Predictably, the American Civil Liberties Union objected to the Harris execution last year in California's gas chamber as being "cruel and indecent." Of course, its adamant stand against capital punishment makes it very difficult to devise any form of execution the group might approve of - with one possible exception.
If a giant vacuum machine could be built with sufficient suction power to tear the condemned apart, limb from bloody limb, the ACLU would have to accept it - at least if it would avoid being judged hypocritically inconsistent, since it condones abortion wherein suction is the predominant method used in the "premedicated" execution of hapless innocents by the millions every year.But the key to its approving this venture is to require that it be a dependably effective system. For example, Donahue recently had on his show a toddler with one arm missing - sucked off during a bungled abortion attempt on her embryonic life. Now, given the ACLU's history of selective sympathy for felons, just try and imagine the hue and cry it would raise if something similar befell one of its criminals.
One reason expressed by those objecting to the death penalty is the possibility that a convicted murderer might occasionally be found innocent after being executed. And while this has undoubtedly occurred in rare instances, the ACLU appears to ignore the fact that 100 percent of murder victims are innocent.
It thus exhibits unilateral compassion for criminals, demanding they be 100 percent insulated from ever paying with their lives for depriving innocent victims of life - and the ACLU couldn't care less for the latter.
Is it any wonder that the ACLU is becoming more appropriately known as the "American Criminal Liberties Union"?
T. Kirkwood Collins
East Mill Creek