Timothy McVeigh Rightly Executed

Timothy McVeigh was rightly put to death (June 11). His note, “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul,” tells why. He did not give 168 people the right to be the masters of their fates or the captains of their souls. Anyone who takes this right away should forfeit his own life.

Douglas Hall

Culver City

One last thought: What if McVeigh had decided to martyr himself and explode with the bomb? We would likely never have known who engineered the thing. The “grassy knoll” crowd would be theorizing for eternity, and the agonizing post-execution journalistic dissection of the bomber would have been lost. Pity.

Robert Olsen

Yucaipa

Re “Will McVeigh’s Execution Make Him a Martyr?” Opinion, June 10: No, but the media’s fascination with it sure will. This minute-by-minute detail was unseemly and gave him the publicity he craved.

Cathy LaScola

Santa Monica

Seems like we are entering a new era of uneducated misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the letters to a reporter from McVeigh sound too much like the views of a number of people I have known, both military veterans and non-veterans (“Writings of a Home-Grown Terrorist,” June 10). Those views stem from a gross failure of our primary and secondary education system to teach that there are real and major differences between the government of King George III in 1776 and the government of the United States today. A lot of people are running around with a very distorted view of the U.S. Constitution and our form of government. Thus the potential for another Oklahoma City exists. Greater emphasis on civics and history might prevent it from happening again.

Eric Cooper

Mission Viejo

Re “There’s a Moral Reason That McVeigh Must Die,” Commentary, June 8: I’m outraged that Dennis Prager claims that opponents of capital punishment “never argue that keeping all murderers alive is just.” I am a proud opponent of the death penalty who feels exactly that way. I’d also like to remind Prager that presumably the citizens of the 13 states that have abandoned the death penalty, and those of the numerous countries all over the world that have also abolished it feel the same way.

Ed Redlich

Los Angeles