Is America REALLY that bad?

CodeBorg, Read this.

Explosion waiting to happen

and this


and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

Do I need to continue?

And when, I wonder, is this? Or rather--Has anyone ever been executed when the authorities thought there was a question of guilt? Yet we know that innocent people have languished on death row for years and some, presumably, have been executed.

For that reason, and the fact that socio-economic issues play a huge role in determining who does (and doesn't) wind up on death row, capital punishment is wrong and shouldn't be imposed in a civilized society.

Now you see it now you don't. Posts keep appearing and disappearing.

Since I think a life term in prision without a chance of parole is harsher punishment than execution, I will continue to favor that avenue.

I moved to Canada from America 3 years ago next week and in my opinion this is the best country on earth. The people here are so friendly, kind, helpful, and caring that I can't imagine living anywhere else. Sure there are some jerks up here as well, but they are needles in haystacks. Just watching any US news channel is very depressing because of all the violence. For example: On our local news tonight they talked about the election that just passed, the car insurance rates, the legalization of gay marriage, stuff about the fishing, a walrus that somehow made its way to Nova Scotia, and tourist attractions. See the difference!

I'm reading all of the links but I don't see your opinion within them.
Please share with us what you think, what atrocities you see, how you react, to the article that you posted, and what kind of comparison you make, between what you believe happens in Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

Your words and thoughts are important to me.



(I gotta run errands... back in 7 hours)

Ah, now, D'art, you've hit the nail upon it's shiny head . . . can we claim to be members of a civilized society . . .

au

Your opinions, once voiced publicly, are immediately opened for discussion.

And here's one way I'll continue...the biblical injunction argument is without question the stupidest and most irresponsible that anyone might put forward. You know, unless you are a complete idiot (and you aren't) that MANY other biblical injunctions, if put into practice, would turn any community into something no less ugly than the Taliban's friendly and sophisticated little towns. You got some rationale for cherry-picking this particular favorite 3000 year old notion of high justice?

Setanta
I understand the disagreement with and dislike of the present as you say rogue administration. I have no great love for it either. But I continually read or maybe imagine the people are denigrating the US it's system and people, at least the ones that do not agree with them. This post is as you can see is not about our rogue administration but infers we are no better than Saudi Arabia. If one reads some of the other threads there are many at least to my mind denigrate the US and it's people. I could be all wet but that is how I see it.

Blatham - you ARE being sarcastic about private prisons, aren't you?

Canada appeals to me, too. They have universal health care for one thing. It's far from perfect, but the U.S. isn't even close to offering this to its citizens.

And, more importantly, it might be nice to live in a country that's not trying to bully the rest of the world all the time. And abides by its treaties!

And I second Setanta's analysis of the purpose of this thread. McG, you are oh so clever...

deb

Privatized prisons have been all the rage in America for more than a decade. I have never before on this board or any other used the term 'puke', but I'll use it here.

Yeah, an' then, afterwards:

"OOooops, we goofed, sorry, my bad . . . "

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/nyregion/12DNA.html

blatham
I think I made it clear that capital punishment should be imposed only when there is no question of guilt.
Whether it is a deterrent or not is irrelevant. I believe when it is deserved it should be imposed. The biblical admonition "An Eye for an eye" or let the punishment fit the crime is inorder. That is my opinion and it is not open for discussion.

heeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . . ah yer a bad man, boyo . . .

I would also like to add to the "deterrent" question--it's a scam for several reasons. The first is that this assumes that those commiting criminal acts have given careful thought to their actions in advance. I've said for many years that crime does not pay because of the calibre of those who go into the profession. By and large, thought and criminal are mutually exclusive terms. Criminals don't "plan" on being apprehended, so deterence is a concept which offers a "moral" (disgusting word) fig leaf for the blood thirsty who want to present their retributive lust in a better light. In fact, murder in the commission of other crimes probably comes as much a surprise to the perpetrator as to the victim. That they may be by nature viciously murderous i would not deny--are we to sink to the childish argument of "he did it first!" to justify the state taking lives? In a crime of passion, it is not unreasonable to assume that no thought took place before the knife was shoved in or the trigger pulled. In Beyond Good and Evil, Neitzsche points out that criminals look upon apprehension as bad fortune, the simile he uses is "like being caught in a rock slide while walking in the mountains." There is no reason, and no data, which leads me to believe in capital punishment as deterrent. Adding to that the problem of guilt or innocence which i and others here have already explored, and i arrive at much the same conclusion as that reached by the Governor of Illinois not long ago--that there should be no executions when the possibility of excecuting the innocent looms so large, when questions of racial bias loom so large, when questions of the effect on the collective ethos of society loom so large. State murder is a bad idea all around.

Setanta

The racial bias statistics alone ought to trump. Side note that racial bias is an area where my country too has been shameful, though here it concerns First Nations peoples, and not as regards capital punishment.

In the US, there are now more college age black males in jail than in universities. This is one of the reasons I think privatizing prisons is such a bright idea. Of course, it would be much more efficient (thus would save tax dollars and reduce the oppressive incursion in government into our lives) if the court system too was privatized. Business management principles, having been shown to be very successful in other spheres, if brought to the highly defective criminal justice system, would cut away a lot of the unecessary time and expense associated with justice.

au

re captial punishment...

I see in myself the emotional response which would allow or even favor killing some killers. But simply because that response is in me does not give warrant to a social policy. I sometimes want to line up administration supporters and whack their peepees really hard too. If capital punishment worked as a deterent, and worked significantly, supporters of it would have a compelling social policy argument, but it does not function as a deterent. Thus the arguments made earlier by Setanta and Patiodog (allowing the state to act as an agent for vengeance, particularly when so many are actually innocent) ought to trump.

As to folks denigrating the US...likely I'm one of the voices you speak of. Of course, there is nothing I've said that hasn't been said in far stronger terms by many Americans, so where I live is irrelevant. And what I've said is essentially that the US has been guilty of causing far too much unnecessary suffering in the world. And I've given examples. America isn't alone in guilt, many earlier empires have been as bad or worse. The assumption that it is free of such failings comes from the blindness which unreflective and chauvinistic patriotism engenders. As I've noted elsewhere, there isn't a term in Belgium or Norway or Canada to match 'anti-Americanism', and that is not an insignificant fact.

As to the question of the thread...it's a silly false dilemma, as has been pointed out previously. "Love it or leave it" is for folks who have the brain power of a car bumper.

Thank god! Couldn't agree more. The latest human rights outrage here in Oz was the tendering out of the illegal immigrant detention centres. I thought they could muck up ordinary prisons. What they did at Woomera, for instance, is just suppurating out from the wrappings hiding the truth.

Au said: "The biblical admonition "An Eye for an eye" or let the punishment fit the crime is inorder. That is my opinion and it is not open for discussion."

Begs the question a bit as to why you opened a discussion that appears to centre around capital punishment and its contribution to negative world views of the US?

As regards our southern babdist friend in need for answers to all our questions--the bauble, it enjoins us to put to death adulterous women (men get a pardon, apparently), to put to death homosexuals, and to put to death disobediant children . . . ah yes, why would anyone want anything more than the timely advice of a collection of rambling tales about an ignorant, narrow-minded, mysogynistic and bigoted group of middle eastern nomads?