I just saw some of the ugliest of the Tea Party's ugly -- from a "friend" on Facebook

[markpkessinger]

This is someone I graduated high school with 32 years ago, and haven't seen since (nor were we particularly close in high school). But back then, even though we weren't close friends, he always seemed like a decent fellow: good sense of humor, a bit of a jokester, but seemingly (then) not with any undercurrent of nastiness or bitterness. I would have expected that, as an adult, he would have turned out to be a good deal more conservative than me. But he is not someone I would ever have heard (or read) the following from:

"Just read that there have been 235 death row executions in texas while rick perry has been in office.wonder how many millions of dollars that has saved the taxpayers.let's go pennsylvania. 'if they're on death row,they gotta go!'"

And here was my comment in response:

Forensic analysis performed after at least one of those executions, that of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of arson/murder in the deaths of his wife and young children, showed that the fire wasn't even an arson, and hence the deaths that resulted from it could not have been murder. But the Barney Fifes in the local Sheriff's Dept. presented it as "conclusive evidence" of his guilt to a jury. Texas has the highest rate in the nation of post-conviction exonerations. So an innocent man's life is .... what? A cost of doing business?? Collateral damage?? God help this country if we are really at the point of making decisions about something as profound as capital punishment on the basis of what it costs taxpayers!

Between this and what happened at the last two GOP debates, I am left utterly despairing of any hope that this country will ever get any hetter. So fucking depressing!

[seabeyond]

1. my thought, one innocent killed, it is murder. so i ask people that are pro death penalty

good ethical people. what if we kill an innocent on death row.

and it really is an attitude of shit happens. it seems acceptable. it isnt to me. hard for me to understand how you shrug at murdering an innocent person

[drm604]

4. You'd think, given their apparent attitude,

that they would want to put to death those responsible for murdering that innocent.

Their attitude is quite puzzling and contradictory. They seem to be so distressed (as we all should be) by the death of an innocent that they want to extract revenge against the murderer. But when the cause of that innocent's death is the state they basically take a shoulder shrugging "it happens" attitude. It's almost like their attitude is more one of bloodthirstiness than it is one of desiring justice.

[quaker bill]

12. Next time you have this conversation

propose that the state should probably just start picking up and executing random people off the street. It would be the exact same result as executing the innocent and you could save alot of taxpayer money on all that investigation and trial stuff...

As Adolph and Saddam would surely have attested, there is nothing like random and unprovoked summary executions in the street when it comes to keeping thngs orderly...

(for the sarcasm impaired - this is sarcasm)

[DBoon]

7. "it takes balls to execute an innocent man"

said at a Texas political focus group, testing this issue against Perry.

This isn't about justice.

[rfranklin]

13. that is one of the major differences between liberals and conservatives...

A conservative would rather execute an innocent person thansee one guilty person go free.

I think they also get a feeling of empowerment frompunishing others.

[laundry_queen]

29. That's what it's all about to them.

Balls. That's all they care about. This is why Democrats will never get a darn thing passed. What they don't understand is if they ALL together stood up and shouted, "this is what we believe, this is what we're doing, just TRY to stop us" and didn't backtrack, they could get everything accomplished that we want. The other side only cares about balls. They want someone to tell them what to do. They WANT a dictator. My dad is a staunch conservative and likes Jack Layton (NDP leader here who recently passed away). When I asked him why he liked Jack Layton so much even though he'd never vote for him he said, "He never backs down from his positions or beliefs. I respect him for that." That, in a nutshell, is everything the right embodies. They like people to do what they believe in. They hate waffling and flip flopping. They would rather be wrong but 'stick to their guns' than be right and be perceived as waffling. It's very simple, it's simple to win against them, because they are simple people. Black and white and all that. I wish the democrats would get that. Or maybe they do. :tinfoilhat:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. YES!

I've noticed that low-information voters respond to GUTS. It almost doesn't matter what the position is. They admire politicians who are gutsy and forthright and hate the mealy-mouthed ones.

Once on the bus, I heard two young men, obviously not affluent or educated, talking about how much they liked Cheney. Why? "He doesn't take shit from anyone." That was it. I asked them what else they liked, and that was it.

[PADemD]

46. +1,000,000

[The Wizard]

47. Wrong and strong

is still wrong. Do they really believe that two wrongs don't make a right, but three do?

[laundry_queen]

72. They don't care about wrong.

Like toddlers, they only care about making themselves feel good right now. When a 'strong' leader tells them what to do, and tells them it's the right thing to do, that's all they need to know. They feel better because someone is taking charge, like a 2 year old who feels lost when mommy comes around and picks him up and tells him it's alright he feels better. They don't have the moral strength or the mental capacity to discern what is right or wrong intrinsically. There must always be a strong leader to comfort them and give them the illusion everything is alright. I could get into why I think people become like this but it would take too long. Needless to say, this is how I was brought up and it's taken a long time and a lot of therapy to get past needing that validation or guidance from an authority figure.

[Gin Blossom]

57. Good point. W and his "steely resolve". n/t

[AnnieK401]

59. You're on to something

I just had a FB exchange with a conservative who basically said the same thing. He said he just wants someone to lead. Whether this person leads in a direction that is bad for the country is beside the point. I even heard Joe Scarborough basically said that is why he became a Republican - because they are "meaner". These people can not see gray, they do not get subtle nuances. That may be why they hate Obama with such a passion - he seems to be just the opposite. Very nuanced. He would rather compromise and get something than take an all or nothing attitude.

[laundry_queen]

73. Yes and what people don't understand

is that Obama can never go back with these people now. If he decides to suddenly be strong and resolute, they'll see it as just another flip flop, another ploy to get votes, another political move. He's burned his bridges with these types already. If, at the beginning, he'd have come out 'fired up' as he said, and put the bankers in jail, shoved through a stimulus thrice the size of the one he put through and stood up everyday and declared himself right as rain and that the republicans were wrong wrong wrong, he'd have won more of the right's heart than compromising and giving them what they want would win in a million years.

[n2doc]

14. Most of the ones I talk to say "Well, if it wasn't this, it was something else they did"

"They are a bad person, so they should die anyway" This is the attitude about Troy Davis in these parts.

[seabeyond]

15. wow. wow. lol, i havent heard that. granted, i use that on kids when they cry

unfair punishment, (like from school where i dont have the info), but that does not involve death. nothing more than detention or something.

[SemperEadem]

58. you should say "what happens when it's you?

since if it wasn't 'one thing', it be something else you did"? What if it's your son who just happened to wear the exact same sneakers in the exact same shoe size as a murderer and your son just happened to cut through a muddy park to take a short cut home? It's no big deal, then, you're saying, if your son is then picked up and on this flimsiest of evidence, convicted of something he didn't do and then sentenced to die for it.

We're all bad just as we're all good, so then we all should be rounded up and killed, is that it?

[n2doc]

75. They never, ever, envision this happening to them

Because they're "Good People", Ya know!

[aikoaiko]

32. ok, I'll chime in as a DP supporter.

First, I think the DP should be used far less than it is. Only when the crime is heinous and the identity of the true killer is certain, and there are no compelling mitigating circumstances.

Rarely are we truly certain. Sure, all we need is beyond a reasonable doubt to convict, but the bar can be higher for execution.

How do I accept the execution of an innocent? Not lightly

But like a guilty person who isn't convicted because of a lack of evidence and kills again I must accept that too.

[ohheckyeah]

36. Wow...

I'm sure you taking the execution of an innocent 'not lightly' would be a comfort to the family of the wrongly executed. I wonder how you would take it if it were someone you love.

[aikoaiko]

64. I'm sure it would be horrible.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. How can the identity of the killer be 'certain'?

Hell, almost 25% of the released/wrongfully convicted had a signed confession turned over to the police.

I cannot trust the state with a monopoly on the power to kill humans.

[aikoaiko]

65. I can appreciate your mistrust of the state.

[David Sky]

56. As a DP opponent, I cannot get my head around "not lightly" when there is

an alternative that most advanced nations in the world have found as a rational solution: NO DP!

Many states are in the same place, we have horrendous killers in each of the fifty states, yet only a few actually execute those killers. The rest save millions of tax dollars in appeals costs, keep the public safe, and manage NOT to get politicians or judges in trouble or threatened by rogue activists for one side or the other.

[aikoaiko]

66. Some day I may be in the minority side of this issue.

I respect your arguments against the DP. There are some rational arguments against the DP. Of course there are many who use those arguments as cover for their emotional stances on state executions.

[David Sky]

67. I don't understand your comment, I can't figure out what you are stating or

implying. There are rational and there are emotional arguments for and against any "controversial" issue. Part of what makes an issue "contoversial" is the emotion attached to that issue coming from BOTH sides.

"Of course there are many who use those arguments as cover for their emotional stances on state executions."

Any person on either side of the DP argument can argue from the rational or emotional. The place where rational arguments break down is when that particular argument is confronted with contrary facts. The state authorized death of an innocent person is precisely one of those points. There is nothing whatsoever "logical" or reasonable about that fact, and it cannot be ignored simply to maintain one's position. That is not an "emotional" argument, that is a factual and logical argument.

TRUE DP opponents can and sometimes DO argue from an "emotional" position, and they admit it when they do so. Favoring the preservation of life over death, simply, is both a logical AND an emotional argument.

TRUE ALSO DP proponents, in calling for "justice to be served for the victims", are arguing from an emotional perspective. The victims are dead, they will not ever see "justice" by witnessing the death of another human being. That argument is completely "emotional", since there is no logic involved, there is a plea to the emotions of others on behalf of the now dead victim. Many "victims" have killers who will NEVER be sentenced to death depending upon the age, race, state, location, and circumstances of the killing. Many victim's killers will even be released from prison, free to go on with their lives, while other victim's killers will not ever be released, and SOME will even be killed. There is nothing "logical" about how some killers get a death sentence, and others get just a few years behind bars. That discrepancy alone indicates that highly "emotional" issues are more associated with some killings more than with others.

The best and most convincing argument against the death penalty is, and always has been the chance for human error in carrying out that penalty. There is simply no way to present a rebuttal to that possibility, since human beings are fallible, the system of justice is never perfect, and mistakes CAN and probably DO occur. They occur in ALL types of criminal prosecutions, including captial murder cases. We know this as a fact, more now than ever before, since the use of DNA and other forensic sciences.

The Willingham case is example enough. To make even one mistake in a public policy that leads to death of an innocent person calls into question such a public policy and demands a corrective action to completely avoid ANY repetition of that event in the future. One certain way to "avoid" a recurrence is to eliminate the DP entirely from the range of options a justice system can employ. Dzens of states, and over a hundred nations have done so. Only in the USA are "emotional" arguments used to keep giving the state the power to kill human beings.

[aikoaiko]

71. I suppose that was my short hand of saying exactly what you just said.

There are emotional and rational arguments on both sides of this issue.

I disagree that "justice to be served for the victims" is always an emotional argument. The way you framed it, yes, but if I were to use that phrase I would use it in the context of crime-punishment proportionality.

I think a rational argument can be made that the death penalty is a restrained and proportional response to murder. I recognize that reasonable people can disagree with that.

I agree that executing the wrong person is the most compelling argument against the DP.

[David Sky]

79. I thank you for your respect and approach to this issue, but I don't understand...

this phrase: "that the death penalty is a restrained and proportional response to murder"

Life in prison is that, as a sentence, "restrained and proportional" for certain! We know this, and we do it for a large number of our convicted murderers. It is both effective, and able to be revoked in the case of human or system error. The DP is never that! In many cases, the sentence isn't even "effective", since many DP inmates live out their lives and die of natural causes. So the DP is inconsistent, to say the least, and I submit, often very emotionally charged. It is also not treating every criminal nor every criminal act with the same "restrained" consistency of justice. If one commits crime A in state one, one gets life in prison without parole, if one commits the crime in another state, one loses the right to natural life, one costs the state millions more in appeals and special treatment, and one potentially dies at the hands of other people's will to do so.

Proportional, perhaps, "an eye for an eye", but restrained? What is "restrained" about a government body having the full and unfettered power to execute a human being with less checks and balances than that available to a convicted murderer with a lifetime prison sentence?

Did you mean "used only for a few", and thus "limited"? Did you mean "humane"?

I don't understand the word "restrained" when used in the context of granting one or two branches of government the power to deny basic rights to life to any single human being, or group of similarly categorized human beings, when those categorized are done so by a collective emotional outrage over the nature and scope of their crimes and/or by emotional outrage over the mental status of the killer and/or by emotional outrage over the status, occupation, age, gender, race, etc. of the criminal and victim(s).

One last point, as I might be accused of "ignoring the victim" and the victim's loved ones. We have thousands of victims of murders in the USA. We also have tens of thousands of "victims" of auto accidents, hundreds of flood and tornado and other natural disaster "victims", we have "victims" of fire, we have hundreds of thousands "victims" of disease, "victims" of war and terrorist acts. They are no less "victims"; they are no less dead, they are all leaving suffering loved ones who miss them and mourn over their loss, and need to heal and go on living as best and as productively as they can. This is no less true for loved ones of victims of murderers. We all suffer some losses in life, unexpected losses, unfair and unjust losses. We punish those who are responsible, when we can. But there simply are not people we can "punish" for each and every "victim's" loved one's loss. Life is never fair, but our approach to punishment must always strive to be, that is what makes us civilized human-beings. We must all recognize the pain of loss of life, and strive to minimize the chances of
such losses, wherever we can.

And, surprisingly, many loved ones of victims of murderer are now AGAINST executions for those convicted of killing their loved one, usually for both logical and emotional reasons. You might find this effort to repeal the DP in California interesting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qzioMZ9qU

[aikoaiko]

80. I think the DP is proportional and restrained in that...

..the use of death penalty for a heinous, intentional death is not, in my mind, excessively cruel or unusual. It is not really and eye for an eye either in that we don't beat murderers to death when they've beaten someone to death, or run them over with a car if they intentionally ran someone over with a car.

By my way of thinking, life in prison is more restrained than the death penalty. It is less proportional in that it is lesser punishment than death. The recently convicted almost never say give me the death penalty over life because life in prison is much more pleasant and desirable than the death penalty.

The state's method of dealing out death is almost always more humane than the killer's.

I do not think you are ignoring victims or their interests. I think you are more compassionate than me.

Still, the reality that innocent men and women have been executed gives me great pause. It is the one thing that makes me want to switch positions.

I'll have to watch the video later.

[urgk]

62. Ask yourself this - is it empirically helpful?

Is it cost-effective? Is it a disincentive worth the fallout? Does it create a more stable society, in which members are more likely to respect the rights of others? Or does it create a sense of unfairness which, in turn, leads to discord and resentment in a sizable portion of the population?


If it costs more, if it creates discord, if it creates greater cultural ripples of a sense of injustice than justice, what's the point?

[aikoaiko]

63. Thank you for posing thoughtful questions.

Is it cost-effective? Compared to other punishments no, but somethings are worth the expense. Whether the death penalty is worth the expense is matter of debate.

Is it a disincentive worth the fallout? I'm not sure what disincentive you are describing.

Does it create a more stable society, in which members are more likely to respect the rights of others? I'm not sure it does, but I'm not sure abolishing the DP does either.

Or does it create a sense of unfairness which, in turn, leads to discord and resentment in a sizable portion of the population? Same as above. It appears that many were unhappy with the DP moratorium. For example, when life in prison is the maximum sentence, plea deals then lead to life with the possibility of parole. That is unacceptable to me. Currently, DP cases can be plea bargained to life in prison with no parole.

As far as I can tell we are a nation nearly split even on the DP with a slight edge to the pro-DP side. I recognize that I may soon be on the minority side. I just can't get around the idea of some heinous criminals getting to live out their natural days with their happy thoughts while their victims suffered or are suffering every day.

[urgk]

82. I mean this with all sincerity...

...but before we all decide to kill other human beings, we should have better answers to those questions. Not gut feelings, not anecdotal evidence, but a real accounting for the effects of the death penalty.

If the answer to "is it cost-effective?" is "no," then why have it? I mean, if the sense of societal cohesion and stability it creates is less than the instability, why the heck should we keep it? Think about it - who wants to pay more for a less effective solution?

I can fully appreciate the honest emotion behind support for the death penalty, but if it does not empirically lead to a better society, post-murder, what good does it do?

[FSogol]

2. Even if you were a human completely devoid of compassion, it still costs more to

execute someone than to keep them in prison for life. Your "friend's" disgusting economic thinking is as flawed as his humanity.

:puke:

[markpkessinger]

9. Yeah, I thought about making that point . . ..

... because, of course, it happens to be true. But I was just so disgusted and appalled by the fact that this person had reduced the profound question of whether the State should have the right to take someone's life to a question of how much it would cost taxpayers (in a country that enjoys one of the lowest tax burdens in the developed world, I might add), that I didn't think it was even worth my time getting into the question of whether his statement had any merit.

[L0oniX]

68. You would think that the anti big gobmint people would be all for saving money...

by life in prison over execution.

[rucky]

3. And then there's this...

http://www.economist.com/node/13279051

AN EYE for an eye, or at any rate a death for a death, is the type of justice that most states still embrace. Only 14 of the 50 states have banned capital punishment. But that may change with the recession. As state governments confront huge budget deficits, eight more states have proposed an unusual measure to cut costs: eliminate the death penalty.

The states considering abolition, including Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico and New Hampshire, have shifted the debate about capital punishment, at least in part, from morality to cost. Studies show that administering the death penalty is even more expensive than keeping someone in prison for life. The intensive jury selection, trials and appeals required in capital cases can take over a decade and run up a huge tab for the state. Death row, where prisoners facing execution are kept in separate cells under intense observation, is also immensely costly.

A recent study by the Urban Institute, a think-tank, estimates that the death penalty cost Maryland’s taxpayers $186m between 1978 and 1999. According to the report, a case resulting in a death sentence cost $3m, almost $2m more than when the death penalty was not sought.

In an age of austerity, every million dollars counts. Proponents of the abolition bills describe the death penalty as an expensive programme with few benefits. There is little evidence that the death penalty deters. In fact, some of the states that most avidly execute prisoners, such as Texas and Oklahoma, have higher crime rates than states that offer only life in prison without parole. There is also the danger that innocent people may be put to death. So far, more than 130 people who had been sentenced to death have been exonerated....

[SheilaT]

25. New Mexico eliminated the death penalty a couple of

years ago.

The article is two years old.

[rucky]

28. It's still relevant.

There is no moral or economic reason to support state-sponsored killing.

[AlecBGreen]

5. perfect reply

thanks for bringing that to his attention. keep it up! :applause:

[CBHagman]

6. It is ugly, but I'd also say not to despair.

Yes, it is utterly disgusting out there. But please don't allow your spirit to be crushed by despair. Political ugliness of the sort we've seen at TP rallies and GOP debates isn't new. It's just that we've got 24/7 news coverage and social media to put it all in our faces.

But things do change over time, and more often than not for the better. I'm old enough to remember when people -- likable people, educated people, people who were not ignorant and hateful -- very sincerely told me why women ought to be paid less than men while performing equivalent jobs.

On DU I see a lot of people who get caught up in predicting the future, seeing things in black-and-white terms -- the usual array of cognitive distortions. It's all right and even reasonable to be frightened and concerned, but where I'd draw the line is saying things can't or won't change for the better. We can't know that, and besides, history shows that things can and do change for the better.

[markpkessinger]

10. Thank you ...

... for your words of encouragement. they are very helpful!

[OffWithTheirHeads]

16. I agree. From the Salem witch trials to the Pinkerton's gunning down

disaffected workers to the Klan openly marching in the streets to the McCarthy era to Herbert Hoovers reign of terror, the teabags have always been among us yet, somehow, we slowly progress. The only thing that has changed is now you see that shit 24/7 every time you turn on an electronic device. Same ol shit, different media.

Edited to add, If you were around during the civil rights era, some of those images still burn in my brain, and let's not forget "America, love it or leave it!" and the Okie from Miskogie. Not very long ago really.

[CBHagman]

17. Yes, OffWithTheirHeads!

Recently PBS showed documentaries on the Freedom Riders. I'd recommend those to all DUers, along with Congressman John Lewis's autobiography, Walking with the Wind, both for their gripping (and sometimes horrifying) accounts of the events of the civil rights era, but also for encouragement. After all, he is now Congressman John Lewis. :patriot:

[Enthusiast]

45. And the genocide of native Americans..............nt

[bahrbearian]

8. Good reply, I also like the reply that a Government executed Jesus.

[Frustratedlady]

11. Yes, that comment had to have opened more than a few eyes. EOM

[duhneece]

18. Your post raises my spirits

YOur knowledge about Cameron Todd Willingham and your willingness to express what you know gives me hope. Thank you for being an activist, for knowing that "no justice = no peace." I'm sending you hugs from Southcentral New Mexico.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. This PARODY strangely fits here

especially the ending

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5351101160052590481

[Tennessee Gal]

20. Your friend is wrong if his concerns are about executions saving taxpayer money.

Here are a few facts.

FINANCIAL FACTS ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY
• The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life.
Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state’s executions. (L.A. Times, March 6, 2005)
• In Kansas, the costs of capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-capital cases, including the costs of incarceration.
(Kansas Performance Audit Report, December 2003).
• In Maryland, an average death penalty case resulting in a death sentence costs approximately $3 million. The eventual costs to
Maryland taxpayers for cases pursued 1978-1999 will be $186 million. Five executions have resulted. (Urban Institute 2008).
• The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the
costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke University, May 1993).
• Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in
prison without parole. Based on the 44 executions Florida had carried out since 1976, that amounts to a cost of $24 million for each
execution. (Palm Beach Post, January 4, 2000).
• In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at
the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992).

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf

[Lorien]

21. How does he feel about the trillions that the wars cost taxpayers? nt

[MisterP]

23. probably makes him wet, like Hitchens when he thinks of Muslims being penetrated

by anti-personnel fragmentaries
just like Palin on her TV show firing the rifles her daddy loaded for her: she's not hungry, or bringing the moose a merciful end. She's percolatin'

[treestar]

22. I lucked out on the FB thing

Most of the re-connecting high schoolers seem to be liberal or don't put politics on there.

Some death penalty supporters are scary - there's a blood lust there that is creepy. They'd be the people who attended the hangings and made a party of it in prior centuries.

[Quantess]

27. Meh. I can sort of understand the support for the death penalty.

You pretty much have to be convicted of murder to get the death penalty anyway, and there is a sense of "what to do with these incorrigible people".
I don't think the death penalty is a good "punishment", in fact, it lets some perpetrators off too easy, and of course the risk is too great that an innocent person is wrongly executed. So overall, I'm against it. But it's not all that right wing to agree the death penalty was legit in some cases.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. I'll be honest...

I used to be a pretty hard-core death penalty supporter. I also used to turn a blind eye to some civil rights violations.

Getting older, seeing how damn many people who were actually scheduled to die, have been released, is a real eye-opener.

The Innocence Project has some good stuff.

[SemperEadem]

60. me too.. I don't connect as far back as high school

I never looked back once I graduated high school. It's a policy that has worked in my favor for over 33 years.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Quantess]

26. Executions don't save any money!

You'd think they would, but they don't. Apparently executions are very costly, and why, I don't know, but they are, so I have read.

You know what, here's an idea: How about thinking about the factors that tend to cause people to become criminals, and work toward minimizing those factors in society?

Unwanted babies. Desperate poverty growing up. Lousy education. High unemployment and desperate living. Substance abuse. Any other ideas? How about prevention instead of only punishment?

[Parker CA]

31. You're right. Bogus claim that executing someone is cheaper.

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

[Fire Walk With Me]

30. The "prison system" is a huge for-profit enterprise, and the results are just what capitalism does..

..to things, any thing.

[Quantess]

33. No, but a huge, for-profit enterprise is what happens when you privatize prisons

in a capitalist society.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

34. We are the only first world country in the world to still use the death penalty.

It is disgusting and uncivilized.
While I do think there is evil in this world and there are people who do not deserve to share oxygen with us, there is no place in a civilized country for the death penalty.

[Jenny_92808]

37. Well said...the death penalty is disgusting and uncivilized...

and

- It sets a bad example for the world.

- Executing innocent people happens. Unacceptable.

- It costs millions more than a life sentence.

- It is like giving them an early release.

[defendandprotect]

43. At one time it was reversed ... and the RW overturned it again -- sad --

[druidity33]

52. China's not a 1st World country? nt.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

74. 2nd world, maybe, But not first world...

...at least in my opinion. And the whole human rights thing kind of negates them from the discussion. They treat their people as chattel, not as humans.

[druidity33]

78. hmmmm

our President has unilaterally declared he can assassinate any world citizen (including Americans) on any other country's soil... with no trial, no representation, no right to defend themselves. Or he can detain anyone indefinitely... with the same proscription (no trial, no defense).

Is that not treating us as chattel?

The US has the highest incarceration rate and the near widest income disparities. I think you need to reexamine your 1st world theories...

:shrug:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

81. We used to be a 1st world country.

We are still considered one, but we are lower 2nd if anything.

[wickerwoman]

35. Good response.

I'd point him towards the West Memphis Three case as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Echols

An 18 year old kid spent 18 years on death row for a crime he pretty obviously didn't commit just because he had the misfortune to be interested in heavy metal music and wicca while living in an extremely ignorant and intolerant town in Arkansas. What if he had been executed before the evidence exonerating him came to light?

[AtheistCrusader]

40. Actually, it can cost millions in appeals to execute someone.

Costs more than just keeping them in jail, with the same 'normal' appeal standards that other non-death row inmates have.

Might be a line of attack you can use, if basic human decency fails.

[defendandprotect]

42. "Beware of those with a strong urge to punish" --

[Enthusiast]

44. I share your concern.

I know it's little conciliation but right wing Republicans and Democrats alike have been assholes for 100 years in this country. But since the 2000 election this country is going through a particularly bad period.

[The Wizard]

49. The election of 2000

wasn't an election but rather a selection by five biased hand picked Supreme Court justices who had a predetermined verdict before hearing the evidence. The felonious five undermined all moral grounding of the United States. Since then we've been on the expressway to the Third World.

[Enthusiast]

51. You are so right. nt

[RBInMaine]

48. What do you mean you are "despairing"? Just buck up, get your message out, and WORK for DEMS.

[JHB]

50. Why do people who are so convinced everything government touches turns to shit...

...suddenly think the government bureaucrats running the justice system are thorough, efficient, and infallible?

[markpkessinger]

53. I'm afraid Tea Baggers and intellectual consistency parted ways long ago ;)

[JHB]

54. Still needs to be pointed out from time to time...

...just because it needs to.

[Papagoose]

55. I personally know two people okay with the execution of an innocent man

Their rationale? He probably did something else just as bad and deserved it.

I also have a a teabagger coworker who passionately argued with me that he thinks that the police should be able to carry out extra-judicial sentences, up to and including executions.

[David Sky]

69. I find the Tea Baggers' grasp of logic to be sadly missing most of

the time. Their view of a "just" world is one where they alone decide what is right or wrong, making their decisions totally from emotion rather than reason, not from a sense of history, from lack of respect for reason or facts. The similarities between Tea Baggers and extreme religious zealots is frightening. and filled with giant rational inconsistencies.

Someone who hates the power of government to tax them, but is willing to give any police officer the right to shoot first and ask questions later is just one blatant example of such inconsistency.

[tjwash]

61. Was this guy a slacking-stoner type in high school?

Because for dome reason...the biggest stoner-slackers in mt HS class on my facebook pages are all now rushbots and faux news junkies.

[markpkessinger]

77. Actually he was a jock, a very popular football player, ...

... and a bit of a class clown. Maybe not the brightest peg in the Lite-Brite Board, but not the dimmest either.

[HillWilliam]

70. I'm amazed at the cow-stupid looks I get when I tell these idiots

you can't call yourself "pro-war", "pro-death-penalty", and at the same time "pro-life". It's philosophically impossible. I don't even want to know the kind of pretzel-bending it takes to wrap one's mind into believing they can be all three at once.

[Initech]

76. The Tea Party should be renamed - The Death Party.