Dear Decider,
This is the question we never ask casually.
When a crime is monstrous – when the harm is so deep it makes our stomach turn – something in us demands balance. Something must be done. That instinct is ancient. It’s the heartbeat of retributive justice: the idea that punishment should fit the crime. The worse the harm, the heavier the response.
And for many, the death penalty feels like the only response proportionate enough.
But here’s where justice gets dangerous.
Because the moment we decide someone deserves death, we have crossed a line that can never be uncrossed. We’ve granted the state the authority not just to restrain, but to extinguish. Not just to protect, but to kill. And even if we believe that decision is justified, we still have to sit with the question that follows:
Who gets to decide?
Justice isn’t just about punishment. It’s also about distribution. Distributive justice asks how benefits and burdens are shared across society. Who has access to opportunity? Who carries risk? Who gets protected – and who gets punished?
When we look closely, the same system that claims to punish fairly often distributes suffering unevenly. The death penalty has a pattern. So does incarceration. So does poverty. The gap between rich and poor keeps widening, and somehow the harshest consequences keep falling on those with the fewest resources, the weakest representation, the least power to push back.
That’s not an accident. It’s a feature of who gets to decide.
So the question isn’t only whether Dahmer deserved death. The deeper, more unsettling question is whether any system run by fallible humans should have the power to make that call. Because justice administered without humility turns into vengeance. And justice administered without accountability turns into oppression.
Dear reader, sit with this for a moment.
Do you trust the deciders?
Do you trust the system to get it right every time – when the stakes are irreversible?
And if justice is this powerful, this final… what safeguards would you demand before allowing it to speak in our name?
Still weighing the scales,
~ The Radical Left