Dear Editor,
I agree that it is no one's task but a victim's (of the Oklahoma City bombing or any other tragedy) to ultimately determine how he or she will best achieve closure, given that the victim's methods do not produce other victims.
My heart and prayers go out to these people whose pain I cannot and do not pretend to understand. I hope that they will each find real and lasting peace.
However, to justify capital punishment, no matter how heinous the crime for which it is being administered, on the basis that it is somehow 'the redemption of that contract' between our society and the killed and wounded victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, not only radically misconstrues a healthy relationship between society and the individual but also cheapens the lives of the dead and trivializes the painful recovery of their surviving loved ones.
If the only thing a society can do to rectify this situation is to kill a person, no matter how guilty, years after the fact and after spending who knows how many dollars, why should any reasonably sane and self-preserving individual want to place their trust in 'us'?
No human action, collective or individual, can compensate for murder, especially not another death. What does this say about how we place value on life?
The author of last week's letter on this topic suggests that one person's life, in this case a terrorist's, taken by society can somehow compensate for the loss of 'twelve million' lives. By this reasoning, Timothy McVeigh's death should certainly give the 250 spectators enough to close this chapter of their lives.
This is absurd, of course, and the survivors would certainly be offended at the suggestion that McVeigh is worth even one, let alone 163, of their loved ones.
Justin Halverson
Troutdale, Oregon