The Death Penalty
Comments
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Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:I can only speak for myself, but I'd say I'm actually TOUGHER on crime than those who support the death penalty. My position is that death lets the criminal off easier than a lifetime behind bars.
And again, I am NOT advocating for the criminal. I am advocating for the basic right of ANY individual, innocent or guilty, not to be killed by the state.
Hugh...not trying to provoke you... but I don't see enough of this in your words. You are 100% opposed to the death penalty. Fair enough, but realize that discussing such a topic then is nearly akin to discussing the second ammendment or religion with one of the zealots.
In the other thread that was suggesting prisoners had it too easy... you were very vocal that things were not that easy and that conditions were extremely poor for prisoners. Here you claim you're tougher on crime than many supporting the death penalty.
So, where do you actually rest?
I speak for the survivors and the justice for the mutilated and dead. I advocate for death in certain circumstances, but if death is not appropriate... shouldn't hard time be appropriate?
I illustrated conditions for two of Canada's most brutal mass/serial murderers:
One got married and is now applying for parole every two years now until death- forcing the survivors to attend, protest and re-live the experience at the same time.
The other sold bodies for cash, received excellent treatment for his cancer, made love to plastic dolls (which he complained weren't real enough- guess he was hoping for something he could stick a knife into without it popping?), and more.
The cash for bodies was interesting. Why didn't we feed this shitbird cabbage soup. let him sleep on the floor in general population, and deny him any of the luxuries he started to demand until he professed where he disposed of those children? Why did we cater to his needs and make a rich deal with him so that he would finally let the children be buried properly? I'll tell you why... because people really sensitive to the needs of inmates would have shit their pants. I'm not suggesting you are one of these people, but to these people I say, "Get a fucking grip, man!" We have gone waaaaaaaaaaaaay toooooooooo far in our sense of 'fair treatment' for people who step outside the law in grandiose fashion.
I'd just as soon wish that we wouldn't have crime at all. But given that we do... this debate centers on where we should be at regarding how we deal with the crimes that are inflicted upon us. There are two ends of the spectrum here: there is a grey area whether you wish to acknowledge it or not. Just because it feels right to you that we are not in a position to decide whether a man should live or die doesn't mean you are 100% correct (just as those who firmly believe it is their right to possess an AK-47 might not be correct as well).
When I speak of moderation... with death not an option... I could rest comfortably if one assured me that parole was not an option for slam dunk cases such as the ones I presented and conditions for people already discussed were nearly unbearable: Cancer? Oh well. Sure hope there is no Heaven or Hell... because you will be finding out soon, Mr. Olson.
Coould you accept my level of 'moderation'... or do you feel the need to treat Clifford Olson, the Butcher of BC' with some dignity?
I have stated numerous times that while I am against the death penalty, most criminals live in very poor conditions, whether that mean emotional, physical, or mental. there are, of course, exceptions to this rule, which you spoke about above. Those disgust me. Criminals should not be given those rights. I think the justice system needs an overhaul to stop that type of nonsense. is the parole and incarceration system perfect? not even close. does that mean I should "compromise" to include death back into the options? No. there is compromise in criminal conditions, there is no compromise in death.
all humans deserve dignity. they don't deserve blow up dolls or parole hearings every two years. but if someone is ill, I still think they need to be given health care, just as any citizen of Canada is afforded.
gender reassignment? no. chemo? yes.Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 20140 -
Read it and weep:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ishment-us
It's time for the demise of capital punishment in the US
The death penalty may be in terminal decline, but it's a symptom of a broken justice system that locks up 6 million Americans
Jill Filipovic
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
2012 was a bad year for the death penalty in America, but a better one for humanity.
Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.
That our government punished "only" 43 people by lethal injection in 2012 is a macabre achievement, but represents a significant departure from the death penalty-happy 1980s and 90s, when hundreds of inmates were killed every year. Those of us who think it's about time our country joined the ranks of civilized nations can only hope this trend continues.
The United States is in the good company of China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as one of the top five executioners in the world. Not to be outdone, we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.
Six million people are under "correctional supervision" in the United States. More than half of those are in for drug crimes. And of the people who are in prison for drugs, 80% are there for possession. Billions of dollars in prison spending, much of it directed at private enterprise, means that a handful of businessmen are getting very wealthy on the mass incarceration racket.
Prison in the US is not an equal opportunity placement. As Michelle Alexander details in her book The New Jim Crow, our mass incarceration system functions as a means of social control in much the same way that Jim Crow laws and even slavery did. Of black American men who don't graduate from high school, more than half end up in jail. African Americans are 13% of the US population but comprise 40% of its prisoners.
The death penalty is similarly racialized. Race and location play crucial roles in whether a prosecutor will seek the death penalty and whether a jury will award it. More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.
Even putting aside the fact that our prison industry is essentially a systematic method of racial oppression, we should ask ourselves: what purpose does the death penalty serve?
It doesn't deter crime. It punishes a perpetrator, but does so with a sentence that can't be undone. We can never know how many executed men were actually innocent. We do know that more than 100 death row inmates have been exonerated. We also know that our justice system is imperfect by construction, and that there is no way to ensure that no innocent person is ever convicted of a crime. In a flawed system, imposing death upon the convicted simply sets the stakes too high.
But even if we were able to be completely certain that all death row inmates were guilty, we should still oppose the death penalty. The state's ability to infringe upon the basic freedoms of its citizens through incarceration is not a power that should be taken lightly. It is a power that must sometimes be leveled to achieve a fully functional society, but it must be treated with exceptional reverence – the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty is, after all, the power to deprive them of the entire normalcy and much of the joy of daily life, to curtail most of what we understand as "living". To deprive them of life entirely is an egregious abuse.
State-sponsored, judicially-approved killings do not promote esteem or admiration for our justice system; they promote distrust, and at best, fear. Figures who establish their authority with extreme physical violence are not respected, whether those figures are parents, police officers or the courts. Modeling abusive behavior does not often lead to less abuse.
A justice system where the criminal defendant is presumed innocent, where the state bears the burden of proving guilt, where there are rules and protections against the introduction of evidence illegally obtained or unfairly prejudicial, and where all accused are entitled to be heard by a jury of their peers is, in theory, a marvelous one. But killing the people we convict taints what could be exceptional. Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
It does seem as though the US is headed in the right direction. It's too late for the 43 people who were executed last year. But for the 6 million who are currently in our correctional system, change can't come soon enough.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:Read it and weep:
A justice system where the criminal defendant is presumed innocent, where the state bears the burden of proving guilt, where there are rules and protections against the introduction of evidence illegally obtained or unfairly prejudicial, and where all accused are entitled to be heard by a jury of their peers is, in theory, a marvelous one. But killing the people we convict taints what could be exceptional. Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
It does seem as though the US is headed in the right direction. It's too late for the 43 people who were executed last year. But for the 6 million who are currently in our correctional system, change can't come soon enough.
Byrnzie...
It is disturbing to read of the statistics the writer detailed which describe the prevalence for prosecutors pursuing and achieving the death penalty with racial bias. I also find it disturbing when the writer presents statistics regarding the incarceration of children (the US had 70,000 kids in jail in 2010... Texas sentencing 400 minors to life in prison).
It also begs for examining the need for the legalization of drugs with 80% of the prison population serving possession charges. This number is gross. Outside of this fact- that sits outside of the argument for the death penalty (nobody is getting executed for the possession of drugs)- I have some problems with the piece.
I''m toying with the idea of supporting the idea for abolishing the death penalty, but when I read this type of opinion... I question what gets abolished next? Jill seems to think that not only is the death penalty weak... but long sentences are poor choices too. When the death penalty is gone... are long sentences next for the bleeding heart contingency of society? Jill loses me when she states the following:
Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
She's soft and neglects to remember the acts that have people placed in prison- or else she chooses to ignore them. She's a bleeding heart that has her emotions squarely in the corner of the criminals who's actions have hurt other people. Potentially noble? Really? There might be a potentially noble rapists or arsonist in the prison system that doesn't realize his potential given the fact that conditions aren't condusive for doing so... but what are we to do? Don't burn someone's fucking house down, man. Don't rape our daughters. Don't assault people at the subway station. And if you don't... you won't have a 'long sentence'.
I agree that small time hoods should not have to worry about being assaulted while serving their sentences. I would support better supervision to support them and secure their dignity and safety. As for the criminals of the 'grotesque' variety... I truly couldn't care less how their time is spent. If each day is a struggle... oh well. I guess you shouldn't have murdered that old lady for her purse.
If you find yourself in prison... don't be a prick while serving your time. Tow the line and you won't be placed in solitary confinement. What answers does she offer the prison system for dealing with unruly inmates? Jill offers fluff, but not much practicality. She critiques everything without offering tangible solutions to real problems and anybody can spout crap like that and sound eloquent.
If I read this piece correctly... did she promote doing away with the death penalty, doing away with sentencing people for long terms, and in subtle fashion suggest making prisons 'nicer' places (maybe where professionals can mentor and befriend criminals while having fireside chats and special coffees)?
It's fluff."My brain's a good brain!"0 -
Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:Hugh Freaking Dillon wrote:don't ever give the government power to take away our arms, but by god, let them have the power to take away our lives!
:fp:
Once you are convicted of a crime all bets are off...including owning a weapon and in the States where they support capital punishment your life.
Except people like Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, or Adam Lanza at Newtown, didn't have criminal records, and yet they still managed to get their hands on guns and carry out a massacre. So your point is moot.
How many people kill people in the US while drunk driving who didn't have a criminal record? I would have to say your point is moot.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:Read it and weep:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ishment-us
It's time for the demise of capital punishment in the US
The death penalty may be in terminal decline, but it's a symptom of a broken justice system that locks up 6 million Americans
Jill Filipovic
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
2012 was a bad year for the death penalty in America, but a better one for humanity.
Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.
That our government punished "only" 43 people by lethal injection in 2012 is a macabre achievement, but represents a significant departure from the death penalty-happy 1980s and 90s, when hundreds of inmates were killed every year. Those of us who think it's about time our country joined the ranks of civilized nations can only hope this trend continues.
The United States is in the good company of China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as one of the top five executioners in the world. Not to be outdone, we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.
Six million people are under "correctional supervision" in the United States. More than half of those are in for drug crimes. And of the people who are in prison for drugs, 80% are there for possession. Billions of dollars in prison spending, much of it directed at private enterprise, means that a handful of businessmen are getting very wealthy on the mass incarceration racket.
Prison in the US is not an equal opportunity placement. As Michelle Alexander details in her book The New Jim Crow, our mass incarceration system functions as a means of social control in much the same way that Jim Crow laws and even slavery did. Of black American men who don't graduate from high school, more than half end up in jail. African Americans are 13% of the US population but comprise 40% of its prisoners.
The death penalty is similarly racialized. Race and location play crucial roles in whether a prosecutor will seek the death penalty and whether a jury will award it. More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.
Even putting aside the fact that our prison industry is essentially a systematic method of racial oppression, we should ask ourselves: what purpose does the death penalty serve?
It doesn't deter crime. It punishes a perpetrator, but does so with a sentence that can't be undone. We can never know how many executed men were actually innocent. We do know that more than 100 death row inmates have been exonerated. We also know that our justice system is imperfect by construction, and that there is no way to ensure that no innocent person is ever convicted of a crime. In a flawed system, imposing death upon the convicted simply sets the stakes too high.
But even if we were able to be completely certain that all death row inmates were guilty, we should still oppose the death penalty. The state's ability to infringe upon the basic freedoms of its citizens through incarceration is not a power that should be taken lightly. It is a power that must sometimes be leveled to achieve a fully functional society, but it must be treated with exceptional reverence – the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty is, after all, the power to deprive them of the entire normalcy and much of the joy of daily life, to curtail most of what we understand as "living". To deprive them of life entirely is an egregious abuse.
State-sponsored, judicially-approved killings do not promote esteem or admiration for our justice system; they promote distrust, and at best, fear. Figures who establish their authority with extreme physical violence are not respected, whether those figures are parents, police officers or the courts. Modeling abusive behavior does not often lead to less abuse.
A justice system where the criminal defendant is presumed innocent, where the state bears the burden of proving guilt, where there are rules and protections against the introduction of evidence illegally obtained or unfairly prejudicial, and where all accused are entitled to be heard by a jury of their peers is, in theory, a marvelous one. But killing the people we convict taints what could be exceptional. Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
It does seem as though the US is headed in the right direction. It's too late for the 43 people who were executed last year. But for the 6 million who are currently in our correctional system, change can't come soon enough.
Ridiculous article to say the least. She should lay of the bongs before typing such a fluff piece.0 -
DS1119 wrote:Byrnzie wrote:Read it and weep:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ishment-us
It's time for the demise of capital punishment in the US
The death penalty may be in terminal decline, but it's a symptom of a broken justice system that locks up 6 million Americans
Jill Filipovic
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
2012 was a bad year for the death penalty in America, but a better one for humanity.
Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.
That our government punished "only" 43 people by lethal injection in 2012 is a macabre achievement, but represents a significant departure from the death penalty-happy 1980s and 90s, when hundreds of inmates were killed every year. Those of us who think it's about time our country joined the ranks of civilized nations can only hope this trend continues.
The United States is in the good company of China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as one of the top five executioners in the world. Not to be outdone, we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.
Six million people are under "correctional supervision" in the United States. More than half of those are in for drug crimes. And of the people who are in prison for drugs, 80% are there for possession. Billions of dollars in prison spending, much of it directed at private enterprise, means that a handful of businessmen are getting very wealthy on the mass incarceration racket.
Prison in the US is not an equal opportunity placement. As Michelle Alexander details in her book The New Jim Crow, our mass incarceration system functions as a means of social control in much the same way that Jim Crow laws and even slavery did. Of black American men who don't graduate from high school, more than half end up in jail. African Americans are 13% of the US population but comprise 40% of its prisoners.
The death penalty is similarly racialized. Race and location play crucial roles in whether a prosecutor will seek the death penalty and whether a jury will award it. More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.
Even putting aside the fact that our prison industry is essentially a systematic method of racial oppression, we should ask ourselves: what purpose does the death penalty serve?
It doesn't deter crime. It punishes a perpetrator, but does so with a sentence that can't be undone. We can never know how many executed men were actually innocent. We do know that more than 100 death row inmates have been exonerated. We also know that our justice system is imperfect by construction, and that there is no way to ensure that no innocent person is ever convicted of a crime. In a flawed system, imposing death upon the convicted simply sets the stakes too high.
But even if we were able to be completely certain that all death row inmates were guilty, we should still oppose the death penalty. The state's ability to infringe upon the basic freedoms of its citizens through incarceration is not a power that should be taken lightly. It is a power that must sometimes be leveled to achieve a fully functional society, but it must be treated with exceptional reverence – the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty is, after all, the power to deprive them of the entire normalcy and much of the joy of daily life, to curtail most of what we understand as "living". To deprive them of life entirely is an egregious abuse.
State-sponsored, judicially-approved killings do not promote esteem or admiration for our justice system; they promote distrust, and at best, fear. Figures who establish their authority with extreme physical violence are not respected, whether those figures are parents, police officers or the courts. Modeling abusive behavior does not often lead to less abuse.
A justice system where the criminal defendant is presumed innocent, where the state bears the burden of proving guilt, where there are rules and protections against the introduction of evidence illegally obtained or unfairly prejudicial, and where all accused are entitled to be heard by a jury of their peers is, in theory, a marvelous one. But killing the people we convict taints what could be exceptional. Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
It does seem as though the US is headed in the right direction. It's too late for the 43 people who were executed last year. But for the 6 million who are currently in our correctional system, change can't come soon enough.
Ridiculous article to say the least. She should lay of the bongs before typing such a fluff piece.
The only thing that's ridiculous here are your lame comments.0 -
Thirty Bills Unpaid wrote:If you find yourself in prison... don't be a prick while serving your time. Tow the line and you won't be placed in solitary confinement.
Tell that to Bradley Manning.
Tell it to Leonard Peltier.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:Byrnzie wrote:Read it and weep:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ishment-us
It's time for the demise of capital punishment in the US
The death penalty may be in terminal decline, but it's a symptom of a broken justice system that locks up 6 million Americans
Jill Filipovic
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 January 2013
2012 was a bad year for the death penalty in America, but a better one for humanity.
Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.
That our government punished "only" 43 people by lethal injection in 2012 is a macabre achievement, but represents a significant departure from the death penalty-happy 1980s and 90s, when hundreds of inmates were killed every year. Those of us who think it's about time our country joined the ranks of civilized nations can only hope this trend continues.
The United States is in the good company of China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as one of the top five executioners in the world. Not to be outdone, we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.
Six million people are under "correctional supervision" in the United States. More than half of those are in for drug crimes. And of the people who are in prison for drugs, 80% are there for possession. Billions of dollars in prison spending, much of it directed at private enterprise, means that a handful of businessmen are getting very wealthy on the mass incarceration racket.
Prison in the US is not an equal opportunity placement. As Michelle Alexander details in her book The New Jim Crow, our mass incarceration system functions as a means of social control in much the same way that Jim Crow laws and even slavery did. Of black American men who don't graduate from high school, more than half end up in jail. African Americans are 13% of the US population but comprise 40% of its prisoners.
The death penalty is similarly racialized. Race and location play crucial roles in whether a prosecutor will seek the death penalty and whether a jury will award it. More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.
Even putting aside the fact that our prison industry is essentially a systematic method of racial oppression, we should ask ourselves: what purpose does the death penalty serve?
It doesn't deter crime. It punishes a perpetrator, but does so with a sentence that can't be undone. We can never know how many executed men were actually innocent. We do know that more than 100 death row inmates have been exonerated. We also know that our justice system is imperfect by construction, and that there is no way to ensure that no innocent person is ever convicted of a crime. In a flawed system, imposing death upon the convicted simply sets the stakes too high.
But even if we were able to be completely certain that all death row inmates were guilty, we should still oppose the death penalty. The state's ability to infringe upon the basic freedoms of its citizens through incarceration is not a power that should be taken lightly. It is a power that must sometimes be leveled to achieve a fully functional society, but it must be treated with exceptional reverence – the power to deprive a citizen of their liberty is, after all, the power to deprive them of the entire normalcy and much of the joy of daily life, to curtail most of what we understand as "living". To deprive them of life entirely is an egregious abuse.
State-sponsored, judicially-approved killings do not promote esteem or admiration for our justice system; they promote distrust, and at best, fear. Figures who establish their authority with extreme physical violence are not respected, whether those figures are parents, police officers or the courts. Modeling abusive behavior does not often lead to less abuse.
A justice system where the criminal defendant is presumed innocent, where the state bears the burden of proving guilt, where there are rules and protections against the introduction of evidence illegally obtained or unfairly prejudicial, and where all accused are entitled to be heard by a jury of their peers is, in theory, a marvelous one. But killing the people we convict taints what could be exceptional. Meting out exceptionally long prison sentences, and punishing offenders with state-sponsored physical and psychologically torture like solitary confinement, and tangential but ignored physical and psychological torture like prison rape and assault, turn the potentially noble into the actively sadistic.
It does seem as though the US is headed in the right direction. It's too late for the 43 people who were executed last year. But for the 6 million who are currently in our correctional system, change can't come soon enough.
Ridiculous article to say the least. She should lay of the bongs before typing such a fluff piece.
The only thing that's ridiculous here are your lame comments.
Not lame at all. Someone writes an article...a subjective one at that...and I guess we should all read it and take it as some divine truth.
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Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:How many people kill people in the US while drunk driving who didn't have a criminal record? I would have to say your point is moot.
What does that have to with it? NOTHING, that's what.
Keep the silly comments coming.
Well since this was your quote
"Except people like Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, or Adam Lanza at Newtown, didn't have criminal records, and yet they still managed to get their hands on guns and carry out a massacre. So your point is moot."
What does this have to do with the death penalty then? :?0 -
DS1119 wrote:Well since this was your quote
"Except people like Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, or Adam Lanza at Newtown, didn't have criminal records, and yet they still managed to get their hands on guns and carry out a massacre. So your point is moot."
What does this have to do with the death penalty then? :?
Because you said this:DS1119 wrote:Once you are convicted of a crime all bets are off...including owning a weapon and in the States where they support capital punishment your life.
Nothing to do with drunk driving.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:Well since this was your quote
"Except people like Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, or Adam Lanza at Newtown, didn't have criminal records, and yet they still managed to get their hands on guns and carry out a massacre. So your point is moot."
What does this have to do with the death penalty then? :?
Because you said this:DS1119 wrote:Once you are convicted of a crime all bets are off...including owning a weapon and in the States where they support capital punishment your life.
Nothing to do with drunk driving.
Still makes zero sense. This is a talk about the death penalty. :?0 -
DS1119 wrote:Not lame at all. Someone writes an article...a subjective one at that...and I guess we should all read it and take it as some divine truth.
So you're claiming the figures she presents are false?
Here's what she said:
'Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.'
'..we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.'
'More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.'
You say the article is subjective and that her facts are false? So now put your fucking money where your mouth is and show us how and why they're false.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:Not lame at all. Someone writes an article...a subjective one at that...and I guess we should all read it and take it as some divine truth.
So you're claiming the figures she presents are false?
Here's what she said:
'Executions have decreased 75% since their peak in 1996, and Connecticut joined 17 other states and the District of Columbia in abolishing capital punishment. All in all, the United States justice system killed 43 people last year.'
'..we imprison more people than any other nation ever has – more than China, more than the Soviet Union at the height of the gulags. We have 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners. And we lock up more of our children than anyone else: more than 70,000 kids were in jail in 2010, and Texas alone has sentenced more than 400 minors to life behind bars.'
'More than three quarters of death penalty convictions are for crimes involving white victims, even though half of all murder victims in the US are black. And a black defendant accused of murdering a white victim is three times more likely to get the death penalty than a white person accused of killing a white victim.'
You say the article is subjective and that her facts are false? So now put your fucking money where your mouth is and show us how and why they're false.
You did read the link to the website I posted earlier in the thread correct? And there you go with your old trick of trying to put words into people's mouths. I never said her statistics were false. I think I posted about that earlier too. Her translation and inclusion and exclusion of statistics is fully subjective.0 -
DS1119 wrote:You did read the link to the website I posted earlier in the thread correct?
Probably not. Maybe you can explain how your link has any relevance to anything you've posted on the last two pages of this thread?DS1119 wrote:And there you go with your old trick of trying to put words into people's mouths. I never said her statistics were false. I think I posted about that earlier too. Her translation and inclusion and exclusion of statistics is fully subjective. Having fun playing your silly little games are you?
Go ahead and enlighten us all with the statistics that that you claim she left out of her article, and that render her article a 'ridiculous fluff piece'.
I'm waiting.0 -
Byrnzie wrote:DS1119 wrote:You did read the link to the website I posted earlier in the thread correct?
Probably not. Maybe you can explain how your link has any relevance to anything you've posted on the last two pages of this thread?DS1119 wrote:And there you go with your old trick of trying to put words into people's mouths. I never said her statistics were false. I think I posted about that earlier too. Her translation and inclusion and exclusion of statistics is fully subjective. Having fun playing your silly little games are you?
Go ahead and enlighten us all with the statistics that that you claim she left out of her article, and that render her article a 'ridiculous fluff piece'.
I'm waiting.
Again...check the link that you said you didn't read...and actually I think you stated you wouldn't read a few pages back. All of the stats you need.0 -
DS1119 wrote:Again...check the link that you said you didn't read...and actually I think you stated you wouldn't read a few pages back. All of the stats you need.
I can't be bothered to look for it. So why don't you post it again and explain how it directly contradicts the figures posted by Jill Filipovic in the Guardian article?
Or perhaps you didn't actually read anything on the page to the link you posted, but just saw that it was a pro-death penalty website and so thought you'd drop it into the fray without having a fucking clue about what it contained?0 -
DS1119 wrote:
It works fine. But I'm not gonna play your silly games. Also, I happen to think you're full of shit, and that you haven't actually looked at the webpage you posted the link to. I think you don't have the faintest fucking clue what that webpage contains, even less how it contradicts the statistics of the article I posted above.0
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