posted on January 12, 2003 10:13:38 PM new
Even if someone were to invent a 100 percent fool-proof way to determine guilt, a Death Penalty would still be pointless. To kill the guilty killers only makes us all guilty killers. Don't try to wrap it up neatly with ideals laden with revenge or justice - it's murder plain and simple. And if we have to have the right to kill the guilty, then we must be more moral than they are. There is your oxymoron, your paradox, your irrationality.
While nothing is served with a Death Penalty, but to make us all murderers in the sight of God, there are other solutions, other responses to this type of crime. Do not let those who are a danger to us walk among us freely -- no one is advocating such a thing.
posted on January 12, 2003 11:16:38 PM new
Small note,
Heard on the local news tonight or last night, now, that Gov. Ryan had told the victim's families that he would notify them by mail of his decision before it was made public. They heard it on the news with the rest of us. When asked by reporters why they hadn't gotten the letters the answer was that "they were sent on Friday and they should have received them today." Duh, the today was Sunday.
kyms is right. The license for bribe scandal has been brewing for a long time.
Calamity
posted on January 13, 2003 06:46:16 AM newBorillar
YOUR QUOTE
Even if someone were to invent a 100 percent fool-proof way to determine guilt, a Death Penalty would still be pointless. To kill the guilty killers only makes us all guilty killers. Don't try to wrap it up neatly with ideals laden with revenge or justice - it's murder plain and simple. And if we have to have the right to kill the guilty, then we must be more moral than they are. There is your oxymoron, your paradox, your irrationality.
END QUOTE
I agree with your position with the exception or question of two points.
As most people know, the death penalty is no more effective a deterrant than life imprisonment and they know that the costs of executing an individual exceed the cost of imprisoning him for life. That's basic knowledge but not a good argument to use because people really want revenge - as you know and can see even in this thread.
The BEST argument against capital punishment is the fact that INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE EXECUTED. How can anyone believe that is acceptable??? THAT is why I was strongly focused on this aspect with my reply. You know that I am against capital punishment. NO individual should be executed whether guilty or not. And when I stated,Killing is immoral and barbaric. my intention was to address your point above. ANY murder, whether committed by you or me or by the state is CRIMINAL AND IMMORAL AND BARBARIC. I probably should have spent more time on that fact but I was tired and it was late here.
So if you are replying to my comment with the statement, "There is your oxymoron, your paradox, your irrationality then you are dead wrong.
NEXT QUOTE
While nothing is served with a Death Penalty, but to make us all murderers in the sight of God, there are other solutions, other responses to this type of crime. Do not let those who are a danger to us walk among us freely -- no one is advocating such a thing.
END QUOTE
All people should be able to see that all murder is wrong...even people such as myself who have NO GOD in sight. I can be more compassionate and morally right than so many people who worship this being called GOD. In fact, I'll bet that many people, who are calling for revenge, revenge revenge..Let's kill the son of a b/tch!!! are TRUE BELIEVERS!!!! How much sense does that make to you????
Maybe their belief system has seriously failed them. I don't have an answer to that.
posted on January 13, 2003 07:08:59 AM new
I agree 100% = Halting executions until all possible testing is one thing, but blanket commuted sentences is typical of lame duck politicts, whether Republican (like Ryan) or Democrat.
posted on January 13, 2003 07:17:32 AM new
NOTHING BEATS REVENGE
KILLING IS WRONG, BUT PEOPLE HAVE TO KNOW THAT THEY WILL DIE WHEN THEY TAKE A LIFE THEMSELVES.
Twelvepole, you do realize that your posts indicate you believe killing for revenge is OK, but the revenge killers should die for such killings. A trifle inconsistant, which shows you haven't truly thought much about this.
Your statement that
AND RYAN'S FAMILY WILL GET TO FIND OUT WHAT DEATH IS ALL ABOUT IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
is just awful. To wish death to someone's family because a person does not agree with your viewpoint is unbelievable.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on January 13, 2003 10:24:47 AM new
>THERE IS ALSO AN ALLOWANCE OF AN "EYE FOR AN EYE" IN THE BIBLE...
This comment is as uneducated as the rest that twelvepole made and it is an example of how wrong things can be when the ignorant are allowed to set our laws.
FACT: The "Eye For An Eye" part refers to ancient Jewish laws of COMPENSATION. If you cause someone to lose an eye, you pay so much. If they lost an arm, you pay so much, if they lost a slave or servant, you paid the value of the slave or sevant. It was about just MONETARY compensation - not an actual item-for-item revenge system!
posted on January 13, 2003 10:35:25 AM new"So if you are replying to my comment with the statement, "There is your oxymoron, your paradox, your irrationality then you are dead wrong."
I was only commenting on the notion that even if we discovered a one-hundred percent foolproof way to determine someone's guilt, the Death Penalty would still be a sham. I am not sure who said that we had to wait for a foolproof way first.
What is the State, then? In a very real sense, the State is Us. What they do, they do in our name. When they screw up, we share in the blame. When they lie and cheat, that makes us all liars and cheaters. This is why public officials are held up to a much higher standard of morality and ethical behavior than other people. That is why public officials do not enjoy the same right to privacy that we do, as their professional lives must be open to debate and criticism, least we ALL be guilty of the the same paint!
And when anyone is executed, it is not done by a non-person. It is done by the State - US. It is WE who pull the lever to hang someone! It is YOU and I who throw the switch to electrocute someone! It is EACH and EVERY ONE of US that causes the poisons to flow into the veins of the condemed. Therefore, each of us is a murderer! Each of us falls short in the Eyes of God of the Glory of Heaven and will ourselves be condemed to Eternal Damnation for this.
posted on January 13, 2003 11:34:29 AM newAnd when anyone is executed, it is not done by a non-person. It is done by the State - US. It is WE who pull the lever to hang someone! It is YOU and I who throw the switch to electrocute someone! It is EACH and EVERY ONE of US that causes the poisons to flow into the veins of the condemed.
True enough...but if one has voted against it, they can then have a 'clean heart' as it was taken out of their control by others. They did their best and followed their beliefs.
What bothers me most is if the voters of a state support the DP, then one person shouldn't have the ability to override that decision by the people.
posted on January 13, 2003 12:57:27 PM new
PRETTY SIMPLE, TAKE A LIFE YOU FORFIET YOUR OWN.
And when anyone is executed, it is not done by a non-person. It is done by the State - US. It is WE who pull the lever to hang someone! It is YOU and I who throw the switch to electrocute someone! It is EACH and EVERY ONE of US that causes the poisons to flow into the veins of the condemed. Therefore, each of us is a murderer! Each of us falls short in the Eyes of God of the Glory of Heaven and will ourselves be condemed to Eternal Damnation for this
YAHOOOO! IF ONLY WE COULD HAVE THE CHANCE TO THROW THE SWITCH OR PUSH THE BUTTON...
AIN'T LIFE GRAND...
posted on January 13, 2003 01:16:30 PM new
Controlled Demolition Incorporated is America's largest explosive demolition contractor, specializing in "dropping" huge buildings, bridges and structures in a way that minimizes damage to surrounding structures and speeds the removal process.
If you have seen a hotel, a stadium, an office building being demolished by explosives on the news or even in a feature film, odds are CDI did the job.
In recent years they have "sold" the right to push the button that starts the sequence, often to a local radio station that then offers it as part of an on-air promotion. Consistently, the entries for this "prize" are more numerous than any other promotion, even new cars or vacations.
If 20,000 people will enter a drawing for the right to blow up a building, what would they PAY IN CASH for the right to flip the switch on a notorious criminal? There must be lots of folks like Twelvepole that would savor such a chance.
My question then is this - What category would you list it in?
posted on January 13, 2003 02:06:27 PM newAnd this convected murderer didn't deserve to die? Ryan deserves to sit in a cell next to Caffey & Ward for the remainder of HIS LIFE for commuting their death sentances. Was there ANY doubt as to their guilt, NO.
An Atrocity in Illinois Back in 1995, Jacqueline Williams, an Illinois mother of three, decided she wanted another baby. So she, boyfriend Fedell Caffey and cousin Levern Ward went to visit Ward's ex-girlfriend Debra Evans, who was nearly nine months pregnant. A contemporaneous Associated Press dispatch describes what happened:
Caffey fatally shot and stabbed the pregnant woman, then he and Ward killed her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha. . . .
Caffey then cut open Evans' body with scissors, and Williams extracted and resuscitated the baby, authorities said. Relatives said Williams has some training in nursing. . . .
The three abducted the newborn and Evans' 8-year-old son, Joshua, police said. Hours later, they allegedly slashed the older boy's throat and dumped his body in an alley. The Chicago Tribune quoted unidentified authorities as saying the group also tried to kill Joshua by poisoning him with iodine and strangling him.
You may remember this story, because, as CNN noted at the time (sixth item), Newt Gingrich had the poor taste to cite it as an argument against the welfare state. "Illinois Democrats said Gingrich's remarks were an illustration of his 'lack of a moral compass,' " CNN reported. Said one relative of the victim (quoted in a recent Des Moines Register column): "We would appreciate it if Mr. Gingrich would remove our family tragedy from his political rhetoric."
Now another Republican politician is exploiting the Evans family's suffering for political purposes. The three murderers were convicted, and Caffey and Williams were sentenced to death. On Saturday Illinois's Gov. George Ryan commuted their sentence, along with those of Illinois's other 165 prisoners on death row--a dramatic final act for a governor who, as a Chicago Tribune editorial notes, leaves office today "in the midst of an ongoing criminal investigation of his campaign and his administration."
It's an act of stunning moral vanity. Ryan claims he's concerned that innocent people may have been on death row, and the Associated Press quotes him as saying that capital punishment is "arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral." But what's more arbitrary and capricious than sparing every convict on death row, even those about whose guilt there is no doubt? Ryan's successor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, calls Ryan's act "a big mistake." He tells Reuters: "A blanket anything is usually wrong. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. We're talking about people who committed murder."
Even if there were innocents on death row, Ryan has done them no favor. Except for four inmates who got full pardons (Ryan said police had beaten and tortured them into making full confessions), all the erstwhile death-row denizens merely had their sentences reduced to life in prison. This means, as a USA Today editorial notes, that they "will lose access to the mandatory legal review of their sentences and to the legal experts who provide them extraordinary appellate help." USA Today seems to approve of this, but if there really are innocent people behind bars, why would anyone want to deny them "extraordinary appellate help"?
Ryan's decision harms the innocent, helps the guilty and is a slap in the face of the victims of violent crime and the jurors who made the difficult decision to sentence defendants to death. But as Sam Evans, Debra Evans's widower, tells ProDeathPenalty.com, "He is not very concerned with individuals, just with issues."
posted on January 14, 2003 08:20:42 PM new
Bill McClellan, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has an extraordinarily cynical explanation for former Illinois governor George Ryan's decision to commute the death sentences of 167 murderers: He wants a million bucks. That's the purse that comes with the Nobel Peace Prize, for which, as the Associated Press reports, Francis Boyle a law professor at the University of Illinois, says he plans to nominate the erstwhile governor. You may remember Boyle as the guy who thinks it's "racist" to drink beer on St. Patrick's Day and thinks Hawaii should secede from the union.
Observes McClellan: "A $1 million prize is a big temptation to put in front of an honest man, let alone a fellow whose campaign fund was called a criminal enterprise, a fellow who, according to his own party, ran the worst administration in the history of Illinois."
The argument for giving Ryan the Nobel Peace Prize escapes us. It's supposed to go to the person who "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." What any of this has to do with sparing the lives of the most heinous murderers is beyond us.
Then again, Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
posted on January 14, 2003 08:50:24 PM new
What death penalty advocates won't admit is that for every killer that is caught standing over his prey with a bloody knife there is also someone who was convicted because they were known to have an disagreement with the dead person a week ago and had fibers on their shoe like in the dead persons house, or some such. No matter that 20 million yards of that carpet were made.
Even the British who assumed that DNA testing was 100% accurate were disturbed to find that when an agency sent several hundres samples two their two biggest labs the results came back with about a 1% error rate. Not only matches missed - but false positive matches.
posted on January 14, 2003 11:29:49 PM new
Yes, the innocent do make the perfect stand against the Death Penalty. I've tried to use a loftier motive. Certainlky, there are those among us who have never kiled anyone, but are just waiting for an excuse to pull the switch for fun. Of those people, they are a danger to society and should be incarcerated and treated fo thier mental illness. We should not be holding a lottory to see who gets to do the execution.
Personally, I think TWELEVEPOLE is full of hot air. if given the chance, he'd sh1t his pants before actually pushing any button. Big Talk with little content.
posted on January 14, 2003 11:36:18 PM new
junquemama - I feel the same way, at times. It is always a hope I have that someone will do the 'right' thing because it's the 'right' thing to do. And that they wouldn't be acting with alterior motives in mind. You're not alone.
posted on January 15, 2003 06:55:54 AM new
That is ludicrous to believe that Governor Ryan whould expect to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for commuting death sentences. He is not the first governor to oppose the death penalty.
It's just some reporter's retaliatory spin on the story to infer that he had an ulterior motive.
Governor Ryan did the right thing and I hope that other governors will follow his example. The only mistake he made on this issue was not making the decision sooner.
posted on January 15, 2003 11:02:24 AM new
The Ultimate Deterrent
"Despite ample claims to the contrary, researchers are now finding that the death penalty is a deterrent. Researchers at Emory University looked at nearly 6,000 death sentences and compared them to the murder rates and likelihood of being sentenced to death in 3,000 counties. They found every execution saved as many as 18 would-be-murder victims. Other studies done at the University of Colorado and the University of Houston also found that executions saved lives.
- Wall Street Journal columnist Brendan Miniter, 1/14/03
posted on January 15, 2003 11:42:05 AM new
der Fuehrer
>GLAD YOU THINK THAT WAY BORILLAR... JUST KEEP THINKING THAT...IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER.
>IF IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET THROUGH YOUR PATHETIC DAY IS TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SOMEONE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.
I may not know you personally, nor would I want to if I had the opportunity to do so, I do read your posts and from it, I have drawn some conclusions.
>YAHOOOO! IF ONLY WE COULD HAVE THE CHANCE TO THROW THE SWITCH OR PUSH THE BUTTON...
Given that this statement and your previous statements haven't been sarcasm, but genuine statements about how you feel, then this is what I think:
The basic conclusion is that you would enjoy murdering someone, but only if society had condemned that person to death. That way, you could murder someone and not have to feel any conscience about it. That you are so willing to kill another human being who is quite likely very mentally ill says that you only need to be just in the right circumstances before the lid is pulled off your bottle and out you'll come swinging your own brand of "justice." Those circumstances that it takes to make you do that happen to us all too often and it is only a matter of time before someone near you dies at your own hands. That it is unfortunate that you can not be incarcerated to protect society from you before you kill someone says that the laws do need to be changed in favor of protecting decent, normal human beings from offender wannabes. I suggest that you go commit yourself and get the treatment that you need in order to understand how repulsive your desire to kill other people is before you find out for yourself.
On the other hand, you may have been supporting my every argument by being cleverly sarcastic and you were just trying to point out society's blood thirst and not your own. In that case, the above does not apply to you in the least.
posted on January 15, 2003 11:56:58 AM new
The sort who will kill a bound person for the state is as scary to me as a warped mind that kills for it's own reasons.
BORILLAR, LETS MAKES SOME ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT YOU THEN, FROM YOUR POSTINGS OF PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE AMOUNT THEREOF, I WOULD GUESS THAT DEEP DOWN YOU ACTUALLY LOVE THE GUY.
WHY WOULD A PERSON WRITE SO MUCH ABOUT SOMEONE THEY SUPPOSEDLY HATE AND OFTEN MIS QUOTE HIM SO THOSE OF US THAT GO CHECK CAN SEE THAT YOU WERE TALKING OUT YOUR A$$ AND PRESIDENT BUSH IS ACTUALLY DOING THIS COUNTRY SOME GOOD.
IS THIS YOUR SECRET WAY OF GETTING SUPPORT FOR THE PRESIDENT?
IT'S OK IF YOU LOVE PRESIDENT BUSH BUT AT LEAST YOU COULD ADMIT IT OPENLY.
ENJOY IS NOT A WORD I WOULD USE... INDIFFERENCE WOULD BE A BETTER CHOICE. JOB IS A JOB.
posted on January 15, 2003 02:11:51 PM new
Death-penalty study fails to expose the true disparity
Illinois Republican George Ryan wasn't the only departing governor to declare a moratorium on executions; Maryland Democrat Parris Glendening, who left office today, did so as well. Unlike Ryan, however, Glendening did not clear out death row; and unlike Ryan's Democratic successor, Rod Blagojevich, Maryland's new governor, Republican Bob Ehrlich, promises to end the moratorium.
The basis of Glendening's moratorium was the claim of racially disparate sentencing. Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane notes that Maryland taxpayers shelled out $225,000 for a study, which Ken calls "bat guano," showing that blacks who kill whites are more likely to get the death penalty than those who kill blacks. "Death-penalty opponents went immediately into poor, oppressed black man mode when they heard the news," Kane writes.
WHY BOTHER, YOU TWO LEFT WINGERS WOULDN'T AGREE ANYWAY BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MEET WHAT YOU FEEL IS GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY.
BUT ONE IS HIS VIEWS ON IRAQ...SOONER WE BOMB THEM OUT OF EXISTANCE THE BETTER.
