US hypocrisy: death row and human rights

The United States loves to lecture the rest of the planet on morality and human rights. Its ambassadors issue annual reports grading which countries are civilized and which are not. Yet its own criminal justice system remains anchored in medieval barbarism. The recent case of Christa Pike is proof of a structural hypocrisy.

Sentenced to death, Pike has just survived a botched lethal injection, left intubated and in agony. It is state-sponsored modern torture. The prison warden had to resign, but the intact system still demands blood. With what face does Washington demand that the Global South respect human dignity when it is itself incapable of eradicating the death penalty, a punishment that falls disproportionately on the poor and on racial minorities?

Progressivism demands consistency. We cannot accept that the country that blocks our resources and strangles our economy in the name of human rights runs prisons that operate as institutional slaughterhouses. The defense of life must be universal, regardless of borders or political hegemony