I was having drinks with a group of attorneys who represent clients on death row after a lecture I gave when one of them described the conclusion of one of his cases as "killed by the government". Hmmm. Kind of a different way to think about it. Now I have to admit I had some qualms about going to give a lecture to a bunch of attorneys who are trying to get murderers off scott free. But after talking to them I realized that wasn't the case. I mean their clients usually weren't denying that they had killed somebody. And in all of the cases there were long histories of abuse, neglect, often courtesy of botched child health services and failures to intervene, courtesy of, you guessed it, the government. So what does the government do? It tries to kill them. You see for every homicide case out there there is a wacked out Eliot Spitzer wannabee attorney who gets off on trying to get a needle of lethal drugs into the guy's arm. I mean they should make those guys actually go watch the execution. Maybe they wouldn't get so excited about it then.
And here's the daily example of why they shouldn't let future newspaper reporters for the NY Times fall asleep in math class. In an article today about so-called studies by economists about whether or not the death penalty had a deterrent effect on murder, a Professor Weisberg of Stanford was quoted as saying "These are sophisticated econometricians who know how to do multiple regression analysis at a pretty high level." What a bunch of bull. I know how to do multiple regression analysis, and I know that it is what you do when you want to use statistics to make up fairy tales. I mean when there are 16,000 people murdered every year and only 65 executed, you want me to believe that is a deterrent? Here's another quote (same article) from two chowder-headed professors, this time from Harvard: "Capital punishment may well save lives. Those who object to capital punishment, and who do so in the name of protecting life, must come to terms with the possibility that the failure to inflict capital punishment will fail to protect life." Hmmm. So I guess that means that the guy in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment who killed that person was right after all. Taking that line of thinking to its logical conclusion, why don't you just have guys with swords stand on street corners and cut off anyone's head whom they suspect of a crime? Since the Bush family are such good friends with the Saudi royal family, maybe the government could ask the House of Saud to loan them some of their sword wielding executioners, at least until the US government gets their own people properly trained.
You say, Blue State (not) liberal (maybe). OK you Red State people, the Bible says "thou shalt not kill", not "thou shalt not kill unless you work for the government," right?
Here's another reason why you shouldn't give the government the right to kill you. Capital punishment is patently unfair. Here in my home state of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a series of articles that showed that whether or not you get executed depends on the color of your skin and the race of your victim.
Oh, BTW the Europeans think we are barbarians for killing our people. They got rid of capital punishment years ago.
They're right. We aren't. We should get rid of the death penalty. Why? Because it's wrong.
In a statement released August 9, 2007, over 600 (now 1,100) professionals urge Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted. They cite new scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. (http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html)
Please Join Them
Signers include a Nobel Prize winner, three members of the prestigious 2006 National Research Council (NRC) panel that reported on fluoride’s toxicology, two officers in the Union representing professionals at EPA headquarters, the President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, and hundreds of medical, dental, academic, scientific and environmental professionals, worldwide.
Signer Dr. Arvid Carlsson, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine, says, “Fluoridation is against all principles of modern pharmacology. It's really obsolete.”
The Professionals’ Statement also references:
-- The new American Dental Association policy recommending infant formula NOT be prepared with fluoridated water.
-- The CDC’s concession that the predominant benefit of fluoride is topical not systemic.
-- CDC data showing that dental fluorosis, caused by fluoride over-exposure, now impacts one third of American children.
-- Major research indicating little difference in decay rates between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.
-- A Harvard study indicating a possible link between fluoridation and bone cancer.
-- The silicofluoride chemicals used for fluoridation are contaminated industrial waste and have never been FDA- approved for human ingestion.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a DC watchdog, revealed that a Harvard professor concealed the fluoridation/bone cancer connection for three years. EWG President Ken Cook states, “It is time for the US to recognize that fluoridation has serious risks that far outweigh any minor benefits, and unlike many other environmental issues, it's as easy to end as turning off a valve at the water plant.”
An Online Action Citizens' Petition to Congress in support of the Professionals' Statement is available on the Fluoride Action Network's (FAN) web site, http://www.FluorideAction.Net
Stephan Levitt(author of Freakonomics) makes some pretty good arguments, that the death penalty is not effective.
"Analyses of data stretching farther back in time, when there were many more executions and thus more opportunities to test the hypothesis, are far less charitable to death penalty advocates. On top of that, as we wrote in Freakonomics, if you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention. As such, economists who argue that the death penalty works are put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue that criminals are irrationally overreacting when they are deterred by it."
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/does-the-death-penalty-really-reduce-crime/
Regards
For all you pro death penalty christians - WHO WOULD JESUS EXECUTE?
If we're truly against killing, not only should capital punishment be abolished, so should pre-emptive wars (like the one we're planning for Iran), abortion, euthanasia and other forms of genocide. We're talking about human lives, each with a soul, created in God's image, so we're told in Genesis.
The death penalty is not an affective deterrent to crime. Most often, those executed are poor and probably of color. Folks with money and high-priced lawyers get all the justice money can buy. They're either acquitted, or get much reduced sentences compared to those who rely on P.D.'s.
I don't care about deterence.
I don't care about revenge.
The only guarantee that these animals never kill again is to end their life.
I'm all for putting the 10 Commandments in the courtroom..(to the chagrin of the ACLU)..but hear me out.. All one has to do it point to.."Thou shalt not kill"...period..end of story.
If a person sees a loved one murdered..and immediately killed the perpetrator...I'd let them off scott free....immediate, gutteral hatred and revenge..(let's call it what it is)..but to have someone wait years to have a needle stuck in their arm, for something (horrific) they did years earlier...it's just beyond Orwellian wierd...
OUr country still has this strange bloodlust..that I've never gotten..but then again..I don't get "ultimate fighting" either..
Even if one is not a Christian...one could learn a lot from the message of peace..
The place to look for concern would be those people who talk about human rights and the like (probably on the Left), but it seems to be about the last thing they are concerned about.
There is hope however, for there is some newborn concern about the possiblity of "dunking" as torture.
What is sad is how easy this slipped back into American life, although it is clearly in violation of the nation's Constitution. I guess some people who pledged allegiance in class did not pay attention to their civics lessons.
Of course, aside from Iraq, the U.S. is the only society on earth whose schools need metal detectors, and we have one of the world's highest crime rates. (Could that have anything to do with the current draconian incarceration practices? Hmmm... I wonder... Is there a police-prison complex sort of like that military-industrial one? And is the pope really Catholic?)
George Santayana says it best: "Americans are a primitive people disguised by the latest inventions."