Execution would promote truth about American society

I am responding to the staff editorial, "Execution on Web harmful to society" (April 9). In it, the opinion is presented that broadcasting the execution of Timothy McVeigh would damage the American society. This couldn't be further from the truth.\nFrom the beginning, the editorial skews the facts to make its case. In presenting the background information, the opinion omits an important fact: that the Web site would be child-proofed, with a fee for access, and that money generated would go into a fund for victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. But there is something more fundamental about this argument.\nThe position presented was that broadcasting McVeigh's execution would damage society, idolizing him, and no one should witness the execution, whereas the broadcasting company feels that Americans have a right to watch. Neither is correct; Americans have a responsibility to watch. After all, it is our elected government which is putting a living, breathing, if not exemplary, human being to death.\nThe execution should be broadcasted, not in spite of the fact that children could witness the event, but so that they do; in fact, it should be shown in every classroom in America, middle school and up, live. \nThe opinion claims society would be injured by watching this act; I would counter that society is already diseased if it allows something like this to occur, and that it is hypocritical if it doesn't want people to witness this atrocity it holds up as "justice."\nWhen executions are carried out in Kosovo, they are war crimes; in America, they are routine items on the nightly news. Children need to learn the important rules of moral geography early on, that the value of human life is determined by where people live and whether the state agrees they should continue to do so; that there is no sanctity or beauty in our existence. This is the lesson that those who oppose the broadcast fear that we are nothing in a society until we assert our rights upon it, and that the first, the foremost of these rights, is the right to life.