Capital Punishment. Will you pull the switch?

Yosemite Sam says, "there's only one thing worse than a wabbit - an Aussie Wabbit!"

...especially a wabbit that smokes and doesn't know much Latin. :wink:

Oh, great. That's just what we need: A wascawy, wussian wifle wielding, watin wacking wabbit. Gee, thanks, bib.



timber

You're welcome. Weally glad to weturn the favour.

I know it does, Piffka. 'Tis why I said it - heehee.

Would anyone mind if I bring the thread back on topic?

Here's a nice, strong opinion from the the blogger digby , which I happen to wholeheartedly agree with:

Can we get down to brass tacks on this? When the judicial system is as arbitrary, corrupt and prone to error as the Illinois judicial system (along with most jurisdictions in America) it is immoral to entrust it with the ultimate punishment of death. And if one defends such systems in the name of the authority of the State, and believes that it is destructive to the State to question its infallibility, then one is a Totalitarian.

Many conservatives are flirting openly with Totalitarianism these days and their lack of empathy and moral judgment, even in the face of a gross miscarriage of justice, is indicative of a frightening will to power. All those years of studying Stalinism in order to defeat it seems to have evolved into a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in which the student has come to identify with the subject.

I think it is time for conservatives to take a hiatus from their Sabbath Gasbag assignments and check in with their priests. Because if they are unmoved when the State is willing to execute innocent people in their name, then their problems run much deeper than the moral relativism they love to pin on the left.

They are operating in a moral void.

well, yes, I agree.

but - is it only conservatives who support the death penalty?

"The Left" (In The US) favors The Death Penalty only in the odd circumstance, bunny ... such as for loggers.


<edited to drop in a parenthetical clarification>

timber

I don't know...let's hear from any self-described libs who are in favor of flicking the switch, please...

I know many liberals and many leftist persons who love the death penalty. Americans are so polarized, outside America the death penalty isn't defined in liberal/conservative nearly as much as it is stateside.

Well, Timber -I am "the left" - and I don't support it in any circumstances - even for loggers!

I occasionally wish for a post-natal termination of pregnancy, though.......

You should write for Letterman, timber.
The Enviro Whack Brigade will blow you to Hell if you develop in Vail, CO, as well. #1 on the FBI's Most Wanted for Domestic Terrorism, until Muslims started bumping them back on the list.
But, CP...probably not. Too establishment.

And where, pray tell, outside America, is the death penalty even practiced? Not too many western nations, if memory serves.

But it is DEBATED, D' artagnan...

Joan - yours is a powerful testimonial. It validates for me something I've often thought - that too much about this is about revenge, and like that song says "honest men know that revenge does not taste sweet".

God bless you and give you peace.

I'm sure it is, dlowan, but in the US, I'm sorry to say, it's actually practiced. Makes a difference in the public discourse, I would imagine.

D' artagnan,

Yes it makes a big difference. In the countries I have lived in that do not practivce this it is considered barbaric for anyone of authority to give any kind of validation to the practice. I know a journalist who was fired for suggesting that a serial killer be executed. It's considered a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized past.

But many in the "street" like the idea in countries where crime is high. They dissassosiate with teh working class and the criminal class and the current system's inadequacy is another factor. But this has nothing to do with capital punishment and everything to do with lack of funding for the current institutions and systems.

I read many of the posts on here during my lunch time. Without reading further, I will state my position: I support the death penalty, but not the way it is currently administered. Many punishable by death crimes should be turned into life or life without parole. But where an individual is clearly and 100% provably a continuing menace to society, that one ought to be executed - not an act of revenge, but a cutting from humanity's body a cancer. I have had a brother murdered in much the same manner as O J Simpson's wife and boyfriend. I do not support the death penalty for the man who did this. I am able to seperate my personal feelings from this question to that degree. But, given the correct circumstance, I could push that button.

Why wasn't the guy who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan not executed?
Probably a plea of insanity I guess.

I'm sure there would have been many americans who would have loved to "pull the switch" on that guy - I believe his name was Hinkel or Hinkley.

Hinkley was his name and his parents had lots of money. You are right he is not in prison but in St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital in Washington, D.C. a real hell hole of a place. Death would be preferable to being in St. E's forever. In addition there is no death penalty in the District of Columbia.