I’m Right, You’re Wrong: Execution

Last week, Husbandrinka and I had a romantic dinner out, just the two of us (and the other people in the restaurant, it wasn’t one of those romantic gestures where he bought out the entire restaurant and led me into it, mostly because I suspect  that’s less romantic and more creepfest). But we were having dinner and as usual, the conversation turned into one of those Hallmark-card moments. (This would be a good time to remind gentle reader that before I married Husbandrinka and made him “the Happiest Man Alive” -quote marks his- he and I were having dinner on Valentine’s Day and he looked deep into my eyes, those pools of oceanic blue, and said, “I’ve been thinking,” and then he raised a champagne flute in what I was sure was going to be a proposal, “I’ve been thinking, it’s really hard to understand the New York Times‘ policy towards Israel.”)

So, as I was saying, we were having dinner when he suddenly and without any warning started to tell me about Saudi Arabia and how their practice of the death penalty by beheading was going to be no more because the beheading swordsmen were exhausted from traveling all over the place beheading people left and right and in order to ease this undesirable work condition, Saudi Arabia was going to have death penalty by firing squad because death penalty by Watching The Kardashians violates international law.

Now I have to take half a step back here so that we, as humankind, can take a leap forward. You know how there are some people who had a class in school 20 years ago for 20 seconds and now they think they’re an expert on the subject? Well, good/bad news: I’m one of those people.  Because I studied the death penalty in school and now it’s practically my middle name.  So ok, I studied the US death penalty, but I find that executions, much like Paris, are a moveable feast.

So here’s the latest installment of I’m Right, You’re Wrong.  Now, unfortunately for this installment, it’ll be obvious which view I hold (the right one) because I pretty much just spelled it out in this epic-length introduction to this post, but I’m hoping that most people will have skipped/glossed over/promptly forgot that part.

So, here we go!

Dilemma: Does Saudi Arabia’s policy of ending executions by beheadings and starting executions by firing squad make sense?

Position One:  Yes. I read about it in the newspaper.

Position Two: No. Firing squads are traditionally used to alleviate the sense of responsibility in the shooter, since no one knows whose bullet killed the executee.

Position Three: For the love of all things holy, Marinka, just write your fucking book already and leave the rest of the world alone. No one wants to read about executions on a mommy blog, for fuck’s sake.

So, what do you think?

One year ago ...

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