Writes Greg Privette:

Hi Lew,

I read the article about death penalty secrecy that was linked on the Political Theatre. Two items particularly stood out to me.

One:

Another unethical practice these secrecy laws are veiling are the corrupt lengths to which state governments are going to obtain the needed drugs for executions.

What would the same state due to us if we try to circumvent their drug laws to get drugs we may want but the state either doesn’t want us to have at all or disapproves of the way in which we plan to use them?

The other:

It’s time those on the right realize that the death penalty is another failed big government program, filled with all the ineffectiveness and corruption as the others.

This one really struck home with me. I was once an avid proponent of the death penalty. I was firmly in the camp of those believing the only thing wrong with it was it took too long and there were too many appeals allowed. Over time it began to occur to me that I was trusting the same government to decide who should live and die that I wouldn’t trust with even very simple decisions related to running my life. I also became more aware of how corrupt and incompetent the entire “justice” system was. If allowing politics to control the allocation of resources is a bad idea, then how much worse an idea is letting politics decide who lives and dies?