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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (91283)	12/18/2004 5:35:44 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793790

"The leading cause of death on death row is old age." By Ann Althouse If the death penalty is really the death penalty, why is California solving its problem of too many prisoners on death row by spending $220 million to build a new death row prison? It seems to me that if you are going to use the death penalty, you should carry it out reasonably quickly. But maybe what California has is not actually a death penalty: Franklin E. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of a book on capital punishment, said a bigger prison at San Quentin would be an appropriate metaphor for a state that values law and order but seems to have little appetite for Texas-style justice. Texas leads the nation in executions, with 336 since 1976. Its death row now houses 444 inmates. "What we are talking about looks like an inefficiency, but it may function to give us exactly what we want, which is a death penalty without executions," Professor Zimring said. "When people are ambivalent and not very honest about their priorities, it is very difficult to distinguish between ingenuity and inefficiency." He said that what was most remarkable about capital punishment in California was that even with strong public support for it - a Field Poll in March showed 68 percent favored the death penalty for serious crimes - there was scant outrage over the courts' slow-paced application of it. The suspicion is that Californians want to be able to express their condemnation, to say "you deserve to die," but they also want to say "we should not kill." It seems incoherent, but perhaps it is quite coherent. Thinking about it, I realize it is about the way I think of the death penalty.

To: LindyBill who wrote (91283)	12/18/2004 5:58:48 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793790

I don't think there's anything polite about, having found oneself in the company of black people, dumbing down one's language. It's dubious enough be race conscious so as not to say anything legitimately hurtful. And to assume that black people must be ignorant... I'd call that prejudice. At best it's patronizing. I agree with CB that it's polite, as well as more effective, to adjust one's use of fifty-cent words to one's audience, but making that adjustment on the basis of race rather than education or native language is iffy. In these matters it's a risk whatever you do. On a related subject, I was reading Sullivan today. He had a piece about whether a heterosexual saying "what a waste!" when he or she discovers someone is gay is insulting or a compliment. It never occurred to me that it would be anything but a compliment. I understand the opposite reaction now that he explained it but I think it's one of those shoulder-chip reactions. And, for the record, I have never advocated the avoidance of offense when that offense is not legitimate. My issue is about the impoliteness of piggishness not that of giving offense. The offense hobby horse belongs to others.