Motivating the terrorists-in-training in California

Stanley Tookie William is set to dies in 9 days, a lesson to the world that the sole surviving superpower cares more for invading sovreign nations that tick them off than maintaining their moral ascendency they so brazenly claim to hold.

That Mr. William's crimes, as a gang founder and leader, are great - is inarguable. That he has, over the past years, repented his actions and worked for the common good is also inarguable. Those who wish to judge his motives are in direct violation of Christian teachings - "Judge not..." we can't know his heart, but we can know both his actions and our actions.

Now we are going to take a man who is a model prisoner... No, a model citizen, who works harder for the good people of the State of California and the world than does any of his accusers, any of his executioners, any of his armchair stone throwers (thank God Jesus isn't alive today, both He and the woman he defended would have been stoned to death).

A key element of the Christian faith is "the second chance". In religious terms it is called "redemption".

Jesus. The "New Testament". Saul of Tarsus (a persecutor and murderer of Christians) who became Saint Paul). All speak to this concept. Maybe when Paul was confronted, on the Road to Damascus, God should have executed him instead of just blinding and humbling him?

You want to clean up the gangs? Make a second chance possible. I've worked as a counselor with gang members in California. Kids who think that once they are in, they can never get out. Any hunter will tell you that a cornered animal fights to the death. If we tell them that even straightening out their lives accomplishes nothing, we reinforce their violence.

And we are doing the same disservice to our society and our image in the eyes of the world, where already our hands are bloody as one of the few nations of the world that still believes in killing prisoners who have been disarmed and encaged.

The death penalty doesn't scare the gang kids. When they enter the gangs they are expecting a violent, bloody and painful death. Don't think that a quiet, bloodless, painless death is going to intimidate them. Suicide bombers aren't afraid to die...they are afraid to live, to have to deal with their errors in judgement.

You execute Mr. Williams, Mr. Swarzenegger, and you will be reinforcing the conduct of thousands and tens of thousand and maybe even hundreds of thousands of armed, fanatical terrorists-in-training already in our cities. You will be giving the enemies of this nation the soldiers it needs to continue waging a bloody war against our citizens that already has claimed far more than a couple of random successes stealing airplanes.

I'm not saying set Mr. Williams free. I'm saying we should behave like the people we claim to be, to avoid the stench of hypocrisy that already permeates the mock sackcloth that we wear.

The greatest is shame is that that every church leader in the U.S. has not stood up and demanded an end to this barbarism that Jesus himself forbade (he nixxed executions in both word and deed).

Knowing the values of our people, our country, our leaders, by their "fruits" is getting easier and easier. And, alas, sadder and sadder. We are becoming a bastion of, not "faith, hope and love" but "fear, despair and hatred".

And the execution on the 13th of this month, by the State of California, of Stanley Tookie Williams, will be murder of an unarmed man and a rallying cry to our enemies...without and within, to fight to the death. Because, we're going to kill them anyway...they might as well take as many of us with them as they can.