Meaningful Convictions

After spending three weeks in the Middle East this summer, a number of items were instantly reassuring constants in a strange new land. First, you can tell time by when prayer is called and you know the closing time of local merchants by the same method. You begin to think water only comes in bottles. The surprise you get when you see a goat in the front seat of a car wears off after the fifth time, as it does at the fact that everyone's name begins with Al. You start to wonder over time if there is such a thing as a woman in the world who is not just another veiled stranger passing by. After three weeks, you begin to yearn for pork chops. The illegality of alcohol drives even the most sober of foreigners to make their own.

Don't get me wrong--the United States has its share of quirky faults. On the way home, you realize that besides the fact that security personnel can actually read, there is nothing special about customs in this country. To put it simply, if I had wished to smuggle forbidden substances or weapons into the country, it would have been a breeze. Immigration is a complete farce. If you can forge a United States passport, it is quite a simple procedure. However, it's a lot easier to just wade across the border. If caught, you get put up for the night and get a ride home so you can try again the next day. In Saudi Arabia, you'd be lucky to be heard from again.

The Middle East also has its share of things you can't get or do. You can drive down the freeway at whatever speed you wish to go, and if you do get pulled over you will just get a warning, unless you're really unlucky. Red lights mean go very very fast, although if caught for this one, youÕll end up spending a night in jail (not advisable in Turkey). Over time, your idea of housework becomes a list you give to your houseboy--all of which is taken care of for a pittance. Theft is virtually nonexistent--if you're caught doing it, you lose your hand. Murder is also very uncommon as it is avenged with the guilty party being beheaded.

Which brings me back to the United States--where the cops don't carry machine guns and crime runs rampant. Here, people believe that if you can just talk to someone who has committed a crime and deal with their emotions, you can transform them into a pillar of society. Many people make a career out of crime and a mockery of the appeal system. For example, the last execution in the state of Texas accompanied a trial that lasted longer than a decade and cost millions in taxpayer dollars for court fees and accommodations for the prisoner. This is a country where people will argue racial injustice over the death penalty, without questioning the guilt of those persons involved. If you have enough cash, you can buy yourself some time and possibly your freedom by surrounding yourself with a dream team of lawyers.

Here in the tiny hamlet of Eugene, we have our own case in which one of the population will face the death penalty in a court of law. It involves a group of four men who entered a convenience store and beat the two female clerks that were working. One of the clerks died, the other was severely beaten. The criminals stole only fifty dollars and some lottery tickets. This is known locally as the Dari Mart killing. The thieves were caught when they attempted to cash in on the obviously numbered lottery tickets they had taken. Genius! Although only one man is facing first degree murder, the others are accomplices to the same crime and should face the same judgement. I used the term "men" loosely earlier only as a means of describing these people--they are lower than rat excrement.

Most murders committed against a former friend or family member are usually the last the murderer will commit. This is due to the fact that the murderer no longer sees the victim as a barrier to some other goal, be it inheritance or a lovers' quarrel. This is fairly generalized, but hear me out. Indiscriminate killing, for such unemotional goals, as in the Dari Mart killing, poses a threat to the entire community, not just a select group of people. The simple fact that these excuses for human beings could go into a convenience store and brutally kill someone for such small monetary rewards shows to me, and hopefully to anybody else, that the crime is for them a simple one and could easily be repeated. They have to be stopped permanently.

We will go through, as the public, a long set of appeals and it will undoubtedly take at least a decade for a verdict. If we are lucky, we will hear about the execution or imprisonment and wonder what the hell these people did in the first place. The process should take no more than a year. That would give enough time for investigators to find any evidence that could possibly prove the innocence of the accused. When they find no such evidence, sentence should be passed and the men should be executed; not in some dark corner of the prison, but in full view of the general public. Not only would it convey that justice had been served, but it would also remind the citizens of Eugene and elsewhere what the penalty for taking another life is.

Although this may seem extreme, I would suggest to any non-capital punishment advocates that might come knocking on my door to bitch me out, that they look the family members of the victim in the eye and give them the same crap they just served me. The United States, despite some misgivings, is the greatest nation in the world. Why is it that something so simple cannot be so glaringly obvious as a deterrent to crime? It is almost enough to make me move to the Middle East.

Almost--but not quite. For whatever backward criminal policies the United States might have, I still am fond of running water, the occasional (or frequent as the case may be) beer, and I still don't know how you get goat smell out of the interior of a car. These notwithstanding, I understand that Middle Eastern culture may at times seem harsh, but at least they have conviction--in both senses of the word. Surely there is something we can learn from this example. The Saudis certainly know how to set one.

Gordon Gilbert wrote this for the Oregon Commentator