"Without the sense that individuals are responsible for their own actions, and that there are appropriate consequences for violating society's most basic values, the concepts of morality and right and wrong become meaningless. And then you have no society."
-John Douglas
I really hate having to write these articles. Every year, it seems, another state falls victim to the same tired narrative propagated by the criminal-coddlers. Last year it was Colorado. The year before that, it was New Hampshire. And the year before that, it was Washington. And now, tragically, it is Virginia - a state that once stood as an example of an efficient and fair death penalty system in the nation. Today, Virginia's governor, Ralph Northam, signed a bill that made Virginia the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty.
Since reinstating the death penalty in 1975, Virginia has executed 113 inmates (the last of which was in 2017). Not a single one of those inmates had any serious doubts as to their guilt, and nearly all of them spent less than ten years on death row. These 113 inmates were responsible for more than 230 murders combined - some of them committed while these said murderers were already in prison.
Death sentences were handed down rarely in Virginia - reserved for the ultimate worst of the worst criminals - and Virginia's appeals process was efficient, thorough, and did its job well.
But even that, it seems, was not enough to stop Virginia from falling prey to the abolitionist movement. Fueled by misguided senses of justice, tired fallacious arguments, and appalling false equivalencies, bills to abolish the death penalty passed both chambers of the Virginia legislature in less than a month, and the governor - an outspoken opponent of the death penalty - signed the bill this afternoon. And, once that happened, Virginia became the first southern state in the nation to abolish the death penalty - an act that has set a horrible precedent and could endanger the death penalty everywhere throughout the nation.
Progressive groups, of course, have applauded this atrocious piece of forcible legislative sodomy, praising Virginia for oh-so-bravely standing up for the absolute worst scum in society. Because if anyone deserves mercy, of course, it is murderers, rapists, serial killers, and mass shooters - the people who, for some reason, always seem to draw the completely unearned and unwarranted sympathy of progressives and social justice warriors.
This is not progress. This is regress. Today was not a victory for justice; today was a victory for the absolute worst scum of humanity, and these scum have the backing of a political movement hell-bent on further blurring the line between moral and immoral; between justice and injustice; and even guilty and innocent.
Governor Northam today referred to Virginia's death penalty as racist, claiming it "evolved from lynching". This absurd statement, of course, neglects to mention that the death penalty differs from lynching in pretty much every possible way.
Not only does a lynching constitute unlawful murder of an innocent person (as opposed to the death penalty, which is imposed after a defendant has been convicted following a fair trial and due process of law), but lynching is itself a crime punishable by death! This comparison is not only asinine; it is insulting to victims of lynching!
Have opponents of the death penalty now lost their sense of moral direction so much that they are unable to distinguish between an innocent person brutally murdered because of their race, and a heinous murderer convicted of a brutal crime and sentenced following a fair trial and due process of law?
If so, that is itself an indictment of the utter insanity and abhorrent moral relativism that has come to define the anti-death-penalty movement. And it is a movement that itself has absolutely no place in a sane and civilized society.
I long for the day when I will stop having to write articles like these. The death penalty should not be a controversial issue. There should be no debate over whether or not the most evil and heinous criminals in our society should keep their lives. The death penalty enforces a basic system of consequences for one's actions, and that is the very reason I am such a strong supporter of it.
Supporting the death penalty does not make me barbaric, vengeful, cruel, or sadistic like the Jailbreak Lobby had constantly strawmanned its critics as being. No, supporting the death penalty makes me someone who can discern the guilty from the innocent, and it makes me someone who wants to ensure that the most vile people in our society are punished to the fullest extent possible for their heinous crimes.
Today was a terrible day for justice. I could say that over and over again and we'd barely even scratch the surface. But know this - No matter what happens, I will always retain the ability to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong in this world. Even if these hybristophilic social justice pretenders somehow make the penalty for murder only 20 minutes in jail (and trust me, I can't put that past them), they will never, ever change the fact that the death penalty is a just sentence for certain heinous and depraved crimes. Whether or not it is enshrined in the law, the death penalty will always be an acceptable and moral punishment for the most vile in our society.
That truth, in the end, may be the one thing that they can never change.
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