Death Penalty Opponents, This Is Who You Champion

the perpetrators murdered human beings (sometimes many more than one), in premeditated, cold, disregard for the natural laws of human society.

I gotta say too that "they might escape" is a straw man argument.

"Supermax?" Are you making this up as you go along? I've never in my life heard of a "supermax" prison--and your contention that "the US is the only country with so many 'supermax' prisons" reeks of someone's sensationalist televison or pulp journal story.

D Super-Max or Maxi-Maxi Prisons

In the United States, the highest security-level facilities are super-max or maxi-maxi prisons. Also called "control units," these prisons or areas within prisons have extraordinarily severe restrictions. Human contact is minimal. Inmates are kept in solitary confinement in small (typically six feet by eight feet) cells for long periods each day. They eat alone in their cells. No opportunities for work or socialization exist. Outdoor recreation is permitted only once a week. Restraints such as leg irons are used whenever inmates leave their cells.

In super-maximum security prisons, inmates are often locked alone in their cells for up to twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day. They eat and exercise alone, live under extraordinary levels of surveillance and control, and have little or no opportunity for education or vocational training. Although U.S. prisons have always had harsh solitary confinement cells to which prisoners are sent for a few days or weeks to be punished, a new generation of these "supermax" prisons are imposing extreme social isolation on prisoners for years.

Instead of looking for ways to help disruptive or dangerous prisoners develop the ability to live with other human beings, more and more correctional systems eager to prove that they are tough on crime are turning to "high-tech cages" with little regard for the effects that their inhumane conditions have on the mental and physical health of the prisoners.

If you just want to rant on about how bad you think things are in the United States, why not just start a thread under the rubric: "Why I think America is a nightmarish place to live, even though i don't live there."

As far as the "implications" that liberals want the US to fail in Iraq, I was simply referring to that other thread where joefromchicago asked: "So, can an American want the United States to lose the war in Iraq and still be patriotic? Yes. And I am one of those Americans."

Walter:

Ticomaya: It is certainly unfair to insinuate that Setanta, let alone all liberals, took the same position that I took in the "I want the US to lose the war in Iraq" thread; Set didn't even participate in that thread.

How come it's the right wingers who get to determine who is and isn't patriotic?

Because you leftists think it's patriotic to want the US to lose the war in Iraq .. you obviously can't be trusted to determine who is patriotic for yourselves.

"...in the instinctive belief of many ordinary Americans - the default mode of humanity is to become Americans." (Anatol Lieven, America Right or Wrong, page 66)

Thus, all American policy ought to come to fruition, any contestation or disagreement with American policy is mistaken or traitorous, and any and all wars begun by America ought to be won by America regardless of any other factor. What could be more clear?

What? I thought all people knew the USA came about by means of immaculate conception.

blatham wrote:

"...in the instinctive belief of many ordinary Americans - the default mode of humanity is to become Americans." (Anatol Lieven, America Right or Wrong, page 66)

Thus, all American policy ought to come to fruition, any contestation or disagreement with American policy is mistaken or traitorous, and any and all wars begun by America ought to be won by America regardless of any other factor. What could be more clear?

At the moment yes. It seems that the Bushii have developed that idea and taken it to ridiculous heights but would that have pertained under President Kerry? Did it pertain under Clinton? Will it pertain under the next President Clinton?

"...states, above all the United States, that are democratic, and act in the cause of liberty, possess unlimited authority, subject to no external control, to carry out military adventures."

"America had the infinite privilege of fulfilling her destiny and saving the world".

"I know of no country where there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America...The majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion; within these barriers and author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent if he ever step beyond them."