Convicted criminals with long sentences routinely carry out the death penalty or viscious beating or cutting on other inmates for gang-related matters, for violations of the inmates' "code" and "rules", and for even showing up there as a "Chester" (conviction as child molester.) Other lifers commonly die miserable deaths in prison from poorly treated medical conditions--decades after their crimes. And, even then, taxpayers have paid BUCKETS of money for the incarceration AND a bunch of medical contractors who don't give a hoot about healing inmates but do spend the moon (of your money) on hoop-jumping just to avoid lawsuits.

Polite society is woefully naive and mistaken to believe that putting people away for life is somehow more "humane" than execution by (correctly-done) lethal injection. Those who think that just don't know much about prison.

Society is also naive to accept the silly notion advanced by some that we can't afford executions because of the years of legal appeals with taxpayers paying both the prosecution and the public defenders. The advent of DNA to absolutely establish the guilt of some and absolutely exonerate others is lessening the truth of this argument every day.

The goal of "corrections" (as in "Department of ...")in our states should be to rehabilitate as many offenders as possible and get them out of prison. The other goal of "corrections" should be to literally get rid of those who cannot be improved (repeat violent offenders on the inside or outside) or those who have committed crimes so bad that society demands "life without parole." Punishing FOREVER is not "corrections." Warehousing FOREVER isn't either. The death penalty is not some gross societal immorality that some would have you believe.

We know from surgical anesthesia and from thousands of pet euthanasia incidents PER WEEK that an execution need not be botched and sloppy. We need to be careful with it and DO IT RIGHT, even if that costs a little more. But the notion that we must be afraid to do it at all because life in prison is more "civilized" is both a copout of weakness and not humane at all---if you know anything about the reality of prison.

What about the "sanctity of life" that neocons preach to us about? I should think they would weigh in on this issue and lobby for the abolishment of the death penalty.

A New York photographer named Lucinda Devin went around the country photographing the death chambers of every penitentiary that would allow her access. It made an eerie show. She was neither pro nor con on the death penalty itself, but was interested in how we think about it, what might be revealed in the architecture and accessories of executions. Did the observation rooms have folding chairs? Church pews? Was the chamber in the basement? In back by the dumpsters? Were plumbing pipes showing? Was it clean? Was it antiseptic or was it sinister? There was always a clock and a red telephone. Always an exhaust ventilation system. Wyoming had a nagahyde covered gurney and fake knotty pine paneling. Questions: Is it a punishment? A medical procedure? A religious procedure? A trash removal procedure? Something we do openly? Covertly?

Executions are our dirty little secret. They are our way of practicing the shameful remnants of human sacrifice - one of the many ways we have devised to pretend that we hold the power of death in our own hands instead of the other way around. If we have now decided to off those 3,263 prisoners, let us at least do it openly and proudly. Let's build a big altar in full sunlight. Let's pray to the gods of the underworld for rain and corn crops and victory over our enemies, and then let's get out our obsidian knives and offer up those beating hearts with savage conviction.

Daniel David - You do have trouble getting your thinking out of the box, don't you? Only someone who can not imagine anything but a two party system could come up with the idea that something as wrong as the death penalty could be done "right." All of the viable, blue pill candidates favor it, and like yourself can see no alternative to it, even though just a few miles to the East, Europeans are doing very well without it. They've noticed that the corn harvests do just fine even after they stop throwing people into the volcano.

voxclamantis,

Like I said, if you actually know anything about the seething reality of prisons, you have to really weigh the pros and cons of a death penalty. We say we are against "cruel and unusual" and I especially feel that way. There is lifelong physical and emotional punishment in the "predator" culture of inmates and for that matter, the "staff" at most prisons too. Most citizens don't know about it, and some others think they are somehow righteous to apply "thou shalt not kill" to society and the state. I say there are two sides to what is "cruel" and that being put to sleep is not necessarily a bad thing, compared to being threatened and brutalized for decades---then dying an old age death from say cancer, with poor pain control. This stuff happens.

For those who say, I WANT THE CRIMINAL TO SUFFER IN PRISON, I'm not with you.

I also happen to think that the prospect of execution will hasten the serious repentance of some offenders in their own private way, that those who accept Christ and ask privately to be forgiven for their sins WILL BE so forgiven (because He said so), that some others whom we "condemn" to a life lived out in the hardness of prison might never do so, and that this (for believers) is also something to consider about cruelty.

AS someone who used to hold to the view that the death penalty was the ultimate deterrent - if only for the executee (recidivism rates fall to zero for those executed) - I am just a little embarrassed.

My former support for the DP had a lot to do with one major case in Australia (the Anita Cobby rape/murder); it seemed to me that the men who did what they did to Ms Cobby were beneath contempt and deserved no compassion or consideration whatsoever... that they had relinquished their rright to treatment as sentient beings.

Now the problem is - as you get a bit older and think a bit harder about things: in supporting killing folks at governmental whim you are effectively declaring that these folks are irredeemable. That the probability of their rehabilitation is ZERO.

I have also woken up to the idea that even violent and brutal offenders have Natural Rights, and that their lack of respect for the rights of their victims does not entitle us to take the same approach to the offender. What are we if we pursue a course motivated by revenge? If we are capable of doing in cool blood, what the offender does when supposedly out of his gourd?

Now the death penalty for politicians - that's a different story... execute every last dog mongrel of them tomorrow (those that refuse to repent and move on to less parasitic ways of earning a living) and you have my full support.

Give every man convicted of a capital crime the choice of making a commitment to their rehabilitiation, and then monitor them for signs of compliance. If they choose not tto contract to at least attempt to improve themselves, then execute them - after significant efforts to cajole them to do conform.

Cheerio

GT
France
http://marketrant.blogspot.com

I do death penalty abolition work in Arizona, and I know not only prisoners but death row prisoners. You are right about prison conditions. We have some of the worst in the country right here. Even given that "corrections" are a joke in these places, they are not places where life is not worth living. It is not our call to make on behalf of those in prison, that it would be better to put them to sleep. How incredibly arrogant! There is also a culture of graciousness and honor in prisons, in spite of an environment designed to crush the human soul. People write books in prison. They survive prison. Euthanize them? Your point is moot. We execute maybe two people a year here, out of the countless thousands of people locked up with their fellow predators. Is that your answer to hellhole prisons, to kill them instead? Why not put your energies into prison reform. We are talking about human beings here, not stray dogs.

Anyone who does any kind of humanitarian work with or on behalf of convicted felons or prison reform is to be commended.

As for stray dogs, some are put to sleep just because no human will adopt and care for them. That's a sad reality.
Some other dogs are pit bulls that have been involved in savage attacks on humans and other animals and would do the same thing again if released. That's a different kind of sad reality. We put those dogs to sleep ASAP because we need to. We don't punish them. We don't put them in a concrete box to "live" for another 10 years to old age.
We just make the best decision we can and move on. It's ethically difficult, but there are some humans that call for a similar response. Another sad reality.

Great article, I liked the way the author paraphrased Justice Harry Blackmun's epic dissent from the rejection of Callins v Collins, "I will no longer tinker with the mechanism of death..."

The main reason Blackmun put forth and the real reason to abolish the death penalty is that it can never be made fair or foolproof.

Gov. George Bush executed a man whose court appointed attorney slept through most of the trial. That guy is dead because he was poor and black. Gov Ryan of Illinois stopped their death penalty because so many of the condemned turned out to be innocent. This happens a lot in our drug war culture jailhouse snitch version of justice.

We have a long way to go before restoring anything resembling true justice to America. Ending the death penalty would be a great first step.

Daniel David - Ethically difficult? The stray dog analogy actually does work for you. We have an ethical choice to either warehouse people or kill them, just like down at the dog pound.

I keep seeing this box. The two party system proposes no candidates even willing to discuss the real dangers looming ahead for our society, but the sad reality is that we must vote for one or the other. Prisons are medieval, dehumanizing places to put people, but they are what we've got so the sad reality is that it would be kinder to execute people than send them there. There used to be a sad reality of workhouses and child labor. There was a sad reality of slavery and a sad reality of smallpox. Thank God we didn't put our "realists" to work on these problems, because they would still be dithering over some difficult either-or choice that desperately needs to be tossed in the trash in favor of new thinking.

Amazing the contorted explanations people come up with to rationalize the killing of other humans. Its actually pretty simple. They got it down to four one sylable words to really make it so every one can understand this .... THOU SHALT NOT KILL!

Exactly. THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

As if debating whether this or that way of murder is the good way after "we" have killed over a million innocent Iraqis and Afghanis in ways so horrible we dare not even think about it.

Why not just use a bomb to kill death row inmates? We use 'em to kill just about everything else without batting an eye, right?

Daniel David, you sound like a true right winger. I represented death row inmates, like the author of this article. And Clive Stafford Smith is a hero, by the way. I also represented prisoners doing life terms and less. Have YOU spent a lot of time in prisons? If so, in what capacity? If not, you're not in a position to say what's worse. Half of what you said has no relation to reality. And while life without parole is a living hell, Murder is Murder, no matter how you try to dress it up and justify it. And while you're alive, there's always a chance that justice will be done, if you've been wrongly convicted OR wrongly sentenced to death. And you are so wrong when you say we can afford the death penalty. Example: Part of the reason that guy in Georgia who killed that hitchhiker got life is because the county couldn't afford to seek the death penalty against him. You see, due process isn't cheap.

voxclamantis,

No, the "stray" dog analogy does not "work" for me. It's yours and doesn't fit the argument anyway. The "viscious pit bull(s) that killed somebody's daughter at the school bus stop -- and would do so again if allowed" analogy works for me.

Daniel David,

Sorry. Until the system can be guaranteed fool-proof (not likely in any human-run endeavour) you can't do it. The odds of killing an innocent person are too high. The other part of the problem is inconsistency. If the death penalty is used, it should be applied consistently. In the current state of affairs we have people being executed for killing a single person and a man spending life in prison (the Green River killer) who has slain at least 42 people (in a state with the death penalty).

As far as your arguments concerning the condition of prisons, that is a justification for reforming what we do with prisons not how we sentence prisoners.

It is considerably (by two thirds) cheaper to imprison someone for life than to impose the death penalty. Surely that appeals to your conservative heart.

Daniel David: I was surprised to find that I'm not the only left-winger who believes that the death penalty can be more humane than being locked up in a maximum security prison for the rest of one's life, alone 23 hours a day like John Gotti Sr. was. And Gotti was not subject to the depredations that go on in our old, crumbling prisons where the inmates prey upon each other in hideous ways. He had a quiet cell, clean and neat, all to himself.

But suppose he had been 21 years old when he started to serve that life sentence without parole? The utter lack of human contact in these Supermax prisons would likely drive most inmates mad in the long run. Think of the Quaker prison in Philadelphia (I believe it was in the late 1700s) where the inmates had to wear hoods and could not see each other, and were not allowed to speak. Insanity ensued, where the poor Quakers had hoped for spiritual renewal.

The most common arguments against the death penalty are (1) there may be a shred of doubt as to guilt; (2) it's not a deterrent; (3) it's revenge and not justice; and (4) it's cruel to end someone's life (even if you can do it -- and we can -- without the slightest physical pain). My answers to these challenges are: (1) We should NEVER impose the death penalty in any case where there is the slightest shadow of a doubt! (2) I agree it's not a deterrent, but that's irrelevant to me. (3) The revenge argument doesn't stand up: take John Wayne Gacy, who tortured, raped and murdered dozens of young boys and buried them in his cellar; REVENGE would have been to have Mr. Gacy tortured, raped and murdered by someone (perhaps the father of one of his victims) who would have been willing to do it. JUSTICE calls for a punishment beyond what, for lack of a better phrase, I'll call an "ordinary murder." The punishment has to at least attempt to fit the crime, and when you add rape and/or torture to a murder, it is not justice to sentence the perpetrator to the same "life in prison without parole" to which a husband who murdered his wife for the insurance money would be sentenced.

Finally, (4) the Supreme Court has again made a shameful decision. We know perfectly well how to render someone unconscious in a peaceful way (I've had 2 major surgeries and can attest to that); it's indefensible to needlessly risk inflicting hideous pain in the course of an execution. But the arguments for and against the death penalty are separate moral and ethical issues -- distinct from the method of execution.

We are a brutal, cruel, murderous country, so why should we expect our 'justice' system to reflect any different? And we preach about 'human rights.' Plllleeeeeeeease.

I am a fence-sitter. 99% of the time I am against the death penalty. Then along comes some really egregious case and shakes my near-certainty that the death penalty is unethical. But either way, why cannot we kill (if we must) the same way we help terminal patients end their lives with dignity and without pain? A simple morphine overdose is all it takes. It's quick, sure, utterly painless, and doesn't require an elaborate set-up. Just a simple IV and enough morphine (calculated by the body-weight of the person to be killed). Why make it so complicated? Why three injections, three stages, three processes? Why make it so complicated? If all the State is really after is death, morphine will do it quickly, quietly, painlessly. Maybe that's why they won't use it. Too nice, too gentle. Too much dignity for a person the State has decided to murder.

There are obvious solutions to our prison problems, including the death penalty. All we have to do is ask the Europeans and Scandinavians how they deal with it. It would help if we stopped incarcerating people for 'victimless crimes' - and if we'd stop creating sociopaths with our vengeful, cruel, vicious, sadistic social policies. Most criminals are made, not born - and we could easily afford to incarcerate - yes, for life - the few that really are incorrigible. The models exist - and work exceedingly well - in Europe and Scandinavia.

The idiotic 'war on drugs' is another profit-driven scheme to line the pockets of immoral corporate thugs who lack a conscience. It needs to end - although it will put millions of people out of business and practically eliminate crime in this country in one broad stroke. Just give a part of the expenses now paid for prisons to people who need the basic necessities for a dignified life, and crime will practically disappear.

One of the worst examples of 'creating' criminals is the authoritarian ideology that demeans children and adults alike - those conservative extremists (I am a conservative, by the way) whose cruel mistreatment of children and vulnerable adults drives them to sociopathic behavior. We all know that domestic abuse/child abuse are rampant in this country - and that's the source of most sociopathic behavior (along with poverty, hopelessness, and a lack of decent jobs or education.)

The problems in this country are all man-made - mostly by religious extremists who seek vengeance rather than sympathy and forgiveness as their 'religion' supposedly preaches. Religious fanatics founded this country, and if you read a little history you will see where the problem started.

We can continue with this sadistic, vicious, brutal, inhuman way of life - or we can reform - not just the 'prison system' but the whole of our deviant society. But maybe it will take a catastrophe to bring reality and truth to light - it doesn't have to be this way. We can have a decent life, and a decent future with peace and prosperity instead of endless violence and the escalation of violence (including torture and punishment, such as using tazers on the helpless or creating hell-hole prisons. It's a choice - a value system - and we deserve what we get. We reap what we sow. Do things right and there will be no need for a death penalty - or more prisons - or more misery - or more fear - or more violence.

And by the way, I am in full support of the right of any person to defend themselves with lethal recourse - and not have to worry about going to jail just because you killed an attacker. That's crazy - that's also why there are so many killers in prison (or still running loose). Self-defense should never be a question - invade my home, and you die - no questions asked. No trials necessary, and no prison expenses, and no death penalty problems.

If the Constitutional prohibition against "cruel and unusual punsihment" is interpreted as logical conjunction, meaning that a punishment has to be both cruel and unusual to fit the specification, then anything that slips into common practice avoids the prohibition.

This is an echo of the medieval principle that "twice makes a custom," and it kept medieval barons busy making sure they didn't miss collecting a tax or duty two years running.

Human rights activists should be equally vigilant about developing "customs," but since challenges to abuse of prisoners typically move very slowly through the courts, the Constituional prohibition is intrinsically unreliable in periods of debased public morality, where juries cannot be trusted to reject abuses in the first instance.

By the time a challenge to abuse is argued in the Supreme Court, a dozen similar challenges may have failed already in lower courts because of technical insufficiencies in the appeals process, and in the meantime a new form of abuse has ceased to be "unusual."

anne faith,

You have alleged that half of what I have said has no relation to reality. Please cite what "half" specifically that you're talking about. As for a state-imposed death penalty for certain crimes being "murder", it is no more "murder" than when a law enforcement officer shoots a felon in the act or an escapee in the act or when one of our millions of gun-toting citizens shoots an assailant in self defense. The only difference is that a death penalty later is "self-defense" of society as a whole, and it is imposed only after assessment of all the facts.

I don't doubt that capital prosecutions are expensive from the lawyer standpoint. And I don't argue against us providing very good public defenders, or even insisting on an even higher standard of proof of guilt for a capital case. I certainly don't condone some of the two-bit lynching trials one can find in history, especially of minorities. We can do better in the next 100 years than in the last 100 years. But we are a silly silly society if we can somehow "afford" such things as the National Football League and the Super Bowl annually, meth and AK47s all over our streets, police with special swat teams and gang units and mobile command center vans, and yet can't afford a few lawyers to prosecute and defend capital offenders to a just verdict followed by a just execution. Doesn't compute.

As for your thinking I sound like a right winger, you sound like the kind of left-winger that keeps us other left-wingers from winning elections. Like say, 47 million lose again on universal health care due to the insistence by some that we put anti-death-penalty at the top of some list and then all be painted as "soft on crime" again.

Ok... First off, I am against the death penalty in principal... BUT if you crazy Americans insist on having it, why the long drawn out dramatic fiasco of 'lethal injection'... you have to strap the guy down... put in an IV, wheel him out before the crowd... and then have a machine to inject 3 different drugs... etc. etc. Frankly, if you're gonna kill someone, a 35cent bullet to the back of the head is quite effective. Hell, I would say even more dramatic! You could televise them like your good buddies the Saudis do. Now THAT'S reality TV.

kendpotter,

I've heard too that it's way cheaper to incarcerate for life, and I don't believe it. NOT if compassionate end-of-life medical care is factored in. (I don't have the "conservative" heart you imagine, and I do know that "cheap" incarceration means that medical conditions are often nearly completely ignored--even unto a painful death.)

As far as your statement we "can't" do it until the system is guaranteed foolproof, I would never argue for lax standards, but I have noted that society CAN and already IS doing it. Where do you get this "Sorry, but you can't" stuff?

As for "reforming" prisons, good luck. I can assure you it ain't happening except to stave off possible lawsuits or by order of one of the dwindling number of liberal federal judges.

Although I don't exactly agree about the hopelessness of reform, Daniel David's comment about the absence of compassionate end-of-life care in prisons is an unusually intelligent contribution to the discussion, IMHO, and it's something that every opponent of the death penalty should certainly consider.

This aspect of the situation had never occurred to me.

VOXCLAMANTIS: I would just like to say that both your wisdom and way with words elevates this forum (and its discussions). Thank you.

Murdering a helpless prisoner is NOT the same as shooting in self-defense. There is a choice to be made - just like fleeing, if possible, when your home is invaded. There is the 'heat of the moment' argument that DD is ignoring, if I read him right. Killing a prisoner who has been subdued and incarcerated can never be excused as anything but murder, plain and simple. It's immoral and an abomination. If you want to justify it, then why not just use 'the bullet to the back of the head' - or just chop off their heads like they do in 'civilized' Saudi Arabia? Hell, televise it even - it'll get great ratings.

Admit it - this is all about power and revenge - it has nothing to do with justice for anyone. And it makes our entire society all the more barbaric.

Human prisoners are typically treated, and offed, in ways that would get you arrested if you applied the same methods to dogs. This is our corrections system? This was our so-called "supreme" court??!! We no longer have a true system of justice in the US. What a tragic joke.

Daniel David: You are right on the money agree with you 100%. Couldn't have said it more eloquently. Some people deserve to die and our society is better off without them. I wish Charlie Manson was already dead. He escaped the death penalty in California. But if you look into his eyes he is a lost sorry S.O.B.

ACC - You are very close to having the right idea if you are against the dp 99% of the time, until some really nasty character comes along who really deserves to die. Here is the final argument: It is about us, who we are, whether or not we are killers, whether killing "solves the problem" for us. It it not about the criminals. It is about the difference between ourselves and the criminals.

This is why the state, not the victims of crime, determine the consequences of crime. If it were up to me, the guy who broke into my apartment 20 years ago and stole my VCR would have his hands cut off. Fortunately it was not up to me. If my wife was murdered I would want her murderer drawn and quartered. But we are not living in Sicily. We are trying, many of us, however slowly, to evolve past a primitive and vengeful mind set that infects all of society and leads to more violence and more crime. The US, as you would expect from a violent, gun happy society, has both a high crime rate and an active death penalty and a huge prison population. We need to outgrow this across the board. As armybrat says, we need to reform society, not just prisons.

Adele - You've got the dp arguments right, but for you the only one that works is something you call JUSTICE (in upper case no less,) I'd like to hear you talk more about that. Is it your own justice? Justice according to some authority? Which authority? Is it something like Plato talked about, that you can't define but you know it when you see it? Does killing A really cancel out killing B? Really? Is this a religious idea? How does it work?

Daniel David - "....you sound like the kind of left-winger that keeps us other left-wingers from winning elections."

Now that is deeply cynical. A lot of political and business careers were launched in the Montana territory by members of vigilante committees who bravely lynched dozens of citizens with whom they disagreed based on no due process, no evidence, but demonstrating a nicely hardline attitude toward crime. Not unlike what our friend G.W. Bush did in Texas. I would not sell my left wing convictions, let alone my soul, simply to win elections. Read your Kant. Ends do not justify means.

As a card carrying left winger, I hereby oust you from the club.

dudleydoright: I agree that some people - a lot of people, maybe - DESERVE to die. That doesn't make it right for us to murder them. Two wrongs do not make a right. And yes, we'd all be better off without them - but most killers can be redeemed - it's done in other civilized countries. The few who can't won't cost that much to house decently and treat humanely until they die. It really is that easy, once you get over the rage as voxclamantis pointed out quite clearly.

I believe in justice. Sometimes for justice to be carried out people need to die. If I take a life most of the time justice is done if I die. Its been that way from the beginning. Its not murder if the state executes a prisoner who has had a fair trial of his peers and found guilty. Its what our country is founded upon laws. Something sadly lacking in this current administration. Its what angers so many bloggers here when due process of law is thwarted as in Guantanamo. There are consequences to our actions its found in nature and its found in laws. I believe in justice. An eye for an eye tooth for tooth. As I said earlier Charlie Manson should be dead already. Its a travesty that he is still taking up space. All the pain this man has caused all the lives destroyed. Justice demands his execution. Justice delayed is not justice. Now remember I said sometimes I'm not about killing ,only when its justified and done in a humane and right way. I dont believe in being cruel. Cruel is being left to rot in some prison as was mentioned earlier.

Daniel David: Yours is the only sensible pro-death penalty argument I have read, and particularly as it addresses Stevens' concerns that capital punishment serves no public good ("The other goal of "corrections" should be to literally get rid of those who cannot be improved,") I would address it.

The vast majority of the argument for capital punishment is merely an emotional appeal in the form of "How would you feel if it were your daughter he raped and murdered?" Thus in a realistic sense, the intent of capital punishment and of all retribution is to cause harm, (a practical, if not dictionary-based criterion.)

Using an argument that although the original intent of the action was immoral, certain of its actual effects are practical is similar to approving of the Iraq War because we got rid of a bad dictator, even though the original intent was to stifle (nonexistant) Al Qaeda forces in the country or to prevent Saddam from using (nonexistant) WMD.

A moral question is: does it make a difference to the moral value of an act if it's original intent was negative even though a specific outcome is positive? In other words, is it acceptable for a legislature, which takes all the time in the world to consider legislation, only to come up with a justification for a law after the fact, or should we require that moral deliberation take place throughout the process?

The second, and probably more important issue I have with your post is that the assumption that some prisoners simply cannot be rehabilitated neglects the fact that no one tries.

It would be one thing if penologists made an attempt as engineers or empirical scientists to find and then apply the best methods of rehabilitation. The fact that rehabilitation is almost never attempted (the exceptions do not apply to murderers,) makes the argument "they can't be rehabilitated" a self-imposed limitation.

(Originally posted at THE SWAMP website):

Just watch the videos. He did it twice, in the same day, at two separate events. He made the gesture at the same point in his speech - the crowd understood what he meant. Actions speak louder than words. This man is not fit to be a US Senator.

First speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DygBj4Zw6No

Second speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhkq11UExcw
Posted by: james | April 18, 2008 3:47 PM
__________________________________________________
If Obama gets the nod it will be due solely to Black hypocrisy and White guilt. Great way to get a president! You think the last 8 years were a mess...just wait!
Posted by: Sandee Enriquez | April 18, 2008 5:30 PM

___________________________________________________

My comment: Just IMAGINE if Hillary Clinton had given two speeches yesterday at two different locations and used that same gesture at the same point in both speeches --- would ANY of the TV 'news" people be asking: was she ...Just.... scratching her face?

NO. The would be analyzing both videos frame by frame, they would make NO MISTAKE about it ... they would BLARE it all day every day on every station .... AGHAST! WHAT is WRONG with HER! Who does she think she is! Has she lost her mind! How can she even IMAGINE anyone would vote for her ... AFTER ... she did such an INSANE thing!

What I SAW: Yesterday, on a website, I viewed a video of one of the speeches - the video was not clear enough to tell whether he was using his middle finger or not & the sound wasn't working so the only conclusion I could come to was: don't know, can't tell.

Last evening on CNN (Anderson Cooper 360) video of one of Obama's speeches where he made the finger "gesture" was played, then his speech was discussed by the assembled talking heads -the finger gesture was Neither mentioned nor discussed.

In the video on TV It was clearly his middle finger; with the sound on, in concert with his facial expressions and crowd reactions, it was OBVIOUSLY Deliberate.

Today, on CNN a dark-haired female news person played the video, WITH the soundtrack ON - but the Video was STOPPED before the finger gesture, THEN came back ON just before the finger gesture
---- BUT --- With the SOUND OFF as the finger gesture was played.

The news woman then said --- well maybe he was just scratching his face --- What do you think?

Here's what I think --- I think if Clinton had done that twice yesterday .... the news woman would not be asking us ... was it just scratching .... what do we think - she would be TELLING US .... LOOK what Clinton did .... What a disgrace!

The only ACT in recent history or memory as LOW, asinine, and JUVENILE as Obama's F---You gesture aimed at Senator Clinton was committed by Obama's cousin, Dick Cheney --- when he said "Go F---Yourself to Patrick Leahy .... on the Senate floor.

I'm waiting for "the Media" to ask Obama: Do you make the SAME GESTURE to your WIFE when you don't like what she said?
Your grandmother .... people who accidentally run into you in the grocery store?

Here's what I EXPECT CNN and MSNBC to do starting TOMORROW: PLAY both videos all day every day for a week - with dozens of talking heads expressing their condemnation of Obama's outrageous Acts all day every day.

WHEN Clinton included the Bosnia sniper fire remarks in a few speeches --- the MEDIA --- as they reported .... went back & checked old news footage to see if her words corresponded with what was shown on the old videos. The MEDIA then played those old videos all day every day for a week --- decrying the fact that Clinton's words did not correspond with reality.

NOW I EXPECT the media to play those two Obama videos --- Decrying the fact that Obama's ACTIONS are not in concert with his words about "A New Kind of Politics", "transcending division", "turn the page".

Good article, and interesting debate among readers. I'm more convinced by the readers saying the death penalty needs to be ended, and not only the prison system to be reformed, but also the whole of society.

" dudleydoright April 18th, 2008 11:37 pm

I believe in justice. ... Its not murder if the state executes a prisoner who has had a fair trial of his peers and found guilty. ..."

I differ in view; instead believing that it is murder, for the death penalty subject is secured away from society where he or she won't be able to do any harm, since he or she will be imprisoned. Once a killer has been arrested, then he or she is secured by the police, and he or she will harm neither the police nor society.

What's needed are serious reforms as people stated or posted above.

The rest of the quoted texts below are from the same post of dudleydoright.

"As I said earlier Charlie Manson should be dead already".

I'm against the death penalty, but if he was put to death, then I wouldn't make a fuss about it. Last I read about him, and the reporting is from over recent years, he does not repent. So I wouldn't make a fuss if he was put to death. But I won't call for him to be put to death.

"Its a travesty that he is still taking up space. All the pain this man has caused all the lives destroyed. Justice demands his execution. Justice delayed is not justice."

Why is it a tragedy that he's taking up space when it's far less expensive to keep him imprisoned than it would be to put him to death?

And putting him to death wouldn't provide more justice than presently obtained and applied. To think that it'd serve justice more is not about really seeking or desiring justice, but revenge, which is also seen in the view of,

"An eye for an eye tooth for tooth".

~DANIEL DAVID~ and any others who agree with him and approve of the death penalty.

For a few moments, pretend that this is you.

You and your spouse are escorted into a small, sem-darkened auditorium type room, where twelve comftorable padded theatre chairs are bolted to the gray concrete floor. There are four strangers to you, who are already seated, along with a minister who is holding a leather bound Bible and he's standing with bowed head at a far corner of the rectangular room. It's chilly, almost cold in the deathly quiet room and you wish you had worn a jacket or a sweater.

You and your wife sit next to one another in two of the six front row seats. Four feet in front of you is a large bullet proof window, on the other side of the window you observe a twelve by twelve foot square, pure white, well lit room, which has squeaky clean, white tile flooring. ___ White is for purity.

After ten minutes of waiting, the room's only door opens and two men dressed in white hospital scrubs and wearing surgical masks, hats and gloves, wheel a gurney into the room and stop in the center of it.

One man locks two of the gurney's wheels. A third man wearing medicl staff apparell enters behind them. __ He's an M D.

Your only son, now at the age of 22 is lying down, strapped to the gurney. His body, except for his head arms and feet, are draped with a white sheet. His arms are strapped to chrome metal supports.

Your son looks to be cold and frightened and tears begin to water from his wide open eyes. He turns his head and stares at the window and attempts to smile. He cannot see you, because the room you are seated in is not well illuminated.

The two men work quickly and professionally, they gently place needles into both of your sons arms and then allow fluid to flow through plastic tubings, which are attached to blue and gray plastic containers that are hanging from one inch chrome poles affixed to the front of the cold gurney.

Your son is now staring at the plastic contaners and tears are streaming from his eyes. One of the men gently wipes his eyes with a kleenex, just before your only son's eyes close ____ for the final time.

You and your wife jump up and leave the observaton room. You have both just witnessed your only son, being gently and "humainly" murdered. ___ He died for a crime he never committed, but a jury of twelve had heard all of the circumstancieal evidence and found him guilty of a horrific murder of two young girls. ___ Justice was served.

It is never proven your only son was innocent Daniel, the man who killed the two girls is now, the only person alive, who knows that your son was innocent. Until your son died, there were two people who knew he was innocent.

Okay, ~DANIEL DAVID~ you may stop pretending now, ____ if you or anyone else ever did. ~

Could such a thing actually happen to an innocent person, a young man who had never broken any laws of our land? ______ Can a cat lick it's ass, do bears shit in the woods?

The answer is YES to all three questions. That short story is the first reason we must stop using the death penalty. There are several other good reasons also. That's the first and most important reason.

Thankyou Kem,

I would like to add that chances of the above happening to are dramatically increased if you happen to be black.

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States make up the top five countries where the most executions were carried out in 2007.

All arguments aside, what great company for a great country like ours.

Go Supreme Court! Go USA! Who needs the Olympics when you can compete for destroying your own citizens?

Thou shalt not kill, I think this includes thou state.

voxclamantis says:

"Daniel David - "….you sound like the kind of left-winger that keeps us other left-wingers from winning elections."

Now that is deeply cynical. A lot of political and business careers were launched in the Montana territory by members of vigilante committees who bravely lynched dozens of citizens with whom they disagreed based on no due process, no evidence, but demonstrating a nicely hardline attitude toward crime. Not unlike what our friend G.W. Bush did in Texas. I would not sell my left wing convictions, let alone my soul, simply to win elections. Read your Kant. Ends do not justify means.

As a card carrying left winger, I hereby oust you from the club."

Now, voxclamantis, you can't "oust" me from being a liberal citizen and advocate of issues---any more than I can "oust" you. And I'm certainly not trying to oust you or your views (or those of anyone else on CD) from anything. I'm just making arguments.

And what I'm saying about liberals having lost elections on dumb issues is not "cynical". A small segment of liberals insists we cannot do death penalty, then the vigilantes come out with "Willie Horton" ads and beat you (us) again.
And as penalty for allowing yourself to be painted into a corner on that one issue, you lose foreign affairs (think Iraq war), Supreme Court appointments, corporate regulation, universal health care, education relegated to a No-Child-Left-Behind mindset, federal deficit due to too many tax cuts, and even the battle over how many guns we'll allow corporations to make and sell into our ghettos.

You're suggesting I want to be a vigilante, when what I really want to do is defeat vigilantes politically. On this issue that is done by agreeing that there are some small numbers of people who have done, are doing, and will again do things so bad that we need rid of them. Real liberals will then also insist on very very high standards of trials, and absolute proof, and painless execution. This is done on principle of justice, and it also must be done to avoid losing all the other issues.

to KEM PATRICK,

Miscarriages of justice have happened all too often, but now the era of DNA evidence is here and we can use it to do better in the future than some of the horrors of the past. As a parent, by the way, I think I would be crying just as much over a son wrongly condemned to prison for life as over one wrongly executed.

Daniel David:

So what I'm getting is that in order to placate the ignorant American masses we should cashier the absolute evidence that innocent people are executed because there are so many other 'important' issues that we need to 'win' on?

And that, perhaps, a human system could be devised that would lower (but never eliminate) the number of innocent people that get executed?

Am I getting this right?

Because if I am, then one has to question, given your paradigm, whether America is a country worth saving. If we can't make the argument that no human system can reasonably assure that all executions will be carried out on people that are demonstrably guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, then we do not live in a civilized or educated country.

If all it takes is a "Willie Horton" type ad to sway enough voters to defeat progressives than, again, what is the point of trying if our best arguments fall on deaf ears?

You really want to cashier a fundamental tenet of civilized society to that you can rule an uncivilized society? Think about it.

Or should we really face facts here. Americans are raised to be violent and brutal killers. War and revenge are in our national DNA and no serious and honest student of American history could conclude otherwise.

And in saying that, I would move to Denmark if I could but I can't.

It makes no sense whatsoever to hold that we can reform the electorate after an election if said electorate cannot be reasoned with prior to an election. You and many others in the 'pragmatic progressive' camp make this fundamental error of logic.

The bottom line if you accept your premise, then the country is not worth saving.

So I say let the beasts have their executions - by the thousands if that's what the masses want.

But on one condition.

EVERY execution should be carried out by firing squad. Every rifle in the firing squad has a bullet AND the firing squads would be chosen, like juries, from ordinary people who are healthy enough to shoot a rifle. No exceptions.

After all, if this is what the majority of our society really wants, then it only stands to reason that members of that society should do their civic duty and stare down the condemned person in the eye - look them in the eye - and pull the trigger. And watch them die.

That would be fitting, don't you think? After all, if we can order 17-year-olds to shoot down entire Iraqi families in cars for 'running roadblocks' it's not too much to ask the average citizen to participate in one of the most substantive exercises of our nation's laws and creeds, isn't it?

tkerr,

What matters in a comparison of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA on numbers of executions are more matters of the "why" and the "when" than the "what".

Show us a list of the crime definitions that prompted the specific executions in all those countries in 2007. Also show us a list of how much time and effort was spent on trial, appeal and appeal of appeal to seek carefulness and surety before they were carried out. I think both of these would reveal the DIFFERENCES between justice in America and "justice" under communism and Islam. You're trying to put us in bad company and say we're just like them. But mere raw unfiltered numbers do not make that case.

Daniel David - I would not dream of ousting you. Your posts are too stimulating. You are to be commended for your willingness to stay in the fray with civil discourse while attracting the flak you do for your frequently unpopular views. Your views are unpopular with impractical, dogmatically principled progressives like myself because of your willingness to compromise, or "cashier" as kegbot1 says, those principles for the sake of winning elections. Once in power, you probably imagine, you will be in a position to fetch back those principles you have bartered away and advance a liberal agenda. So many young legislators start out that way, all on fire to save the environment or improve education. Legislative bodies are leech tanks when it comes to sapping away idealism. You start trading off votes, trading off favors, giving up expendable principles to salvage essential principles, and in a few years you look like those morally eviscerated senators you see on tv every day, rubberstamping war funds. Moral principles are not poker chips. They are your substance, and when you give them away there is less of you there to do anybody any good. Do you believe human life is sacred and that a prohibition on taking life is a good idea? Then believe it. Don't give it away. It compromises you and makes you look like all you are after is the power.

Frodo: It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.

kegbot1,

No, I don't think making spectacles of executions is "fitting". But I do think that blanket opposition to the death penalty is one of the (many) ways that liberals lost and Bush was enabled to start that whole situation you mentioned where 17-year-olds find themselves ordered to shoot at Iraqi families at checkpoints.

voxclamantis,

We'll have to agree, I guess, to disagree. I can respect you for standing firm on what you believe about death penalty. IF (a big if) that and other hot-buttons the Republicans love to press do not again cause liberals to be losing elections consistently in the USA, you might someday get the outright prohibition of executions that you seek.
If not, then you lose that and all other liberal agenda items too for a while longer.

Maplefudge scooped me on the quote from "Lord of the Rings". It struck me as "so true" from the first time I read the books; I was about 12 years old.

The pro-death penalty arguments here, interestingly, amount to a therapeutic justification; these views argue, in substance, that a relatively quick and clean death is more therapeutic for both society and the pre-decedent. Both parties get the closure they deserve!

This tidy, common-sense approach must have a down side they don't see, as Bart Simpson once remarked, since Amerika is one of the few nations that views the death penalty as comparatively enlightened. (Although it must be acknowledged that eight million Frenchmen can be wrong.)

Justice and virtue stops at the threshold of intentional state-sanctioned homicide; it does not enter the killing room. That is all.

Daniel, Daniel, you're not really addressing my points are you?

What do you gain when you win an election by bartering away that which makes progressives humanists and differentiates us from conservatives and other simpler life forms?

Do I have to write it? You gain the world and lose your very soul.

Would such a nation be worth ruling? It is YOUR paradigm that I addressed - we MUST cashier our opposition to the sanctity of not only life but our legal system's supposed protection of that 'life' not to mention liberty and the pursuit of happiness in order to rule a nation.

The cart does not come before the horse. You cannot logically say there would have been no war in Iraq had we compromised the principle of the legal right of personhood vis a vis the state's 'right' to take that life. What moral justification could we then ever use for arguing against pre-emptive war when we assume it's ok to execute people that we can't always prove beyond a shadow of a doubt are guilty?

This is not a parlor game of rhetoric - this is the CORE principle of who we are as a people and a nation and such things cannot be bartered away for the sake of political expediency. If you do that then EVERYTHING ELSE goes on the table as well.

kegbot1,

If you and other liberals win elections (several of them), you may actually gather enough momentum to abolish the death penalty. (You'll probably need enough elections and enough time to repack the Supreme Court, for instance, or enough time to get a constitutional amendment ratified.)
If you can actually do that, you may win the victory you want on this issue.

Given that the only recent half-liberal presidents were
Jimmy Carter for one term and then Bill Clinton who was elected the first time with 43% of the vote only by the Ross Perot accident, I'd say the purist liberals are losing mostly and it's time to be asking what group of issues is contributing to those losses again and again and again.

As for your fear of EVERYTHING ELSE going "on the table", good grief. Everything else IS on the table, has been on the table, and is being taken from us at the table year after year. Exactly none of the really liberal principles are winning lately. The purists never admit they might be part of the reason for that---but we need them to.

Your argument that now we have DNA evidence does not hold up ~DANIEL~ not at all. There are many innocent people sent to death rows when circumstancieal evidence, and or the testimony of a single eye witness PROVED their guilt and there was no DNA availabe to use to convict or aquit. If only one innocent person is ever executed, we as a nation failed and justice was not served.

DNA is an excellent tool, for one thing it's use has freed hundreds of innocent victems from prison, or saved them from being executed. DNA has also helped to put the guilty behind bars or on death rows. We must never overlook the FACT, that innocent people were on death rows or confined for many years, or serving life sentences and DNA evidence was ignored by juries at the first trial. So relying upon DNA to insure innocents are not murdered by the state is a feeble argument.

You say you would cry if your son was serving a life sentence and he was innocnet ~DANIEL~. So would I with those circumstances, but that is not the point, Would you prefer your innocent son was executed instead of serving a life sentence? You attempt to avoid the issue with a quick and thoughtless argument on a very serious subject. Your soplistic flip reply does not address the issue of the absolute wrongs of death penalties.

Do people commit crimes against others, against our society, that are so horrific the perpetrators are less than human? Indeed there are, many. Should we therfore enforce the death penalty, for revenge, or to send a message, or to insure they will never commit such crimes again?

That choice often seems to be reasonable and just and there is not a cruel enough method of killing them that would actually serve justice. By choosing that one way door however, we have also opened that door for the real possibility, that we murdered someone who was innocent.

Once we have killed an innocent person, there is no turning back, we cannot correct it. With life in prison, or 99 year sentences, there is always the hope of the innocent victem being released. Once we poisoned, shot, hung or gassed them to death, we became as guilty of murder as a Timothy McVeay or a Richard Geen.

Hi KEM -- There's much new on 911 thread for you, although I do notice that you've been putting up the good fight on many other threads, of a more recent variety.

Namaste