SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: KonKilo who wrote (18958)5/17/2006 2:30:37 AM
From: epicure  Respond to of 543310
 
I had a problem with him after he mocked that woman who was going to be executed. I'm anti death penalty as it is, but at least I understand the concept of being pro-death penalty. But mocking a condemned man or woman is not something I can understand.



To: KonKilo who wrote (18958)5/17/2006 8:36:47 AM
From: Suma  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 543310
 
That statement brings back the woman he had executed even though there were clergy who appealed to him on her behalf as she had a transformation as it were. Completely turned herself around. Forget names these days.. Had enough to remember my own... Do you recall ?



To: KonKilo who wrote (18958)5/17/2006 8:47:34 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 543310
 
GWB turned my wife and I off in one of the first debates, when he made the macabre little comment, with accompanying facial expression, about how the people he'd had executed as Texas governor were no longer a problem.

Yes, that was a nice Freudian moment.

The percentage of the public that identifies with him on this issue, if not the majority, is still really significant, and it's votes that count. Look at how many people seemed to passionately follow a sordid case that hardly concerned them like the Scott Peterson trial here in CA. Result - Schwarzenegger waited till the last nanosecond "because it was, oh, such a difficult decision" to pronounce on that Tookie execution we recently had.

They say that exceptional cases make bad law, and capital punishment seems to illustrate this. In practice it is applied so sparingly, and with such a long delay after the crimes come to trial, that it hardly can be said to be any kind of effective deterrent. You get a good media circus out of it more than anything.

My feeling is that there are unfortunately far more important problems facing the US going forward than a hot button issue like the death penalty.