Politics
Killers: Life, death, and the gray paradox in between…
Given that earlier today, I posted my opinion on what I think the criteria of a true “killer” is, I find it ironic that I should run across an article dealing with the ethics of the death penalty for a person who meets the legally circumscribed definition of a “Killer”:
“The European Union notes with great regret the upcoming execution in the State of Texas,” the Portuguese presidency of the 27-nation bloc said in a statement.
Texas is expected to hit the 400 mark on Wednesday — putting it far ahead of any other U.S. state — with the execution of Johnny Ray Conner for the 1998 shooting of a grocery store clerk.
The European Union, which on Tuesday called the death penalty “cruel and inhumane,” is opposed to all capital punishment and has called for its worldwide abolition.
“There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime,” the statement said, adding that its irreversibility meant that miscarriages of justice could not be redressed. – [Yahoo/Reuters]
What I find most interesting about this article, is the EUs objection to the death penalty on the grounds that it:
- Has not proven to be a deterrent against violent crime.
- Is cruel and inhumane.
Oh really? I might actually have bought reason one, if the sole purpose of the death penalty was to be a deterrent to violent crime. But most of the people whom I think would think deserve the death penalty are people who could watch someone getting brutally massacred right before their eyes without batting an eye, and proceed to enjoy a steak dinner like nothing happened and then sleep like a baby that night. IMHO The death penalty is not a deterrent. It’s cleanup.
That’s not to say that the death penalty couldn’t be a good deterrent for the more normal types of killers. It’s just that nobody thinks it’s going to happen to them unless they actually see it happen, up close and personal. Humans are visual creatures. If you really want to make an impression on them, you have to show them. How many people you know have actually ever seen an execution occur? I’m willing to bet few to none. So how exactly is it intended to be a deterrent?
And point 2 is laughable at best. Is life in prison supposed to be less cruel than death? Sure you’ll be alive, but it won’t exactly be a picnic either. Many who get life ending up serving a reduced sentence anyway due to bing killed in prison. And inhumane? There are such things as humane executions. Is death by lethal injection inhumane? I don’t think so. If I had to go, what better way than to just fall asleep an never wake up again. Quick and painless. I don’t think it gets any more humane than that.
Now obviously, I have no intrinsic objections to the death penalty. There are some people who will never be able to function in a socially constructive way, and can never be rehabilitated. And I think these people only pose a continuing threat to the well being of everyone else, and can safely (in my opinion anyway) be removed from society. But there are problems.
The biggest problem, is the only valid objection I saw in the article. The fact that the death penalty is irreversible, and if there is a mistake there is no way to rectify it. I can’t argue that, because our legal system has many flaws. Innocent people are found guilty and the guilty walk free. On the basis of that alone, we ought to abolish the death penalty. Not because it’s not a good solution for eliminating incurably violent criminals from society, but because the system too flawed to accurately determine who really deserves that penalty.
The legal system, for all of it’s massive and highly detailed rules and regulations, is still run and decided by living, breathing, human people. Each person has different belief system, different ideas of right and wrong, and different thresholds and tolerances for things. And few cases feature objective and irrefutable evidence like a video camera or an audio tape that tells the whole story in an accurate and objective manner. The judge and jury often has to make assumptions and decisions based on assumptions. It’s just isn’t morally or ethically responsible to base anyones death on human assumptions and feelings.
But even if the system could determine with 100 percent accuracy who should get the chair, we can’t kid ourselves about what we are doing. There is a paradox to this way of thinking. We are, in effect murdering a person in cold blood. Yes, we are doing it to save the lives of others that we know could be killed if the killer is allowed to continue to live. But we are being killers ourselves, simply because do not have, and cannot come up with, a better solution. Imagine that. We have no imagination…
EU urges Texas to halt executions before 400 mark – [Yahoo/Reuters]
Only YOU can prevent Illegal Immigration…
Republican presidential candidate and former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani made what i thought was a rather bold statement:
“We can end illegal immigration. I promise you, we can end illegal immigration,” the former New York mayor said at a community center — the first of the day’s two stops in this early voting state.
Giuliani said he would require a uniform identification card for foreign workers and students and create a central database to track the legal status of visitors to the country. He told the crowd of more than 300 that 12 million immigrants have entered the country illegally.
“That’s a lot of people to walk over your border without being identified,” he said. – [Yahoo/AP]
Ok so I have one question. Has he seen the size of our borders lately? It isn’t exactly a short stretch of barbed wire fencing. You know, anyone who has successfully been mayor of NY has to have something going for them. But his recent actions have cast a serious shadow on opinion of both his competency and honesty. If it were so easy to stop illegal immigration, it would have been done already.
Instead, it appears he will simply be one of those people who employ sweeping, indiscriminate, invasive and ultimately useless legislation that attack everything but the source of the problem, just like everyone else, especially the current administration.
I mean, the database idea is pointless because by definition, we don’t have any info on illegal immigrants. They don’t exactly register with the authorities after jumping the fence.
And as I pointed out earlier, America has a lot of border ground to cover, it’s not such an easy task to watch all of it. I don’t see where he has come forward with a good solution for anything…
The only way to stop illegal immigration is if we stop hiring illegal immigrants. Stop giving them jobs. Stop giving them benefits. Stop making it worth their while to cross the border. I don’t think that is going to happen. Nor do I necessarily think it should. They have become a significant part of our workforce. I think we need to figure out a way to integrate the ones that are here, and then provide some sort of incentive for new immigrants to do migrate legally. Because clearly, prohibition isn’t working…
And before you say “Grant them amnesty? Give them an incentive? Preposterous!” think about this. How much of your tax dollars is already currently going to giving illegal immigrants health care? Do you want them to be able to put their share of that cost back into the tax pool? Or do you want to just keep carrying their share of the economic burden for them?
Giuliani vows to stop illegal immigrants – [Yahoo/AP]
The latest oxymoron… “Military Progress”
In this bloggers humble opinion, following in the uncompromising traditional paradox of “Military Intelligence” and “Military Solutions” follows the idea of “Military Progress”:
Even some critics of President Bush’s Iraq war policies are conceding there is evidence of recent improvements from a military standpoint. But Bush supporters and critics alike agree that these have not been matched by any noticeable progress on the political front.
Despite U.S. pressure, Iraq’s parliament went on vacation for a month after failing to pass either legislation to share the nation’s oil wealth or to reconcile differences among the factions. And nearly all Sunni representatives in the government have quit, undermining the legitimacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite.
OK, so apparently there has been no real governmental progress in Iraq, no political stability. What they do have is a stalled legislature, parliament on vacation and the mass departure of all Sunni reps. But that troop surge sure is is going good!! Yay for “Military Progress”!! So that’s why we are there is it? Military progress? Huh?
Actually, read the second paragraph of the excerpt again… I think the real reason we are in Iraq is hidden in there. I’ll give you a hint… Black Gold… And notice that it comes before the reconciliation of the different factions… Yeah…
Petraeus asserted that “we are making progress. We have achieved tactical momentum in many areas, especially against al-Qaida Iraq, and to a lesser degree against the militia extremists.” Still, he told Fox News on Tuesday that “there are innumerable challenges.”
Yeah. Innumerable. Like the fact that terrorists are guerrillas whose modus operandi usually does not include toe-to-toe battles with conventional armies. We can’t beat terrorism with sheer force of numbers people. Wake up!
“Barring a miracle, there will be very little political progress to point to in mid-September,” Cordesman said Thursday in a briefing on his trip.
Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon defense strategist and now president of the Center for a New American Security, said that “the clock in Washington is running down pretty fast. There’s sort of a wall next March-April. That’s when they’ll have to start replacing units, which will hit the 15-month mark.” Bush recently extended tours of duty from 12 months to 15 months.
“They’re going to have some very tough choices then. Either the ‘surge’ will de facto end and they’ll start bringing people out because there’s no units to replace them. Or you’re going to have to have a presidential decision to extend tours from 15 months to 18 months,” Flournoy said.
Yeah. Lets just keep increasing the tour lengths. Throw more troops out there. Keep on burning our tax dollars on a fruitless pursuit of terrorists hiding on their own turf with home court advantage. They will keep hiding until we leave. 6 months from now, a year, it won’t matter. And just think, in the interim we can create more terrorists by racking up civilian casualties engage and eliminate insurgents. You know. While we are in the neighborhood… Yeah. Great plan.
“The problem is that nobody in the United States sees any significant progress on the political front. The Shiites and Sunni factions in the government don’t seem to be able to get along. And that makes Congress wonder whether we’re making any real progress. Because, even with better security, the country can’t figure out how to take care of itself,” Thompson added. – [Yahoo/AP]
Thank you! Finally! A voice of reason. We can chase terrorists till we are blue in the face. If that country is unable to maintain a working, self regulating government, all on it’s own, it will all have been for naught. We should have thought of that before we even went in there. Oh. That’s right. We let the military do the thinking…
Iraq critics concede military progress – [Yahoo/AP]
The “Hello Kitty” police!!
Unruly members of the Bangkok Thailand, police force are soon to become a part of an unusual brigade:
Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring “Hello Kitty,” the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.
Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won’t wear the armband in public.
The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.
“Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok. -[USA Today]
HA! I’d like you all to give a warm round of applause for the “Hello Kitty” Brigade!! I am totally enthused by the number of creative disciplinary measures that I have been seeing lately. And this one is a doozy.
I mean what better deterrent is there than for a tough, macho Thai police officer to have to parade around in public with a hot pink “Hello Kitty” arm band on their arm, with hearts and everything!! I’m sure their adoring public with absolutely love it!
I love it…!
Bad Thai cops to endure Kitty shame – [USA Today]
China’s gentler, kinder side…
China has banned crude birth control advertising slogans for it’s national one child per family policy:
China has banned crude and insensitive slogans promoting the country’s ‘one-child’ family planning policy, such as “Raise fewer babies but more piggies,” which have stoked anger in rural areas, state media said Sunday.
China’s 28-year-old family planning policy limits most urban couples to just one child and allows some families in the countryside to have a second child if their first is a girl.
Critics say that has led to forced abortions and sterilizations and a dangerously imbalanced sex ratio due to the traditional preference for male heirs, which has prompted countless families to abort female fetuses in hopes of getting boys. – [Yahoo/AP]
Now the real reason I posted this was not because of the slogans, but because of the interesting detail that it seems that many Chinese families are aborting female fetuses in order to get boys.
It seems to me that, after a few generations of aborting female fetuses, your overall population production ability would drop dramatically. Which could be a good thing to begin with, but could turn bad really, really, quickly.
And it would suck to try and find a wife if you are a guy, because your selection would be slim to none. I really hope the Chinese what they are doing…
China bans crude birth control slogans – [Yahoo/AP]
Is Santa Claus Really Russian?
The Russian government, in an attempt to bolster its future oil production capability, has called “Dibs” on the North Pole:
Russian geologists claim that they have found a link between Russia and the North pole in the form of the Lomonosov Ridge, a geological feature on the sea floor. Because of this, they claim 460,000 square miles of ocean as Russian territory. …
… The motivation, as is often the way, is oil. The area is a potentially lucrative oilfield, and with the ice melting (ironically because of oil and the resulting climate change caused by its use), access will be easier.
The expedition leader, Artur Chilingarov, is quoted as saying, “The Arctic is Russian. We are going to be the first to put a flag there, a Russian flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, at the very point of the North Pole.” – [Treehugger.com]
I’m still kind of in disbelief at this. First off I don’t see how can any country can lay claim to any given territory on the basis of submerged geographical constructs? Anyone that paid attention during geography 101 will realize that there are a lot of land masses that are connected by currently submerged land tracts. If everyone went around claiming territories on the basis of this alone, we would currently be engaged in World War IV.
And then of course, when it comes to oil, governments are more likely to find a gazillion reasons to raise strong objections to such claims. We have all seen countries invaded for less. I think we have all graduated from the “this territory is mine because I say it is” school of thought that Russia is currently employing. This is the most asinine, juvenile and and ignorant mentality I have seen from Russia in a long time. They need to go back and hang with the adults. The kiddy table is ours.
There is enough legitimate conflict in the world as it is. Governmental greed is not a good reason for more. It is my humble opinion that the North Pole should remain neutral. We need to be looking for better ways to make power anyway. To hades with the freakin’ oil!
Seeking Oil, Russia Claims North Pole – [TreeHugger.com]
Politics Suck. That’s pretty much the gist of it.
When I hit the “New Post” button for this, I intended to rant about how the Clinton/Obama debate had gotten completely off track. But as I sat here thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that it’s an incredible waste of time.
I’m beginning to think that politics is basically just a great big corrupting machine. This fact hit doubly hard when I realized that somehow, the opinions of Mikhail Gorbachev made more sense (for the most part) than that of my own government. The fact that our presidential hopefuls are at each others throats rather than attacking problems isn’t helping my confidence in the future of the country much either.
07/28/2007 – UPDATE :
Now with added Cleavage!!
Clinton-Obama flap shifts race to negative tone – [Yahoo/Reuters]
Gorbachev blasts American ‘imperialism’ – [Yahoo/AP]
Washington split over Clinton cleavage – [Yahoo/AFP]
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