Crisis in Kenya | Death Penalty

Still not back in the swing of things. I've finally started returning to Starbucks, which is like someone who is very ill returning to eating food or drinking water :) So I'm getting there...

Every morning just about, I read up on the news. I've been keeping track of the unrest over in Kenya. If you're totally unaware of what's going on, you should really look it up. I prefer CNN, mainly because they have some videos that show you what's up. From what I understand, the Kenyans elected President Mwai Kibaki in the December 27th presidential election. This guy named Raila Odinga came in 2nd place. Everyone, especially those on the Odinga side think that the election was rigged- in fact even the U.S. people over there think it was rigged. So NOW, Odinga's tribe is running around slaughtering everyone who voted for Kibaki, hoping to get Kibaki to have a recount of the votes- but he's refusing.

These people are walking around with their weapon of choice, machetes, literally hacking people to death- they're killing their neighbors, their friends, people they've known all their lives. They're burning down villages and raping the women. They've already killed over 1,000 people in a week (though the government only claims 500). Also, from what I understand, this is a huge shock for Kenyans because they apparently have a very tight-knit community type of country with little violence. This is the most unrest they've had since the 60's.

Anyway, this is really interesting and I would recommend checking it out for your own good. Here's a video if you'd like http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/01/07/verjee.kenya.slum.anger.cnn




Something else I saw on the news after lunch really infuriated me. In my mind I thought, "THIS is why the death penalty exists", but I said that out of emotion. A man with 4 kids, 2 boys, 2 girls, all ranging from 4 months to 3 years, tossed his kids off of a bridge to die. I look at his face and I'm so mad! http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/01/man-tells-cops.html

That got me thinking about the death penalty. I've always been taught it's a good thing to have. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I do think there has to be reason beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person committed a malicious crime in order for it to be justified. Some people think if you kill anyone, period, you should be killed, period.

What do you think?