wow gnu, do you REALLY want to start a discussion about the pros and cons of the death penalty? *sigh* That's such an old, convoluted and never-ending controversy, and there's a plethora of websites and scientific studies and great quotes from people much wiser than myself out there on either side of the debate. But for now, I'll just say this:

If you agree with and are committed to living your life by the adage "Thou shalt not kill", or "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" there's no need to ask such a question. I don't see how it's possible for the state to uphold the social ideals/values/principles of non-violence and the sanctity of human life with one hand, while legally knocking off it's problematic citizens with the other.

Actions speak so much louder than words! Watching the executions, the unwashed masses get the message that killing people is not only normal and ok but desirable; an acceptable means of achieving your ends sanctioned even by the nations highest courts and lawmakers. THis eats away at the moral underpinnings of democracy and further densensitizes the population to violence.

In a very real sense, Karla has become Canada's own very visible, living personification of "the Devil". And as this "Devil" stands before our eyes, taunting and disgusting and terrorizing and enraging us, the challenge is - will we give in to the temptation to sacrifice our highest principles and stoop to her level of consciousness? Will she succeed at driving us to hate, to rage, to violence and killing - to in fact the very same behaviors that made her a criminal in the first place?

I think this is the 'spiritual purpose' of a Bernardo or a Homolka - to give us all a 'workout', a most valuable and excellent opportunity to practice unconditional love even in the most difficult of circumstances, even while taking appropriate action to protect the public from her.

It's not the people who are easy to love that make us more loving, more forgiving - in other words, 'better' people! It's the ones who are the most difficult, the ones who seem to least deserve it. Just like you won't develop rock-hard biceps if all you lift is feathers. You gotta get under those iron weights....

I solve this dilemna real easily in my own mind, simply by imagining how those I admire most would react to someone like Karla. I remember the Dalai Lama and how he refused to sacrifice the principles of peace and non-violence even in the face of the horror, slaughter and tyranny inflicted on his innocent people by Communist China. I think of Nelson Mandela, of Martin Luther King, of Ghandi, of how Pope John Paul II met with and publicly forgave the person who tried to assassinate him back in 1981. I think of how Mother Teresa visited the death row inmates in a California prison, and told the guards "Whatever you do to these men, you do to God". And, you know, somehow I just can't imagine Jesus hauling off and killing her, no matter what she did.

Works for me, anyway!