#whenever this debate floats around i always think of kielce

[lesbianholster]

Let me tell you a story.

In 1946, a Christian child from Kielce went missing for a time. He later returned and claimed to have been kidnapped by Jewish residents of a particular building; most of these were Holocaust survivors. Polish soldiers stormed the building and ordered the residents to turn over their possessions; one thing let to another and suddenly the soldiers opened fire. When the residents ran outside, civilians began attacking them with clubs and stones. 42 Jewish people died that day—men, women, and children.

The boy lied.

He was ordered to lie by his family and to not ever speak the truth, even years after the pogrom. He was an adult when he first admitted that he was staying with a family who treated him well, and certainly not the Jews of that building.

On the basis of a lie, 42 Jewish people, most of whom had already endured the horrors of the Holocaust, lost their lives. To this day, the Polish government still denies culpability.

I never want a justice system that could, even on accident, even once, lead to the death of an innocent person. Especially not when those dead innocents are more likely than not going to be groups of people society at large airway dehumanizes. It's mostly going to be Jewish people, people of color, and queer people who get served violent justice, while cis, straight, gentile whites walk off scot-free. That is how the world works. That it how this world has worked.

Besides, statistically countries and states with the death penalty don't even have a decrease in crime. Sometimes, it's the opposite—removing the death penalty and instituting other policies actually reduces crime. Violence is not an effective deterrent. Revenge isn't justice. Killing the people who do bad things won't stop others from doing bad things.

You can have fantasies. You are not wrong for wanting your abusers dead. But I don't want to give the state or roving packs of vigilantes the power to kill on that basis.

re: that last post, ive said it before and ill say it again: no one deserves to die (deserving is fake and death is bad) but some people need to be stopped and choose to make death the only way to stop them