Moussaoui

I guess it's about time I put an actual opinion up on this thing. It's not gonna 'slip away', but it's really one of the only things I have a damn strong conviction about.
I've been following the Moussaoui case a bit... I read a lot of online news (thank you Google, you are the best friend a girl could have). And I read today that there was one dissenting, anonymous voter who is the reason Moussaoui did not get the death penalty. I've read all the various craziness about the trial-- the guilty plea, the attempted retraction, the changing story, the whole 'martyr' issue... and frankly I just don't care. I applaud the anonymous hold-out. I don't even care if, Runaway Jury style, the whole damn thing was rigged. Yes-- I realize that the 'American justice system needs to do it's job'. And no I do not buy the argument that it is 'expensive' to keep people in jail. The number of people executed is just over 1000. 1000 people. We can't afford to keep alive 1000 people on government cheese and hamburgers? Please. Bottom line? I just don't think that it is, ever has been, or ever will be, the job of the State to kill people. For any reason. And it's not because it's God's or anyone else's job either. It's no one's job. Death just happens. But it shouldn't happen that way. I don't think things are 'wrong' or 'right', but I hate the death penalty. I'm using the word hate here, about the death penalty. It's just not good, not purposeful, not meaningful. I hate it body mind and spirit, all the way down into my gut. I hate it hate it hate it.
I really really don't get angry often. I don't. But as you can see, this whole issue gets me really really heated. Why, you ask? Because it means that the State is deciding that the only meaning in life, the only thing that makes people what they are, is what the State decides is valuable-- their past. Motherfuckers. We NEVER KNOW what is going to happen to us, for us, with us, or through us in the future.
I agree that if you are a citizen in a democratic nation, and you break the rules, you must be responsible for that decision. But I do not agree that any rule, set out by any one or any society, should mandate death. There is just too much grey area, to much at stake in a guilty/not-guilty system which leaves no room for manouvre or context.
If the State set up some rules which led to the killing of black people, or women, or gays, or native americans, or 'insert marginalized group here', we would be outraged. But criminals? Somehow that is ok?
How dare the lawmakers decide what makes someone valuable. How fucking dare they.