Something the Iranian Government and I Agree on: I particularly like the involvement of the victims' relatives in the killing of the monster [a serial killer]; I think that if he'd killed one of my relatives, I would have wanted to play a role in killing him. Also, though for many instances I would prefer less painful forms of execution, I am especially pleased that the killing — and, yes, I am happy to call it a killing, a perfectly proper term for a perfectly proper act — was a slow throttling, and was preceded by a flogging.A truly enlightened being isn't Mr. Volokh. And he is not being sarcastic when he casually tosses out these remarks.
I should mention that such a punishment would probably violate the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. I'm not an expert on the history of the clause, but my point is that the punishment is proper because it's cruel (i.e., because it involves the deliberate infliction of pain as part of the punishment), so it may well be unconstitutional. I would therefore endorse amending the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause to expressly exclude punishment for some sorts of mass murders. . . . I think the Bill of Rights is generally a great idea, but I don't think it's holy writ handed down from on high. Certain amendments to it may well be proper. . . .Well, I am not going to get involved in this righteously outrageous debate. Greater minds and lesser souls already have had their say in blogtopia.
What I am going to address is the spectacularly lucrative aspect of ritualized blood lust overlooked by Volokh -- the almighty mass-marketing tie-in. After all, this is America: nothing is anything without mass marketing tie-ins. Wars, terrorist attacks, child molestation trials, shooting rampages, comatose patients -- you name it and we'll pin a color ribbon to it, process canned-ham news specials misreporting it, crank out tissue-thin op/ed pieces to launch turf wars over it, and cut and paste some bad books and equally bad movies based on it.
Is this a great country or what!
I'm talking professional torture franchises here. Gotta have action figures. The tortured-to-death by necessity will be rather generic looking, but inevitably some of the professional class torturers will emerge as superstars based on persona, technique, charisma, and good sound bite skills.
Other must-haves: Interactive viewer quick polls and text messaging during the torture proceedings. Computer games. Blooper compilations. Playing card decks. T-shirts, caps, mugs, and bumper stickers (of course). Holiday and theme-oriented pay-per-view spectaculars.
Special "humor" (think Alvin and the Chipmunks) remixes of cries for mercy, screams of agony, and death rattles played on the air by Rush Limbaugh. Ann Coulter's new book Torture Bitch-- and, yes, she finally gets a chance to wear her dominatrix outfit on the book cover.
Michelle Malkin's unsentimental (as well as uncritical and unresearched) look at why torture death rates should be higher among minorities. And Christopher Hitchens' ambidextrously written and simultaneously published columns stating that he is for and against the torturetainment industry.
Ultimately, the problem with ritualized torture for televisual feasting would be one of supply and demand: too much demand, too limited supply of convicted serial killers, mass killers, baby rapers, spouse killers. Even the United States, with its abundance of the voraciously psychotic, would not be able to maintain a steady and reliable supply of torturetainment.
When we reach that point, though, we could always opt for mandatory steroid use by professional athletes, especially golfers and bowlers. Hmmm. Extreme, to-the-death golfing and bowling. Now that would be really interesting.
*Since pretty much recanted. Why no Ward Churchill-like hounding on Fox News?
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