Steven Oken Must Die.

There's an old joke (and I use the term loosely; it's not particularly funny) about some natives on a tropical island who take a pair of American male marauders (tourists) prisoner. The natives give their prisoners a choice: death or ru-ru. The first one, unsuspecting, chooses ru-ru, for it must be better than death. Of course, when the second one sees the brutal, violent, fatal attack that is ru-ru, he chooses death. I'll leave the punch line until the end.

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I'm a registered Democrat who has never voted Republican (though I couldn't vote for anyone in the year Dukakis ran). I am pro-choice. While some might call me liberal, I don't fit neatly into a category. For one thing, I'm pro-death.

I can't find a single compelling reason to keep the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer alive. I can't fathom mere incarceration for someone who causes intentional physical harm to a child or to someone who rapes, tortures, and/or murders innocents. Lots of variables with the term innocents, but that's okay; the death penalty should not be used liberally. But the punishment should fit the crime.

So when Steven Howard Oken forced his unwanted penis (and a bottle and who knows what else) into Dawn Marie Garvin's vagina and then again into Patricia Hirt's (his sister-in-law), that was an injection. And when he murdered them both and also murdered a hotel clerk in Maine, where he fled, that was a lethal injection. Punishment should be lethal injection. Three of them, if you're counting.

I suppose I would leave it up to the victim's family, rather than to the State to decide whether to invoke the death penalty. In this case, Dawn Garvin's family has been outspoken: Steven Oken must die.

My husband is against the death penalty because he sees it as State-sanctioned murder. He admits, however, he'd have no problem should the victims want to push the button, pull the plug, inject the drugs. He'd have no problem should they want to hire someone (after all, it's got to be tough for most people to kill, even in self-defense).

I think about it occasionally, like when I hear someone's child was abused or raped or kidnapped. I think about what I would do. I would kill. Oh, yes. I would kill for my daughter. It would not be about revenge, either. It would be about justice—a mother's justice, not the State's.

A lot of people believe that it's just too expensive to kill someone. But the execution is not what's expensive; it's the legal process. The drug's cheap, and my tax dollars do not have to pay for a pedophile's television time, meals, and cot.

I didn't know Steven Oken, but I went to high school with him. I knew him from the hallway. I knew his friends. Had I seen his picture without his name, I might have been able to remember it. I recognized his name without his picture. Steven Oken lethally injected three women. He raped two and tortured one. Steven Oken must die.

But first: ru-ru.

http://mc4se.org/oken.htm