Reply #15: I'm not a death penalty/vengeance kind of person

[noamnety]

There are people I'm glad to see removed from power, or removed from a position where they can continue to hurt people.
And there are people whose deaths I don't feel any emotional sadness over.

I can understand a personal/private feeling of relief when someone's gone.

I can't get behind the public joy/public expressions of hope over it. When I see that, it reminds me of that photo from 1930, two black men - who had allegedly raped a white girl - being lynched, and the town turning out to watch, women in summer dresses, men in hats and ties, smiling like they are at a garden party.

The smiling people knew they had rid their town of a great evil threat. Nobody there was condemning them for celebrating under the hanging bodies of those two men. They were self-assured in their content.

Maybe the two men in the photo were rapists. Maybe they weren't. Their crime isn't the evil that's captured in that photo.