10.9.2026 – the paucity and

the paucity and
moral vacuity of
human decency

I am pro life.

I am for life.

I believe in the sanctity of human life.

I know a lot of people who claim to make the same claim.

I grew up in the State of Michigan and I was and am proud of the fact that, in the words of Wikipedia, Michigan was the first Anglosphere jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes.

The Michigan State Legislature voted to do so on May 18, 1846, and that has remained the law ever since.

Although the death penalty was formally retained as a punishment for treason until 1963, no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan.

Thus, Michigan has not executed any person since before statehood.

According to one online source, the State Constitution of Michigan is the ONLY Constitution in the world to specifically outlaw the death penalty (Michigan Constitution, Article IV (Legislative Branch) Section 46 that says in one short sentence, No law shall be enacted providing for the penalty of death.

Last night I was shocked and sickened to hear from my Wife that the United States was planning to execute someone on live TV.

Is this what we have become?

Is this the United States?

This morning’s newspapers were filled with reactions.

The words used in the article, Execution TV? Pete Hegseth has taken the once ‘greatest democracy’ to a horrific new low by Paul Daley hit hard in so many places.

Mr. Daley writes:

State-sanctioned killing as entertainment! Yes, the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy has arrived at an horrific new moral nadir.

Can we repeat that bit again?

The part about the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy …

But being so closely allied to a country that now wants to turn the execution of a human being – no matter what their crimes – into a live entertainment event, promises to redefine depravity.

Meanwhile, it’s hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event.

But there we are. We have arrived.

I have to wonder if this is the work of those tortured souls in the current administration who endeavor to come up with ways to further shock us and have to go further and further into depravity to come up with something new.

As Mr. Paley put it:

Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer.

Then I woke to today’s news …

Are those tortured souls in the current administration yanking our chain and right now laughing over a diet Coke at the angst they have created.

Is this all designed just to get us to take our eyes off the ball and look at the latest shiny object while those tortured souls in the current administration sell off or destroy something else?

Or is this truly how those tortured souls in the current administration feel?

They want to watch the execution of a another human being.

Then, regardless of WHY those tortured souls in the current administration have released this plan, there are those folks, those good Christian folks, those good Christian folks who embrace the efforts of those tortured souls in the current administration, falling in line to voice approval, even glad anticipation of watching this on their television sets at home.

It’s hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event.

But there we are.

We have arrived.

Mr. Paley closes with:

This represents a significant lurch in the US from civilisation towards savagery.

You can’t choose your family. But you can choose your friends and allies. And you can also tell them firmly when they’ve careened off the ethical rails.

Actions speak louder than words.

And this planned livestreamed execution says it all about what is happening in America today, opening the window ever wider on the Trump administration’s moral vacuity and its paucity of human decency.

In short, this planned livestreamed execution says it all.