Neither age nor mentality will be excused. If you are shotgunning your parents at age 14, why should anyone assume you will magically improve with age? Any tiny-tot Lizzie Bordens should be shown the door without delay. We got along fine without children who kill from around 2500 BC through circa 1960 AD.

Likewise, how is mental incapacity a mitigating rather than an aggravating factor? On the contrary, there’s good reason to put crazies on top of the execution list.

Other than these, who should get the noose? Everybody. That isn”€™t hyperbole; it’s deadly serious.

Do you enjoy raping women (or men)? We have enough perverts sitting in front of flickering computers without worrying about those who are trolling dark alleys. Did you act out your favorite episode of Dexter? Swell, then. Now it’s our turn to enact a few scenes from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.

Nonviolent offenses are exempted, which includes prostitution and personal drug use, both of which constitute self-inflicted internal violence. Yet even the smallest external violence qualifies, so once word gets around that malcontents actually get their throats stretched for tagging the quays in Paris, it will cease instantaneously.

While the hangman has been our exemplar, society ought to be more creative. Arsonists? Burned at the stake. Good enough for saints, good enough for sinners. Thieves? Saudi Arabia has the right idea. Pedophiles? Plenty of obvious suggestions.

If elected governor, I”€™d call up the marked man on the red phone seconds before the execution just to ask him the time. That’s how much I detest violent criminals. Then again, I”€™ve had more experience. I”€™ve been in their cages; those guards lock you inside to interview rapists, kidnappers, and killers. Admittedly, I”€™m biased.

Therefore I propose we put it to a vote the only way that matters in modern America”€”by television ratings. Let’s select some irredeemable wretch and throw the switch live on a Saturday night.

If execution ratings don”€™t spike over 80% I”€™ll concede the argument and we can go on providing state-of-the-art gymnasiums, full-spectrum cable television, and endless days of afternoon leisure to your friendly neighborhood sadists.

There is virtually no chance of this ballot ever occurring. The obvious reason is that capital punishment’s well-meaning opponents know what people want and are afraid of letting them have it. The ominous reason is that this world’s malicious agents benefit from having a populace terrified and virtually lawless. If folks are focused on the local malefactor, they won”€™t bother with the supreme fugitives.

It is eminently understood how to drastically reduce violent crime in a society, and certain people are determined that it not be done. If things ever do change, those who have intentionally inflicted this upon us should be the first ones led up the scaffold.

Image of noose courtesy of Shutterstock