[wlonh]

the death penalty is absolutely, positively NOT a deterrent... desperate people do desperate things and they do not stop and think of the penalty, period.

if you want revenge, well then, be honest... the death penalty is revenge.

[DBursey]

The question of whether capital punishment constitutes an effective deterrent to violent crime is the subject of endless debate. An indication of whether this is so might be had by comparing the crime rates and patterns of jurisdictions with versus without the death penalty. Does anyone here have the time or inclination to search out these statistics?

Canada abolished the death penalty in the 60s; I don't believe there was any notable upswing in violent crime as a result. I personally don't think there is much to deter those whose desperation, madness or criminal nature compel them to commit violent acts, as usually they do not plan on being apprehended in the first place.

[Gregg]

My two cents on the death penalty is that it's about justice, not deterrence.

Man, this started out as a discussion of a TV campaign ad, now it's morphed into a discussion of the death penalty, after a side trip into an analysis of the yet to be held debates. Let's move it into the existence of God vs. evolution, and the morality of abortion next.

[Demonhood]

The death penalty is probably not much of a deterrent to criminals pondering whether to commit a crime or not, but it is used extensively once the criminal has already been caught.

In states where the death penalty still exists, criminals are oft threatened with the death penalty as a means to scare them into pleading out.

"We know you did it Rosco. Now fess up or 12 law abiding citizens that don't feel the same way you do about beating up old ladies will see to it that you swing for what you did!"

Now, if we look past the fact that no one is really named Rosco anymore, we'll see that this threat is a pretty hefty one for the prosecution. It helps them save time and money forcing suspected criminals to plead guilty and get a deal rather than a long drawn out court case (even though the prosecution almost always wins actual court battles).

Of course, you have to weigh this against the possibility that some people will get the death penalty, and they might be innocent. Our justice system is far from perfect, and well all know it. Death is such a permanent state that I believe it should require us to be a little bit closer to perfect than we are now.

pros and cons. pros and cons.

Maybe we should talk about pizza instead. I hear there are some mighty heated debates going on regarding sausage vs. mushroom toppings.


[This message has been edited by Demonhood (edited 10-02-2000).]

[wlonh]

http://www.salon.com/politics/featur...ush/index.html
Character" is the mantra of Bush's campaign against Vice President Al Gore and President Clinton. He mentioned "character" nine times in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. In other speeches he's made as many as 20 references to character. He's even pledged doubling funding for "character education," whatever that is. The only problem with all his talk about character is that it really doesn't tell us very much about, well, Bush's character. We have some idea what Bush means when he uses the word; he talks a lot about compassion, conservatism, credibility and his Christian awakening. In his address to the party faithful in Philadelphia he associated character with virtues such as abstinence, family love, courage, self-denial, responsibility, faith, idealism, charity, vision and equality. He let us know that the founding fathers were men of character, and that he believes men of character read the Bible. It's hard to find fault with his agenda of virtues.
It's also difficult to leap from Bush's recitation of moral abstractions to any obvious association with his actions as governor.
Bush's character campaign is as much about the immoral character of his opponent as about his own rectitude. No one begrudges Bush pointing out Gore's chameleon-like mutability, his claim of inventing the Internet, his hypocritical advocacy of campaign finance reform, his propensity to resort to Clinton-esque defenses ("no controlling legal authority") or his populist pretensions.


(as an aside: any fool would know that the death penalty is not a deterrent... if it were, how come the crime rate per capita is as low or lower in states without it as in states with it? DOH.)

as for this thread 'morphing', it is the Lounge... morphing is the name of the game here

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 10-03-2000).]

[Gregg]

Personally, I'll take the sausage. You can have the mushrooms. Add onion, and make it thick crust. Yum!

[Demonhood]

I'll take the mushrooms and add pineapple for good measure.

I'm a rebel.

[wlonh]

i feel sorry for those who live outside of NYC... you can't get good pizza... no way, don't even try to tell me different...

yes, i have been to Chicago... i've lived in St. Louis... there are few places in this country of any fame or reasonable size that i have not been to, and the pizza sucks ouside of NYC (though there is a nice pizza joint in Caracas that i will be visiting before too long, and Mazatlan has a couple places to get some decent pizza)

and cheesesteaks... yum yum... well i was just in Philly last Sunday and made a total pig of myself at Pat's (Geno's and Jim's are LAME) and you can not get a good cheesesteak outside of Philly, no way...

oh, btw... here's some questions that won't get asked in the 'debates'

death penalty = justice? ha, make 'em live out their days in a penitentiary with no possible parole and make them work to pay for their keep... now there's justice... a living death... whereas the death penalty puts 'em out of their misery and is NOTHING but revenge, period.

"an eye for an eye, and sooner or later we will all be blind"

"revenge is mine, saith the Lord"

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 10-03-2000).]

[bood69]

Wow, those questions would make for a real shootout. Who knows.....

[Gregg]

QUOTE: make 'em live out their days in a penitentiary with no possible parole and make them work to pay for their keep... now there's justice...

No, that's punishment.

[wlonh]

your opinion, not mine mine was stated clearly, and that punishment (a living hell) would be justice done

[elzinat]

Can anyone explain how it is possible for a person to support the death penalty but be opposed to euthenasia on "moral" grounds? (like shrubby is-he made a comment btw in the debate to the effect that "there are lots of old people being slaughtered and we have to stop it by making sure that the abortion pill does not hurt women")


(aside from being stupid, of course)

[Gregg]

Some theologians will tell you that justification for the death penalty is grounded in the principle that man is created in the image of God. Now, if you don't believe in God, the arguments for that position will have no meaning to you. However, if you do, and also believe that God communicated with Moses, as described in the Bible, then you have to pause and ponder why the Almighty gave instructions to execute individuals for certain violations of His law. That becomes "the Lord's revenge" as mentioned above. Some point to "thou shalt not kill" as the be all and end all on the subject. Considering the aforementioned edict, that can't be the case, theologically speaking. In addition, again, assuming belief that God communicated with Moses, Joshua, and others, war was condoned in some instances, and defeat was inexplicably inflicted, or victory miraculously given dependening on obedience. So, that implies that "thou shalt not kill" had a specific meaning that Moses and the people understood. If they didn't, they would have said, "Hey, wait a minute" when given the other directives. I'm sure some Hebrew language scholar can enlighten us on the subject, because I've heard it before, I just can't recall how it was explained.

The objection to euthanasia on moral grounds is founded on the principle of justice as well. The individual being "executed" in this case has done no wrong. If done against the person's will, it is murder. If done with his/her complicity, it is assisted suicide. Both of these are considered morally wrong by many, if not most theologians.

Absent a theological construct, man is left to "lean on (his) own understanding" in these matters. Another thread claims that the U.S. is a stupid country. (I haven't read that yet.) Therein lies the problem. We aren't as smart as we think we are. I certainly don't have all the answers, but the question is not as "simple" as it might seem on the surface. Given the time to really think it through, I could offer a more complete rationale, but, lunch is over....

P.S. abcnews.com is running a poll on who "won" the first presidetial debate. At noon, it's still Bush 60% and Gore 40%. That certainly is different than what the "talking heads" had to say on ABC last night. Hmmm.

[This message has been edited by Gregg (edited 10-04-2000).]

[bood69]

Disregard any of ABC's or CNN's hired guns....they are there for the sole purpose of skewing opinion to the left.

[wlonh]

spoken like a knee-jerk reactionary, such as you are, bood...

and the death penalty is barbaric, it has been forsaken in most of the world except in countries that are theocracies and 'former enemies' of the USA

Beaumont, TX Bood ? Now there's a fine example of Bush's "compassionate conservatism" in small town Texas. Too bad the Darn Feds had to get involved:

Date:�October 04, 2000
BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) -- The federal government took over the Beaumont housing agency but acknowledged that the action may not remedy the racial segregation that has plagued the city for decades.

[bood69]

Douchewhacker,

Most of the perceived problems that "plague" my city can be traced to the crappy local government, which if you look it up, is one of the last Democratic strangleholds in a rather Republican state. Steps are being taken to change that in November. That said, I wish you would have posted a link to that story, or the whole article, rather than one uninformative, obviously fabricated snippet.


And we're a "small town" of 114,000......dumbass.

[This message has been edited by bood69 (edited 10-06-2000).]

Not at all fabricated. Go to: http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/
and search for:
Beaumont

They've got a new story today amplifying that from the 4th
"Texas Housing Authority Said Racist "
"-- At the Magnolia Gardens public housing project, children dodge a hole that has eaten through a rusty slide...."

This sounds more like an example of the governor ignoring corruption in state agencies than a local political SNAFU.

We wouldn't put up with this crap in Nebraska, but then we have a GOOD republican governor !

[bood69]

Sorry, I'm not supplying personal information to the Times just to read some article. Anyway, you're dead wrong: the Beaumont Housing Authority is not a state agency. It is a city agency, and its entire board of directors is appointed by our mayor, who also happens to be black. In any case, the entire city council is currently the focus of an FBI investigation, the purpose of which has not been publicly disclosed.

Believe me, there is no place for George W. Bush in this equation.

Why don't you just cut and paste in the damn article? I want to hear more about the rusty slides....

Sorry, I'm not breaking copyright law to indulge your paranoia ! Pretty nervy of you to ask if I do say so ! Having read the articles, I can say for sure (as opposed to taking your word for it) that it involves state agencies, and thus involves your incompetent Governor, George W. Bush.

[bood69]

Fine.....not losing any sleep over here.

[wlonh]

an old friend of mine (lawyer) in Kansas City, Missouri sent this to me just seconds ago:

"thought you might get a chuckle outta this (except for the fact that the shrub could actually be the next pres). it was performed at the missouri bar's annual meeting recently, sung to the tune of "Don't Know Much About History" (or "What A Wonderful World It Would Be"):

Don't know much about India
Indonesia or Chechnya
Don't know much about Pakistan
I think it's somewhere near the Rio Grande
But let me tell you something that I know
I know that tacos come from Mexico
That's a wide enough world view for me.
Don't know much about Canada
Panama or most of Africa
Don't know much about Crete or Chad
I think it's someplace where the water's bad.
But let me tell you 'bout the Lone Star state
We got more oil than in all Kuwait
That's a wide enough world view for me.
Now, I don't claim to be a Rhodes Scholar
But I did go to Yale
And though I wasn't Phi Beta Kappa
Still I'm smarter than Dan Quayle.
Don't know much about Columbia
Argentina or Bolivia
But I did see that 'Evita' flick
She was really quite an awesome chick.
But I would gladly go to France or Spain
If they ponied up to my campaign.
That's a wide enough world view for me.
I know Texas towns from A to Z
But a foreign name is Greek to me
That's a wide enough world view for me.

(authorship credit goes to tom schafly at the blackwell sanders firm.)

[bood69]

Starting to feel the heat in the bellwether state, no doubt.....

[wlonh]

no, i rather thought it was an indication of the fact that intelligent and insightful people can see through the sham that is Dubya Shrub... and know him for the shameless corporate lackey he is

[elzinat]

wlonh, I think you're slightly off there. I am convinced that shrub has no evil intentions; he is just stupid, and of apparently thin moral fiber not because he is a bad person but because he is too stupid to see that there are more important things for the government to do than to give the oil people back their tax money. and so it looks like he is very corrupt but is just the deep blind devotion of a simple-minded person to his friends.
if you have watched the debates (I found this most true this evening in the 2nd pres debate), you will have seen that when it seemed to him that Gore was criticizing him for not caring about Texas children, he was genuinely hurt. You see, he is unable (not mentally capable) to understand everything that is going on, so when Gore quoted statistics which 'suggested' that Bush was doing a bad job of caring for the children of Texas, Bush thought Gore was saying that he did not have a good heart, and he nearly burst out crying. The poor man! he's like a young child, who just wants to be nice, and friendly, and doesn't understand these problems that he is wishing would go away. all he wants is to make the world a better and happier place, and he thinks he can do this most effectively as president, as more people would be able to bask in the warm glow of his compassion.

[jholmes]

Oh yes, Bush is a simpleminded corporate lackey taking money from the healthcare programs for little children and giving back to big oil.

Manure.

Indeed, there was a tax exemption passed for oil producers. Only effective for wells producing less than 15 barrels a day and only if the price of West Texas Crude was below $15 a barrel for three months running. Here's the non-anecdotal link to the actual State law.

This break wasn't going to "Big Oil" - they'll shutter a well that can't make 15 barrels a day. This was passed to keep small producers from being taxed out of business at a time when oil prices were the lowest in 10 years and small producer profits were nonexistent. Big, high volume wells can turn a profit at $10 or 12 a barrel, but the little guys can't.
The exemption only took effect for three months and then disappeared when the price of crude went up.

As for children's healthcare - it's true that the CHIPs program at the State level has been slow to get going. The legislation was proposed four years ago and the enabling funding just passed in the last legislative session. As Bush pointed out, the Legislature meets for only four months every two years so getting stuff done in some cases can be tricky and not happen as fast as it could. Where Gore was right was in the matter of priorites. The one real power the Governor of Texas has is the ability to convene a special Legislative session to deal with priority items (rarely done but available)

What Federal Funding Al doesn't understand is that counties in Texas have county hospitals supported but county taxes and run by a locally elected boards to maintain healthcare for citizens who need it and don't have coverage. The additional programs will be nice to have but don't think for an instant that kids are going without just because there isn't a federal or state program on the books.

[wlonh]

hahaha... "Bush is a simpleminded corporate lackey taking money from the healthcare programs for little children and giving back to big oil."

MISREPRESENTATION.

NO one said that. what a clown...

[bood69]

Of course no one actually said that, but last night Gore implied that. I think that's what jholmes meant by his statement.

[Gregg]

Pay no attention to childish ridicule.

[wlonh]

"the Chicago Tribune reported that among the 131 men and women executed under Bush up to that point, 40 were condemned in trials where the defense attorneys presented no mitigating evidence or only one witness during sentencing, while another 29 went to their deaths based in part on testimony by a notorious state-financed psychiatrist, Dr. James Grigson, whom the American Psychiatric Association found unethical and untrustworthy."
http://www.salon.com/politics/featur...as/index1.html
http://past.thenation.com/e2k/republicans/
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i...009&s=hitchens

hardly puerile... and always telling the truth, at the very least contributing something other than a perfectly idiotic one-liner.

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 10-13-2000).]

[blizaine]

Give up on the death penalty stuff! EVERY SINGLE ONE of the deaths were decided by a Judge and Jury. If Bush would have stepped in and stopped a bunch of them you would be in these forums posting what a wimp Bush is because he isn�t tough enough to have murderers and rapists put to death.

What a "Clown" you must be. lol

[wlonh]

and what a simplistic little child you are a perfect moron and abject fool, to boot... a absurd reductionist

anyway, moving right along:
"During Wednesday's presidential debate, George Bush connected the Net and youth violence -- demonstrating a deep misunderstanding of the reality of techno-culture. It was also a profound political blunder: there are more Americans turning 18 than ever before, and they now know that at least one presidential candidate is an idiot. There are real issues involving kids and technology which will never be raised in this kind of exhausted and irrational political system." http://slashdot.org/features/00/09/19/035231.shtml

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 10-13-2000).]

[bood69]

Oh come on, wlonh.....do you really think anyone watching the debate came away with ideas like this? Maybe the folks at Slashdot are going over a VCR tape with a fine-toothed comb, but most people have more important stuff to do.

For someone who thinks George W. Bush is a complete idiot, you sure read a lot into what he says.

[elzinat]

... bush ... gore ... bush ... gore ...

In all true, I have completely given up on caring. it just isn't worth it.
you all should try it too (not caring, that is).


and be Happy

[blizaine]

About Nader:
Quote of the day:
"If they don't close these [nuclear] reactors down, we'll have civil war in five years." -- Ralph Nader in 1977

NADER IS A HUGE hypocrite: Nader wraps himself in the mantle of "public interest" with a personally ascetic style and a focus on structural or "apple pie" issues -- consumer safety, corporate accountability, "citizen power" -- rather than traditional partisan issues. He opposes not conservatives, but arrogant corporate leaders who amass money through public tax breaks, deny any democratic input or inquiry, and viciously attack anyone who challenges them. It's a brilliant strategy.

Unfortunately, Nader has become exactly what he attacks. His organizations allow no public input, intimidate foes and journalists, hide almost all details of their finances (to the point of breaking laws), and have amassed millions of dollars - all under Nader's direct and autocratic control.
Good choice... lol



[This message has been edited by blizaine (edited 10-16-2000).]