🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark Crispin <mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> writes:

> [edited]
>Here's another part of the propaganda to debunk: the wierd notion that ``no
>other civilized country has the death penalty'' and that by having a death
 ^^^^^

IMO, the highlighted word is unnecessary wordiness and can be deleted.

Whether or not it is possible to be uncivilized and have no capital
punishment is left as an exercise to the reader.
-- 
David Barts  N5JRN                      UW Civil Engineering, FX-10
davidb@ce.washington.edu                Seattle, WA  98195

In article <MS-C.726270852.377401575.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>Mike Quigley writes:
>
>> many of those gathered outside the prison
>> to SUPPORT THE HANGING where [sic] CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS and RIGHT TO
>> LIFERS!
>
>So what is Quigley trying to prove?

Just this.

Why do Christians preach love, understanding, forgiveness, sanctity of life,
etc., etc., while they practice hate (OCA, Dodd hanging), murder and
rape (Bosnia), fear and greed (pick your favorite TV preacher), 
violence (against pro-choicers, even their own children), etc., etc.?????????

Seems to me 180 degrees from what was taught in the Sunday school I
attended.  But, then again, I flunked out of Sunday school early.
Must have missed these graduate courses.

Mike

In article <MS-C.726270852.377401575.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>,
 Mark Crispin <mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> writes...
>Dodd's death was not the gruesome
>horror that the antis portrayed.  No surprise; it's long been known that death
>by hanging is instantaneous when done properly, but science is always ignored
>when it interferes with ideology.

Operative words:  "when done properly".  One item I read in the paper was a
study that examination of skeletons of executed convicts in Ireland showed 19%
died of a broken neck.  The others, presumably, were strangled.  Ignorance of
science?

> 
>Here's another part of the propaganda to debunk: the wierd notion that ``no
>other civilized country has the death penalty'' and that by having a death
>penalty we are in the company of ``such nations as Iraq, South Africa, the
>Soviet Union [never mind that there is no longer such a country] and China.''
> 
>This bit of propaganda presupposes that ``civilized country'' is defined as
>``country in North America and Western Europe.''  This seems to be a bit
>racist to me.  Then again, lefties have never flinched from racism when it has
>been useful.  It is racist to label Korea and Japan ``not civilized'', yet
>they both have a death penalty.  By hanging in both countries, if I'm not
>mistaken.  Isn't it also racist to call Malaysia ``not civilized'', simply
>because it takes its drug problem seriously enough to hang drug smugglers?

I'm not familiar with Malaysia.  When, however, was the last time Japan imposed
the death penalty?  I don't recall anything recent.  As for Korea, I plead
ignorance.

> 
>I'm also not too sure about the use of ``civilized'' to describe Europe.  Now
>that the 45 years of enforced good behavior has come to an end, Europeans are
>gleefully turning back to ``ethnic cleansing'', neo-Nazism, and religious
>warfare throughout the continent.

True, but not necessarily relevant.

								Dan, ad nauseum 

In article <4146@master.CNA.TEK.COM> mikeq@freddy.CNA.TEK.COM (Mike Quigley) writes:
>In article <MS-C.726270852.377401575.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>>Mike Quigley writes:
>>
>>> many of those gathered outside the prison
>>> to SUPPORT THE HANGING where [sic] CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS and RIGHT TO
>>> LIFERS!
>>
>>So what is Quigley trying to prove?
>
>Just this.
>
>Why do Christians preach love, understanding, forgiveness, sanctity of life,
>etc., etc., while they practice hate (OCA, Dodd hanging), murder and
>rape (Bosnia), fear and greed (pick your favorite TV preacher), 
>violence (against pro-choicers, even their own children), etc., etc.?????????
>
>Seems to me 180 degrees from what was taught in the Sunday school I
>attended.  But, then again, I flunked out of Sunday school early.
>Must have missed these graduate courses.

While I agree with some of your assertions (about the OCA and TV preachers,
for example), getting back to the subject at hand, the death penalty, in
my mind at least, has nothing to do with hate. It has to do with a 
cost/benefit analysis of the situation. From my perspective, it costs
society more to keep Dodd alive, in terms of lives of innocent people. By
keeping him alive, we risk the lives of prison guards even if he doesn't
escape (he even said he'd kill a prison guard if given life). And if something
does happen and he gets out, we risk the lives of every young boy in the 
area.

I agree that the death penalty is not a deterrant. I agree that it costs more
money, on average, to execute someone rather than lock them up forever.
But I'm not willing to risk innocent lives on the possibility that, in
the next 50 years, a prison guard turns his back and gets strangled or 
someone does something stupid, Dodd escapes and young boys start disappearing
again. The death penalty is a permanent solution to the specific problem
of a specific heinious murderer. It's not an ideal solution. It doesn't
address the problem of preventing people from turning into WADs, but it does
cure the specific symptom.

In my view, that has nothing to do with hate.

	...Dave

P.S. I'm not arguing with your assertion that many Christians (or Muslims
or Jews or whatevers) don't practice what they preach; I'm just arguing with
your assertion that the death penalty is necessarily and act of hatred.