The Democrats Are the Problem

[Xavier_Onassis]

What is even stranger is that folks like Chuck Colson who find Jesus behind bars is still vilified, yet cold blooded murderers like Karla Faye Tucker who are conveniently born again are nominated for sainthood.

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No one is saying this woman is or ever was a saint. She was a despicable murderer, and now the State of Texas has proven that it can also be a despicable murderer, too. I hereby issue a post-mortum relivement against her.

My point was that Juniorbush was an asshole to publicly make fun of her plea for a commutation of her sentence.
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It has been eons since I have heard anything about Colson. I think he has done a lot of good since he got out of the slammer.

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It is my view that governors and presidents should be held to a higher standard than murderers and even presidential ex-aides.

[BT]

It is my view that governors and presidents should be held to a higher standard than murderers and even presidential ex-aides.

If a standard is worth holding it should apply to everyone.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If a standard is worth holding it should apply to everyone.

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Do you really believe that we should expect the same behavior of a murderer as of a governor?

It's not like we elect murderers, or vote against them if we do not like their actions.

Karla was a murderer. She deserved to be punished, and was punished.

Juniorbush was an insensitive asshole, and somehow was elected, anyway, with many continuing to believe that he is not an insensitive asshole.

These are different actions, and therefore different standards apply.

It is not nice to pick a booger and flick it at another person, but it is not the moral equivalent of axe-murder, for example.

[BT]

It is not nice to pick a booger and flick it at another person,

Is that universal or should it only apply to public officials, you know, the ones we hold to a higher standard.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Would you vote for a known murderer?

Would you vote for a known booger-flicker?

Suppose we saw a video of a candidate committing an axe-murder. How many votes might he get?

Then suppose we saw a video of the same candidate, instead of committing an axe-murder, flicking a booger? How many votes would that get?

I am pretty sure that either faux pas would result in a loss by the said candidate. People would be able to joke about the boogers a lot more easily, and it would be more likely that the media would broadcast the booger-flicking.

[Michael Tee]

<<The accusation that Juniorbush was a callous asshole stems from his mocking Karla Faye's voice on the air.>>

Right.

<<This woman was not a threat to anyone especially because they could have commuted her sentence to a life without parole.>>

Wrong.  Who's to say she can't, sometime in that life sentence, figure out a way to off a nurse, a guard or a prisoner who rankled her ass one way or another?  Once they've taken an innocent life - - and particularly as brutally as Karla took her victim's - - who's to say when or if they'll do it again, and what's the point of housing, feeding and clothing them for another 60 or 70 years just to find out?  What could  anyone do to her, increase her sentence by another 100 years?

If you live in the real world, you've got to face the fact that some people are just plain bad.  Anyone who can take a pick-axe and bury it 46 times in the face and body of a defenceless woman is more than just a little misguided.  I'd say after the 5th or 6th strike, she'd lost any right she had to continue co-existing with the rest of us on this planet.  Those people are just a fucking menace - - sure, society probably failed them about six ways to Sunday during their formative years, but society failed a lot of people and they didn't turn out to be axe murderers.  At some point in her life, she became damaged goods - - the evidence is the body of her victim.  We have to be able to weed these people out.  There's no point in risking further damage or injury to prison personnel just to accommodate them.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Somehow, nearly all of the countries in Europe do not seem to have a problem with abolishing the death penalty. Could it be that they are different from us? Could it be that most of the genetic traces of psychopathology was wiped out in the many wars up to and including WWII?

I agree that there are people we should not allow to mingle with the rest of us. I just do not think that the death penalty,as carried out in the US, is a valid deterrent to murder.

Many states do not have a death penalty. I don't think they have one in Canada anymore, do they? Mexico abolished it the Constitution of 1917 (but there is always the ley de fuga, by which guards are allowed to shoot escapees). As a rule, the states that lack a death penalty seem to have fewer murders per capita than those that do not. It does seem that the South is rather a lot more violent than the North.

For me, the main problem with the death penalty is the possibility that an innocent person be executed. Of course, it is also barbarous.

[Michael Tee]

Canada doesn't have a death penalty, hasn't had one since the 1950s, IIRC.

I think the U.S. is a very violent society, for a number of reasons, a Rambo/militaristic culture being one of them, the legacies of slavery and racism being another.  Also the grossly unequal distribution of wealth.  There's a "perfect storm" of social pathology that's been a long time brewing.  These are problems that more civilized societies like we and the Europeans just do not have.  Or at least, don't have to the same extent that you do.

Europeans and Canadians don't have capital punishment but then again we don't have the problems of prison violence that you do.  I think ALL violent criminals should be executed - -  whether their victims live or die is an irrelevancy because if they live this time they might just as well die next time.  These are just people you do NOT want to coexist with and to keep their miserable lives sputtering along in captivity for another fifty or sixty years just to keep them away from you and yours is just not worth the effort or the expense.  A bullet in the back of their head is just as effective and exponentially cheaper in solving the problem.  Besides which, it is fool-proof.  Many of these violent criminals, during a life behind bars, will still figure out ways to kill or maim other human beings on the inside, and the cost of the constant monitoring and discipline necessary to prevent that is simply outrageous.   I can think of a lot of better ways to spend my tax dollars.

You are right in identifying wrongful convictions as the biggest problem with the death penalty.  People are going to die unjustly, but given the safeguards, the burden of proof, the appeals, etc. , this has to be very rare.  Probably more people die from mistakes in the aviation industry than in the criminal justice system, but nobody is proposing the abolition of air travel.  We just have to be extra-vigilant in the administration of our criminal justice system, not cutting any corners and allowing the accused the full spectrum of his rights under the law.  I know that this is not the best administration to instil confidence in the administration of justice, but it seems to me to be highly aberrant in many respects and will soon have passed into history.  U.S. administrations generally, with some noticeable exceptions, have been fairly respectful of individual human rights.  The big danger of course is that Bush and Cheney get to pick one more judge for the Supreme Court before leaving office.

[Xavier_Onassis]

You are right in identifying wrongful convictions as the biggest problem with the death penalty.  People are going to die unjustly, but given the safeguards, the burden of proof, the appeals, etc. , this has to be very rare.  Probably more people die from mistakes in the aviation industry than in the criminal justice system, but nobody is proposing the abolition of air travel.

The thing is that the only truly culpatory evidence is DNA, and many police departments do not use it all the time. They'd rather get a bad conviction without DNA than none at all, sop they can close the books on the case and claim a victory. It takes as long as 30 years to get a death sentence. That is not any sort of deterrent, and it costs more to execute a murderer than to put them away forever.

If Canada and the Dakotas can do without a death penalty, I see no reason to have it at all.

I don;t agree that all violent crimes deserve a death penalty. Certainly not if the attacked person in a fight kills the attacker. Certainly not if no one is not killed or maimed for life.

 

[Amianthus]

Certainly not if the attacked person in a fight kills the attacker.

If someone is attacked and kills their attacker, that is self-defense and should not be prosecuted at all.

[Michael Tee]

<<I don;t agree that all violent crimes deserve a death penalty. Certainly not if the attacked person in a fight kills the attacker. Certainly not if no one is not killed or maimed for life.>>

So a guy who empties his revolver at a cop but misses gets rewarded for his poor marksmanship?  A guy who beats his wife into a coma but doesn't kill her gets off too?  Fuck that, those are exactly the kind of citizens we don't need in this world.  And don't need to feed, house and maintain them for fifty or sixty years either.  Most of them continue to reoffend, too.  Clean up the fucking garbage before the fucking garbage cleans up you.  Nothing wrong with capital punishment as long as you've got the high crime rates your country has.  If you look at the records of executed murderers I'm sure you'll find plenty of innocent victims who'd be alive today if capital punishment had been applied a lot earlier in the criminal's career without waiting till he actually killed somebody.

[Cynthia]

This board is really a bunch of hateful animals sometimes. Sorry to say. Not one compassionate soul among ya. Oh well, that's par for this course.

I feel that there's always a chance for change...as change is all we can expect 100% of the time. In this case that woman made a full circle change.

Sometimes I feel that the way you guys think here.....doesn't matter that aperson is on death row..or in prison...they aint gunna get a new chance in life.

There's always ONE who will surprise us. This woman did just that, imo.

Guess you would have to be a huge believer in Jesus on this one. . on THIS one...not to say that Jesus does not hold evil accoutable.

Oh well...didn't think I would hear one soul on hear that would support the systme of rehabilitaion.

even if she was on death row.
MTee..you are quite full of hate there dude...wow...calling her a b word. Whoooooa.

That was a shocker. I thought you were much more compassionate. I guess folks have been right about you all along.


 

[Michael Tee]

hope you don't mind my saying this, Cynthia, but there is a point where compassion becomes pure foolishness.  You understand what Karla Faye did?  She sunk a pick-axe 46 times into the face, head and body of a defenceless woman, a total stranger to her, cowering under the covers of a bed and that woman died.  Then claimed she got a triple orgasm out of it.  You want compassion, save some of it for that poor, terrified, helpless victim.  Don't waste it on the bitch that wielded the pick-axe.  That's just nuts.

  Sorry to say it, I'm basically a very compassionate guy, but there are some people who have just got to be held accountable.  And that means they gotta PAY.  With their LIVES.  Because anything less is just letting them walk away from their crime scot free.  Their victim is dead, and they're still alive.  And that just. ain't. right.  Life is an enormous gift.  Life anywhere.  Life in a palace, life in a prison.  It's all ten thousand times better than rotting away in the ground.  And it's just way too good for someone who did what Karla Faye did.  You know what your problem is?  You think that Karla Faye is a person just like you, only she did one bad thing and now she's gotta die for it.  But the problem is that Karla Faye is NOT "just like you."  You are not a person who could swing a pick-axe 46 times into a helpless, cowering human being.  I dunno, maybe you could shoot them.  If you were mad enough, confused enough, desperate enough.  But you could never do what Karla did.  So all that compassion is wasted - - you might just as well dispense it on a poisonous snake.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If you look at the records of executed murderers I'm sure you'll find plenty of innocent victims who'd be alive today if capital punishment had been applied a lot earlier in the criminal's career without waiting till he actually killed somebody.

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I am sure that this is correct. But this is preemptive execution, and to my mind is no more valid than preemptive war. The difficulty is that if we were to execute psychopaths (and people like Karla Faye are clearly psychopaths) BEFORE they kill someone, we are going to off rather a lot of possibly future innocent people and there is no way we'd get them all. So I am not prepared to support preemptive executions.

Officially, it is illegal and immoral to execute insane people. However, most of the worst crimes (John Wayne Gasey, Karla Faye, and many others) are clearly insane. No sane person would commit these murders. But declare them sane and lock them up or execute them, anyway, because we really don't want them among us, and that is very understandable.

In the US is costs more to execute a murderer than to lock them up forever, so the cost should not be a factor.

Do you support capital punishment in Canada, by the way, or should only Americans execute their murders?

Why is it that the states that do not execute murders have lower murder rates?

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Europeans and Canadians don't have capital punishment but then again we don't have the problems of prison violence that you do.

Then the solution lies in reforming the prisons, not executions. I am sure that there are plenty of violent Canadians, Swedes and Dutchmen as well. The solution would involve isolating the violent from the non-violent.
 

[Michael Tee]

<<The difficulty is that if we were to execute psychopaths (and people like Karla Faye are clearly psychopaths) BEFORE they kill someone, we are going to off rather a lot of possibly future innocent people . . . >>

That's not right.  Nobody would be executed just for BEING a psychopath, they'd be executed for some act of violence they already committed that we decided we didn't have to tolerate any more.  ("Tolerate" in this case meaning letting the perp live.)   And if the past is any guide, we'd be saving a shitload of innocent lives in the process.  It's misleading to claim we would be executing some "innocent" future people, because the ones who are executed would have already forfeited their right to live by the violent crimes that they already had committed.  If some of them WOULD have gone on to commit murder, as some certainly would, there is an additional bonus in the execution for us, because we have saved more innocent lives, although we just don't know whose.

<< . . . and there is no way we'd get them all. >>

Never said we would - - we never did and we never will.  Anything's better than nothing.  Getting 10% of them would be OK. 

<<So I am not prepared to support preemptive executions.>>

What's "preemptive" about executing someone who just beat somebody else into a coma?  If there are no extenuating circumstances and the guy is just a thug, we're all better off without him.   Whether he goes on to kill a subsequent victim or not.  We'll have a slightly better world without this guy in it than with him in it.  And if there are a million more like him all going to the same place, then we'll have a noticeably better world without them.

<<Officially, it is illegal and immoral to execute insane people. However, most of the worst crimes (John Wayne Gasey, Karla Faye, and many others) are clearly insane. >>

Well, it can't be all that clear, since they either didn't enter an insanity defence or if they did, they couldn't even raise a reasonable doubt that they MIGHT be insane in the mind of one juror in twelve.  You're using a pretty loose definition of insanity, BTW.  The legal definition is very narrow.  Your definition just boils down to "Nobody with my degree of empathy would do it." 

<<In the US is costs more to execute a murderer than to lock them up forever, so the cost should not be a factor.>>

That doesn't make sense to me.  I saw stats that say it's cheaper to send the guy to Harvard for a year than to keep him in custody for a year.  Go to Russia or China.  They'll show you how you can execute a murderer for much less than it apparently costs you.

<<Do you support capital punishment in Canada, by the way, or should only Americans execute their murders?>>

Well, with some reservations.  We've had some wrongful convictions with substantial police and prosecutorial misconduct involved.  The cops and the prosecutors got off without even a slap on the wrist and the taxpayers had to pay millions.  I'd like to see all that fixed before I went full-out on capital punishment here, but yeah, in principle, I don't see why my tax dollars have to support some rotten murderous son of a bitch when a bullet in the back of his head would take him off everyone's hands and pay him back for what he did at the same time.  People hurt, you know.  The victims' families live with the pain of this man's crime for the rest of their lives.  It never goes away.  At least they can feel some satisfaction knowing that the bastard paid for his crimes.  Seems like the least we can do for them.

<<Why is it that the states that do not execute murders have lower murder rates?>>

There are probably a lot of factors involved geographic, sociological, demographic, historic, sociological - - I wouldn't want to venture into that one, but I don't think one factor: presence or absence of capital punishment - - would answer the question.

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<<Europeans and Canadians don't have capital punishment but then again we don't have the problems of prison violence that you do.

<<Then the solution lies in reforming the prisons, not executions. I am sure that there are plenty of violent Canadians, Swedes and Dutchmen as well. The solution would involve isolating the violent from the non-violent.>>

And you're gonna guarantee that none of them will ever kill a guard, a trusty, a nurse, a doctor?  Fuhgeddabowdit.  And all that money spent, to prolong the miserable lives of a bunch of violent criminals we'd all be better off without, in a vain effort to prevent future damage being done?  What's wrong with you?  Face it, there are some people born who are just total write-offs.  They're a menace to me and mine as long as they're alive.   They can escape, they still have the POTENTIAL for future harm, in addition to the damage they've already done: and my solution to that problem is to remove the source of the problem.  It's the only logical solution to the problem, and only false sentimentality, misdirected compassion, stands in the way.