Take the death penalty poll. Try to give the answer that best reflects your views.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I voted other because my thoughts just didn’t fit into the choices. The death penalty has provided no deterrant to crime, does nothing for the victims and is probably immoral in most if not all cases. Yes, there are terrible fact patterns that cry out for something more than life sentences and for these I am not totally unsympathetic but have no good answer. Nor do I have any great enthusiasm for supporting a violent criminal behind bars for life but I don’t see any other way. A rambling answer to a difficult question.
Okay, I could have just said immoral in all cases but I was distracted by a certain 6 year old.
first post,have lurked for a long time.my view is that victims seem to be forgotten,their lives are over.
i hear people say tookie has changed his life,but the people he killed didn’t have a chance to fulfill their lives.i’m a proud liberal and in favor of the death penalty in some cases.
Welcome Jersey Joe. I agree with you in sentiment but innocent people have been put to death. Unlees DNA can absolutely prove a person’s guilt then the DP needs to be abolished. IMO some commit crimes so horrendous that they should forfeit their lives. But my opinion is not as unambiguous as it might sound.
i agree that innocent people have been wrongly executed,race plays a factor and that is terrible.but in solid cases of heinous murders like here in jersey(richard beigenwald killed multiple women 25 years ago ,bodies were dug up in his yard,solid case,on death row forever,this scumbag should be executed),these people still linger for no purpose!
A number of the country’s crime labs, Houston being the most notorious with the FBI a close second, have been exposed for false positives. Some just sloppy science and some intentional. No system that involves human beings can ever be fool proof. There is no 100%.
Then if someone freely confesses a crime, and there is no question of guilt, this person gets executed because there is no doubt. Which means confession is sure execution. Confess, you die. Don’t confess, you die. See the problem with our system of “redemption”?
One of the few points of agreement I have with Rupert Murdoch – he once said that he believed the death penalty increases the level of barbarism in a society.
I don’t see it as an act of justice, but rather, as an act of state-sanctioned revenge.
And as others here have pointed out, if you make a mistake in applying it, you can’t ever correct that.
I just put the 12 Days of Justice up at dKos.
If you want to swarm it is all over the place:
X-posted at Booman Tribune , My Left Wing, My Left Nutmeg, Political Cortex
And also Front Paged or posted by Cedwyn at: Dembloggers, ePluribus Media, MyDD, and TPM Cafe reader Blogs.
Where there only two people banned last week or where there others? Perhaps some left on their own. Just wondering if I missed anything. I will be blogging from the French Alps in about 6 weeks. Might even catch a couple of Olympics games while I’m there.
4 people were banned. 2 were banned a day after they signed up. The other two were Parker and Shadowthief, who actually tried to pull a George Constanza and quit Friday only to show up Monday like nothing had happened.
Thanks..hilarious. So that means really 2 are gone. I noticed the timing of the 2 that showed up…it was kind of like a resurrection. Parkers newest name had me rolling on the floor. No one ever answered my question if she is a front pager anywhere else. I don’t understand why she isn’t at LSF? btw/ This site Rocks. We had our own mini-blog hurricane and got through it just fine. Susan could teach several Governors a thing or two. Hell, she could teach the President a lot. It was amazing once you got back..the took off. Thanks again for your awesome leadership. Glad we are back to business and ready to take down Alito, demand answers on Iraq, Plame, Rove, New Orleans, Torture…and the list goes on and on.
n/t
…not for Pol Pot, Augusto Pinochet, Henry Kissinger or Tookie Williams. Like without parole, hard time, no privileges. Study these guys intensely but don’t commit judicial murder.
…without parole.
Agreed again.
I just 86’ed a perfectly good comment because yours was so damn similar it scared the crap out of me.
…anyway. Great minds …
The Cocopah People (River People) from their Indian Tribal series. It is really amazing. I may put up a diary about it.
…I know much about in California are the Chumash, Gabrielinos and Modocs. I’ve a couple of Chumash acquaintances, both lawyers.
Very well stated! My feelings exactly, but more elegantly put.
not me, not you, not the state. Except of course if you are defending yourself when someone is trying to kill you.
Nevermind the fact that too many potentially innocent people can be put to death; we are not in biblical times and I don’t believe ‘an eye for an eye’ should be taken literally.
Locking someone up for life with no parole is punishment enough.
Canada refuses to extradite those in our country who could be subjected to the death penalty (including to the US) unless we have guarantees in writing that they will not seek the death penalty… this is our Supreme Court ruling, not just a political decision. It is against our Charter of Rights & Freedoms… thank you Pierre Trudeau.
I’m very sad about tonight and am not going to talk about it anymore… killing is wrong, I don’t care who does it (as the eloquent Meteor Blades reminds us above).
Hugs sweetie. Me too. I can’t bear this shit sometimes.
Ditto.
Rita Cosby is going to be a witness to his execution.
Oh gross, like it’s some sort of sideshow event. What a vampire she is.
but don’t forget to watch her special on online porn that is so prominently advertised here </snark>
You saw that advertised too, eh?
Cockroach. She is the most disgusting newsreporter or non newsreporter. It is like watching a car crash..ambulance chaser. Her voice, her energy, her subject matter..I am surprised she didn’t convince the Warden to let her administer the shot. She is pathetic. I will celebrate when she is fired. For her to still be hanging around MSNBC, when CNN canned A. Brown is just Wrong.
I want to agree, but after the Rwandan genocide, I just can’t bring myself to use that epithet anymore.
She is a creepy thing though, ain’t she?
She is the most disgusting newsreporter or non newsreporter
Such a contest, I mean there’s the entire Fox stable to consider and the endless horror of Nancy Grace.
Rita came from Fox News folks. Keep writing MSNBC and maybe we can get her sent back to where she belongs. Gawd, I cannot fathom how she ever got a job in broadcasting.
I wanna puke everytime I hear her proudly announce that she was “invited.” And then there was her cheerily saying “I’ll see you there” to one of the relatives, as if they were off to a cocktail party (which, in a sense, I suppose they are).
Awful as this is, the next CA execution will be lonely for the Immoral at All Times folks. A posterboy for the DP, Clarence Ray Allen was convicted of orchestrating the murder of witnesses against him from behind bars in Folsom prison.
It’s been hearteing to hear all the voices here today, thanks.
Where did they find this woman? Serving burgers at IHOP? How did the Big Blonde Whig ever become the ONLY anchorWOMAN on MSMBC? Where is Connie Chung when we need her?
MSNBC got her in a deal with Faux News for Bill Hemner and an O’Reilly aide to be named at a later date. They had to take Tucker from CNN in the three-way with O’Reilley.
My head is spinning. Is this the price we pay for Keith Olberman? Well, fine then, Goodbye Rita no matter what else is on, and hello Keith at 9:00 PM PST. (No matter what else is on.)
They must have written the scripts for her at Fox. I swear she wasn’t that bad there or maybe it was the environment that made her appear more intelligent there.
I so don’t understand Rita Cosby. She’s as thick as a bag of rocks, without the usual mitigating factors for female anchor ditzes – she’s not pretty and her voice is painful to listen to.
I mean, I get Ann Coulter – though I despise her – but at least she makes some kind of sense.
Rita Cosby is inexplicable.
She happens to be on Imus’ show now, live at 6:10am, talking about the execution.
I wonder what’s on CNN right now?
So I oppose the death penalty for almost all crimes. If one can manage to keep the SOB locked up forever, there is no justification for killing them.
However, while I still dislike the idea, I accept that sometimes you just gotta kill someone to eliminate them as a serious threat to society. So I’m ok with the death penalty for the political crimes- espionage, rebellion and treason. But that’s just plain politics extended, like war.
It seems that many Americans view the US as a result of rebellion of sorts. So if you would favor the death penalty for those who rebel against a government, I can see how that would put you in a most difficult position vis a vis the popular perception of your own nation’s history.
I can see how that would put you in a most difficult position vis a vis the popular perception of your own nation’s history.
Most definitely.
Did I add the caveat, executing political offenders is okay only as long as your side wins the conflict?
I posted this in another thread, but it works here too:
I love how we call it the “death penalty”, like someone was bad in a hockey game. It’s not a penalty, it’s state-sponsored murder. Is Stanley Williams a murderer? The state tells us he is. He says he’s not, and I don’t know what to believe.
Here’s what I know. Tonight Arnold becomes a murderer, Bush is already a murderer, and every judge who upholds this barbaric practice is a murderer. Every defense attorney who sleeps through a trial is a murderer. And all of these hypocritical people who pray in public and then cheer the “death penalty” for another human being are murderers too.
Cloaking oneself in law doesn’t change what this is, or what these people are. They’re no better than someone who shoots someone on the street, and they demean all of us and our country.
It is so in appropriate to call the results of state imposed death a penalty or punishment. No one is being punished or penalized. They are being killed. They received death, and that is it.
Some may call it murder or retribution but it is death sanctioned by the government. Just like wars and any laws which eventually lead to the death of people. You won’t get into heaven or hell unless you are the one that’s dead. True punishment is to spend the rest of your life, however long it is, locked up and unable to harm anyone including yourself. It’s the thinking and suffering that is the true penalty or punishment. Plus I heard that it’s less expensive, too.
I am against the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the criminal or the crime. I don’t believe taking a life in that manner is justified and it damages everyone in society each time it happens.
although I chose “other” in the poll because it isn’t on moral ground that I oppose it. Any government that has the power to execute its citizens has too much power, and that power will be abused. Government’s sole purpose is to benefit society, and there is no benefit to society in its government putting its citizens to death.
The law is reason over passion, the best of society, not the worst.
Never thought about it this way. Excellent point I will remember. Thanks.
Yes, it is an excellent point debraz made. It’s even more telling when that same government works hard to enact or remove laws that restrict the process of appeal in those cases.
Putting people to death as punishment cannot be condoned because no system can be devised that would ensure impartiality in dispensing such punishment. And while this lack of equity is true of all punishments meted out here in our usa, the death penalty carries the unique distinction of being absolutely irreversible. Not that we can give back the years lost by those incarcerated unjustly, but at least they can get some semblance of a life back.
So whether I want treasonous mass-murderers like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to face the death penalty if they were to be tried for their crimes is irrelevant. We are all better served if the state does not have that power.
Is how those on the right can be for the death penalty yet anti-abortion?? If in Christian teachings Jesus died for our sins, so we wouldn’t have too. Where does the death penalty fit into this theory. Isn’t life in prison more of punishment, w/o freedom, than death.
Just thinking out loud.
The death penalty doesn’t fit into the theory. That’s why the religious nuts who claim a spiritual basis for their contradictory positions on abortion and the death penalty are full of shit.
I like to frame the argument as being more pro-life than they are.
Toss in the fact that those so called pro-lifers are actually anti-choice for good measure.
Even in the so-called debate about abortion they are not so much “pro-life” as they are merely “pro-birth”.
The life of a human being after birth is of little consequence to these hypocrites and delusionals. As soon as the child is born they lose interest that very moment, and are perfectly willing to take that child’s life at any time thereafter if they judge him/her underserving of life for any one of numerous reasons.
Frankly, I don’t believe the issue is the belief in the sanctity of life, or lack of, at all — despite the common language.
I believe what we’re actually talking about is a basic belief in totalitarian authority vs. resistence to that ‘ideal’. Those who hold that ‘ideal’ couch their beliefs in religious terms, but the main concern is mundane rather than spiritual. Ergo the glaring contradictions.
This is why the separation of church and state is so important. Religious law is authoritarian by nature whereas the authority in a democratic government is derived from the participation of the people.
So attempts to establish any sort of combined authority in government never works because each discipline requires the other to relinquish it’s central claim to authority. In short, democratic governance and religious authority bring out the worst in each other and are completely dysfunctional when combined into government.
I don’t use the concept of morality as a device for measuring the worth or merit of appropriateness of things, so in the death penalty poll I selected “other”.
For me, the death penalty, when enshrined in the law, is representative of the institutionalization of ignorance and barbarism in the society that practises it. It’s a sure signal to me that that society has a very long way to go on the path toward enlightenment.
Sick and socially dysfunctional societies have an appetite for the death penalty because of perceived need for “retribution”, butif we are to grow and evolve asa species such appetites need to be dispensed with else our societies just get more screwed up.
Personally, I wouldn’t lose much sleep if every child molester on the planet suffered an excruciating death as a result of their crimes, yet I realize that such feelings on my part are indicitive of my own barbarism. And as such, rather than induging these impulses by endorsing the death penalty, my impetus is to overcome the unfortunate nature of these impulses by realizing and reminding myself that they serve no constructive end and in fact damage one’s own personna just by experiencing them.
Open Thread:
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Your sig line is a perfect pearl of wisdom!
Hey, thanks, sbj!
There are people that I would like to see dead. Do I have any business making them die? No. My basest instincts are no guide to what is acceptable. It is wrong to kill other people.
I lived in Texas for so many years that executions ceased to stir me up, which I found troubling then when I thought about it, and much more disturbing now, when I’m away from that atmosphere. It was precisely the atmosphere that I see in the attempts to justify torture: Using the alleged crimes of the condemned as the measure of how they should be treated.
Bad reasoning, and a total corruption of attempts at having a national set of values laid down in our constitution.
Absolutely not-I did not read the thread- but I feel strongly about this issue– if it is wrong to murder- then it is more wrong for the state to murder.
A nation as bloody minded as ours shouldn’t be trusted with much of anything, let alone questions of life and death.
There are only two reasons to have a death penalty:
a) there has been no proof that it’s a deterrent.
b) to protect society from dangerous criminals, which it seems that bars, walls and armed guards are there for.
None of those apply to the death penalty … there are compelling arguments against them. Don’t even get me started on the racial problems with the application of the death penalty in this country.
A truly civilized people wouldn’t be having this debate, but seeing as in how we torture, invade sovereign nations, shred our own Constitution ….
…Bible includes the Hamarrabian prescription (eye for an eye), when Cain commits the very first murder, he IS NOT EXECUTED, but rather sent into exile with a mark on his face.
the execution was reserved for the “son of God”… but then again he was tortured too, so I guess if it’s good enough for Jesus…
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”
Torturing and murdering the innocent Son of God seems to set the bar on heinous pretty high, no?
Cheney just saw it as a challenge to do better… you know, can’t let those damn Romans steal all the glory…
I’m happy to see such a strong majority here for my position: “immoral in all cases.”
I’m a pro-Life peacenik: I don’t think the state has the right to take life in any circumstance, except for narrow instances involving the right of self-defense (police power and military power).
But you don’t need to go there to be opposed to the death penalty. All you need to know is that innocent people get convicted. The facts on that are overwhelming. This happens all the time. It is not a rare exception.
See, for example, http://www.capdefnet.org/htm_library/Innocence_arg.htm .
(model motion re Documented Failure of the Modern Death Penalty to Avoid Death Sentences for the Factually and Legally Innocent).
As I’ve stated elsewhere, I’m completely opposed to the death penalty. My reasons for opposition are practical (in relation to the actual structures & purposes of law enforcement as currently practiced, as opposed to the ideal). They’re also based in a Buddhist spiritual perspective, which not only dictates the sanctity of life but a universal potential for enlightenment.
The sanctity of life doesn’t exclude an acceptance of death as fact; one simply doesn’t get emotional satisfaction from it.
The implementation of the death penalty is institutionalized emotional satisfaction with regard to death. It’s the satisfaction a citizen feels regarding the power of the state to which he lends his allegiance. The state can do what he himself can’t.
Needless to say also, the potential of the individual for enlightened transformation & service is completely nullified in the cessation of life. Utter negation of that potentiality is, to my mind, a crime without justification.
Further: on a most basic level, the death penalty indicates to me nothing but an utter lack of imagination on a societal level. This nation isn’t unique regarding the serious crimes for which the death penalty is imposed, yet the death penalty is not imposed universally. This is a simple matter of civilized society as opposed to barbarism.
my concern that the seawater swirling around the chandalier might break some of the glass.
I’d give anything for the luxury of time to worry about the glass.
I just really want to express my gratitude to Blog-Ads from MSNBC for pointing out to me that there is PORN in our country, and that it’s ON THE INTERNET.
Who knew?
I agree with you.
I know it’s just an ad and I guess there’s no control over them, or is there? If not, then there should be.
This one’s going too far. It’s disrespectful, at least.
This just struck me when I read it,
Many have said that they oppose the death penalty on the moral ground that it is state sanctioned murder. I agree.
But then I also want to add that in most instances where the death penalty is used, it is applied to the very people our society has turned its back on from the beginning.
I work with a program that identifies kids who are most likely to be chronic violent juvenile offenders due to their delinquency history prior to age 10. About a third of the kids we work with have already committed violent sex crimes befroe they are 10. Now, do we need to guess where they are heading?!
What do we find about these kids lives:
90% have parents with a criminal history
80% have been abused
80% live in poverty
80% live with domestic violence, and
70% are African American boys.
When we care as much about these kids as we do about killing murderers, we might actually be getting somewhere.
Thanks for the work you do.
The irony and loss is that the same group who is at risk for the same reasons could have had the benefit of this man’s experience as a type of atonement and productive change in others’ lives.
And many on Death Row have childhoods of abuse, poverty, parental drug & alcohol abuse (which most oft leads to early use themselves) & on & on & on.
I went with the not so popular second option. I can see the death penalty in some cases like treason, serial killers and so forth, but I do not have a lot of confidence in our system as far as being able to convict the guilty, and acquit the innocent. DNA evidence can improve certainty in some situations. Victims rights, also influence my thoughts.
This is a very depressing morning. This morning I looked at Kevin Drum’s blog at Washington Monthly and saw him attempt to justify the death penalty. It is further proof, if proof really were needed, that there is no alternative in this country to the extreme right wing. Liberals in America are not united against the Iraq War; liberals are not united against the death penalty; liberals are not united for universal health care. What do liberals stand for? Other than opposition to Bush . . . I can’t figure it out.
This country has an unquenchable thirst for blood — it pervades all aspects of the nation whether it is the death penalty, its film and music, the way it looks at relations with other countries, the way it treats the environment.
But the taking of a life is not a satisfying event. Those who wanted Williams dead are just as bitter, just as fearful, and just as eager for more blood today as they were last night. It is a never ending cycle of death. There are more than 3500 prisoners on death row in this country, double what there were twenty years ago, and the number continues to rise. Yet the demand for more blood continues.
Wonderful post.
The continuation of the death penalty in the US merely demonstrates the immaturity of your society. It is so sad that a country that has the opportunity to do so much good so demeans itself by it’s bloodlust. Although it is unpopular to discredit the military and those who join up [for whatever reason] there is no doubt that military worship, as practiced in the US, only adds to a general acceptance of the taking of life.
Christians and Jews have no choice in the matter;
Thou shalt not kill.
End of story
Malcolm from the UK
Killing certainly brings out the worst in folk, taps right into the most primate nature of man. Like Katrina, Tookie’s execution ripped the lid of the can of vile prejudice, hate, and fear. The truly sick part is using reason to mask it, to justify it.
I’d much rather have an honest exchange. Instead of the married guy trotting out the same old, “my wife doesn’t understand me…” bullshit, an honest, “Hey, I just want to fuck somebody, okay?” Instead of rationalizing executions, just say, “Hey, I just want to kill somebody, okay?”
We are the most violent society in the free world. Instead of looking and cause and effect, we perpetuate the cycle, as if we can kill it out. No wonder a segment of the population still supports the war in Iraq.
I meant to say debraz that I really appreciated your passion and conviction in that disgusting thread on dkos last night… I wanted to comment but just couldn’t stomach it. I’m glad you jumped in though… if those are our fellow “progressives” then we still have a shit load of work ahead of us.
and gang mentality at its worst. Thanks for the kind words, I needs me a pick-me-up after that.