Liberal Talk Radio

Stanley Williams was executed last night.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to say that I’m not opposed to the death penalty in theory. If someone violates the social contract, we’ve got to take ‘em out. Cull the herd, if you will, to keep it healthy. I do have serious doubts about the ability of the state to actually apply capital punishment, however. If I could be assured that there was no racial bias and that even the poorest capital defendants had access to very good, very dedicated lawyers, I could bring myself to support the death penalty in practice (Click here for a good, fact-based roundup of the un-American inequities of the current system). There’s a good “triangulation” opportunity out there for a red-state Democratic gubernatorial candidate to campaign on a “mend it, don’t end it” death-penalty-reform platform.

Driving home after taping the show on Sunday, it occurred to me that there’s an odd parallel between Williams’ efforts to redeem himself and Ariel Sharon’s abandonment of Likud. Bear with me here, and please don’t take the overly simplistic view that I’m somehow “equating” a head of state and a convicted murderer. I’m not.

Sharon, the architect of the Israeli settlements, recently left the party he helped found to form Kadima, a centrist party, so that he could pursue a peace with the Palestinians without having to acquiesce to the hard-liners in Likud.

Likewise Williams, the founder of the seminal LA gang The Cripps, spent his time in jail trying to convince others to abandon the culture that he was responsible for starting.

The man who militarized Gaza and the man who militarized Compton, both looking for some slice of redemption in their twilight years.