingers about the murders in iraq - they get disgusted by 2 facts: a) beheadings are gruesome b) that they are recorded.

what say you, wingnuts, about public executions? will you buy your own DVD copy of the scott peterson murder? they'll probably be able to download it from a 'known' Christian website.