An open letter to the Governor of California

Dear Governor Swarzenegger,

I worked for some time as a counselor in your state, with young people involved with gangs and drugs.

Right now you are wrestling with the issue of the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams.

I understand the issues involved, both concrete and political, both pragmatic and philosophical.

I would urge you to grant this clemency.

Justice is not vengeance. Vengeance is not a virtue. We will be telling the tens of thousands of young people who are in gangs that this is a war between them and the State, the Country, the People. We will be serving them up as next year's suicide bomber volunteers for our foreign enemies. We will be making America less safe for her people, and more barbaric in the eyes of the world. We can afford neither.

I was told in my youth that the more powerful a man is, the more gracious he can be. We claim to be the only superpower left in the world. Let's prove it today. Let's prove that we are a nation of second chances, where using the words redemption and rehabilitation is not just a lip-service mockery of those concepts.

The one time Jesus was asked to judge a death penalty case, he saved the woman's life. The next time He was involved in a death penalty case, it was His own. He was executed.

Are we the Christians or the Romans, here in the West? Is "In God We Trust" on our money, "Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance and the oath you swore upon a Holy Bible going to mean something other than political expediency in the face of the voters? In the end, they aren't the ones who will judge you, you know. Not in the end.

Yes, you can wash your hands of this entire matter. I understand the forces pressing you to do so. But you will be making the greatest single mistake you have made in this life. You will, by a passive act, allowed a man to die who may yet be an inspiration for those on our streets looking for something other than death and violence, those who may yet be returned to their families before they are turned to acts of war against our country.

You will be giving aid and ammunition, not only to our critics, but to our enemies. You can mobilize the National Guard, order the State Police to high alert, but can you keep them there until every poor disenfranchised child in the cities of our nation has forgotten? How long will that take? A decade? A lifetime? Ten lifetimes?

Do the smart thing. Do the wise thing. Do the right thing.

Regards

William F. DeVault
The Romantic Poet of the Internet