Haley should kill defective flag; not defective human

SC Gov. Nikki Haley seeks to kill the wrong defect in the SC church masscre. "We absolutely want him to have the death penalty" was Haley's obtuse way of saying she wants to kill the apparently defective Dylann Roof for the murders of 9 church members Tuesday. It doesn't matter a whit to Haley that Roof is no longer a threat to society, that justice will be provided by a life sentence, and that sparing Roof's life will not... encourage similarly defective humans from copying his crime. Haley is simply playing to the dwindling majority of Americans who seek bloodlust for perpetrators of heinous crimes. That is not leadership. That is not moral. That is simply pandering to the basest instincts of our citizenry.

Haley would better serve the healing process by working to kill of the defective flag that desecrates the SC capitol gounds. Yes, the Confederate Flag, a symbol of slavery, racism and sedition, still haunts racial reconciliation in SC and the nation.

There is much substantive work required to topple America from its shameful perch as massacre capital of the civilized world. Much involves reducing access to the hundreds of millions of guns readily available to defective humans like Roof. But Gov. Haley should take an important symbolic step and use her bully pulpit to put Stars and Bars in its grave. A hundred fifty years after being defeated on the Civil War battlefield, it burial is long overdue.