There is one overriding reason for capital punishment: the guarantee that a repeat offense will not occur.

It is a very strange thing that people make some sort of leap in their heads, thinking that keeping a man in a cage for the rest of his life is somehow a more noble thing.

It is another odd idea that the state should spare someone who, if his/her victim had been prepared, would have clearly been killed in self-defense.

But then again, there are those odd, ill creatures who think that self-defense is criminal or otherwise repugnant, and are determined to see that right removed from others.

I do not call for a spectacle, or for revenge or retribution - just for the elimination of the clear and present danger some human animals offer. We should not be cowardly about this simply because it's unpleasant.

True, words do matter and convey meaning. Yes - Obama should not have said the word "kill". If he had said "instead we will pursue him and cut off Osama's balls and put his scruffy bearded head on a pike on the at the two towers site. I would have started citizenship proceeding and voted for the man myself. Kill is too tame word. A strong leader should use strong words.

Now if Obama had said "capped his ass" that would have mad Obama sound like a thug.

WHo is this lady and why does she think her wacko opinion matters? Do we have a way to contact her? One of the better things that Obama has said is we will kill Osama.

I am also all for the death penalty, for many more situations than it's used. If you commit certain acts, you have forfeit your membership to society, and society has a right to rid itself of you. These people have nothing to offer. It's all well and good to pray God has mercy on them or that they truly repent, doesn't mean we have to give them the chance to prove us wrong. Capitol punishment is just taking out the trash on a societal scale. Self defense is not only a right, it's an expectation.

"I have sent out a request that Barack Obama, or Michelle Obama, get in touch with me."

Do we really need to read further to understand she's a moonbat?

Did Obama really say he was going to kill bin Laden?? Hell, I'll loan him my 30.06!

I'll want it back, though. o.O

I'm surprised that Alice Walker wants political leaders gloss over ugly reality by mincing words. In her own writing she uses direct, simple words to great effect. I've never read any of her comments on political rhetoric before, but I would expect that, like most good writers, she would abhor such mealy-mouthed attempts to sound "civilized" as "terminate with extreme prejudice" or "liquidate."

As a citizen of the free world, i think we should all chip in to pay for the Tomahawk-Class cruise missile that will get us rid of that S.O.B. Bin Laden.

Unlike Ms. Walker, I have no pity for a rabid predator. A rabid dog (regardless if he's canine or human) only deserve to be put down with extreme prejudice if necessary. Let's keep civility for those who promote it.

A Tomahawk-Class cruise missile would surely blow that S.O.B. Bin Laden to bits. That would be the right thing to do. But the "civilised" way to *describe* it would be "it achieved differential displacement of the target organism."

Although I am not a fan of capital punishment, since when does a country have any responsiblity for the well-being of someone that murdered thousands of its civilians? The arrogance of this woman is astounding.

Axman, I bow in front of your superior sense of civility :D.

"There is one overriding reason for capital punishment: the guarantee that a repeat offense will not occur.

It is a very strange thing that people make some sort of leap in their heads, thinking that keeping a man in a cage for the rest of his life is somehow a more noble thing."

The one valid argument against capital punishment is that it is irrevocable. A shocking number of death-row cases reversed.

War is the use of organized to achieve a political goal. The ability to conduct war, military power, is one of instruments of national power. Among all the instruments of power, it is the least precise and among the most expensive. Since war is violence, it is only about two things: killing people and breaking things.

Wars are of two types: limited and unlimited. Limited wars aim to force an adversary to do our will. Unlimited war seeks to annihilate an adversary as a political entity.

At a basic level, modern Americans have forgotten that laws only exist in the firmament of civilization carved out of a Hobbesian world by war, by killing people and breaking things. In this space we can talk about the death penalty and how morose it to use words like 'kill' in war rhetoric. Outside of that space, we must kill and break thing every now and then, no matter what we call it.

But as the Enlightenment thinkers knew, the relations between nation-states are analogous to the relations among men in a state of nature without the intervention of a sovereign power that enforces laws.

Hobbes believed that the life of man in a state of nature "is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Rousseau believed that man in the state of nature was free, wise, good, in a natural state of equality with every other man. Locke believe that man in a state of nature was equal by virtue of individual freedom, although fraught with a circumstantial inequality.

Using these three thinkers, you can construct a useful typology of modern political theories. When you read Ms. Walker or hear European leaders speak, you are encountering Rousseau's view: if only we didn't use such strong language and the trappings of force those nasty people would return their natural peaceful state.

When you encounter European advocates for a global sovereign, say the UN, you encounter the Hobbseian: man requires a sovereign to prevent the debased spirit of man from treating justice as the mere whim of the stronger.

When you encounter traditional American political realism, you encounter Locke: nation-states are by nature unequal in circumstance but free by virtue of their decisions and actions. The realist see the world as an endless negotiation in which violence is managed but never ended.

Whichever view you take, it cannot be denied that war is the natural state of international political affairs. Peace is an aberration one finds only within the space of freedom carved out by war itself, by that killing that so distresses Ms. Walker.

Peace is achieved only by the strength of war. Liberty and war will always go together. Rousseau's vision is simply false.

I'm sure Obama will pay as much attention to her wishes as he will to mine, or yours.

>>Madame word nanny continues -- most presumptuously...

Most newspaper guest columnists are hired to be presumptuous!

Though I see Alice Walker acknowledges Amy's spot on charge by "modestly" finishing her Obama piece:

So no, this is not exactly a criticism. It is a caution. About the power of language. One writer reminding another

This part gave me a chuckle:

"...There is also the black man factor. For many, finally getting to know a black man in all his glory is the high point of their education as American citizens. However, there lingers in the collective psyche a very carefully planted fear of same; that he is vicious, that he is mean, that he is... a killer. "

Barack Obama. . . vicious? He comes across as more effete than any President I can remember (i.e., since Truman). I'd be more afraid of meeting McCain, or Palin, or Clinton (Hillary, not Bill) in a dark alley than Obama.

The only reason I'm generally against the death penalty these days is given how corrupt our court systems and governments are in the west, its very likely we're killing innocent people far too often.

Well, isn't this cozy:

Emanuel accepts job as White House chief of staff (AP)
Barack Obama (D-IL) (R) speaks with Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) during a Chicago 2016 Olympics rally in Chicago June 6, 2008. REUTERS/John Gress/Files

Full article at Yahoo.com

I advocate a theory of justice as retribution. The state takes retribution for the victim. Retribution should be relative. If a person steals $100, retributive justice demands that the victim be made whole; the criminal must pay the victim $100. Then as retribution, the victim takes $100 from the criminal. The criminal is made to feel the loss he intended to inflict on others. If the criminal cannot pay, he is indentured to the victim until he can pay $100.

Murder is a different case. We can take retribution by killing the murderer. But we can never make the victim whole. So, the death penalty is the best we can do towards justice.

Some of you may find the idea of justice as retribution to be harsh. You may favor a theory of justice based upon rehabilitation, upon remaking the criminal into a productive citizen. I think these kinds of theories fail. Until we can say with certainty the causes of crime, we can't hope to remove those causes. Most assuredly we do not know what causes crime. It's not eve clear what 'cause' means in relation to human conduct. In any case, surely the most rehabilitative act imaginable is making whole the victim and paying a a relative penalty.

None of this is to deny problems with the policy of executing murderers. I'm just saying that executing killers is surely just, even while the means of execution may be unacceptably imprecise.

Emanuel accepts job...(Flynne)

Good catch, Flynne.

why is someone who is 50/50 Caucasian/African always a 'black'?
Is someone who is 50/50 Caucasian/Native American always an Indian?

I have sent out a request that Barack Obama, or Michelle Obama, get in touch with me.

What a pretentious twit.

Each time Mr Obama has said "we will kill" Osama bin Laden I have felt a testing of my confidence in his moral leadership.

As opposed to Ms. Walker's "moral leadership," a woman who, according to an earlier article in the Times, encouraged her teenaged daughter to be sexually active and "When Rebecca became pregnant at 14, Walker wasn’t shocked: she calmly picked up the phone and arranged an abortion." Yeah, that's the person we need lecturing the president-elect on his moral leadership.

Link to the aforementioned article on Walker and the great relationship she has with her daugher (referenced in this blog a few months ago:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3866798.ece

"The one valid argument against capital punishment is that it is irrevocable. A shocking number of death-row cases reversed."

And so inaction equals justice, just in case, after 40 years of doing nothing, somebody comes along?

I have to laugh out loud at the idea of "western" courts being corrupt - as if others aren't. That's a consequence of people thinking, wrongly, that they need not consider their system of justice because they're not criminals.

It remains that caging a man is not more humane than killing him.

-----

Oooh, Flynne has an '06. {thump-thump-thump!} Be still, my beating heart!

The man who preys on his brother is nae a man anymore. He is a mad dog, and should be dealt the same fate.

why is someone who is 50/50 Caucasian/African always a 'black'?
Is someone who is 50/50 Caucasian/Native American always an Indian?

This is closely related to the question why "people of color", as opposed to "colored people".

Yes, I know the historical freight behind the latter, but the former is no more than a grammatically clumsy reformulation.

Besides that, it makes the ridiculous presumption that only certain skin tones qualify as color.

Therefore, I am proposing new, far more accurate terms:

MGA: Melanin Gifted American. The darker the skin tone, the more gifted.

MCA: Melanin Challenged American. The lighter the skin tone, the more challenged.

Besides being perfectly descriptive, it puts me in a Challenged group.

Bring on the bennies!

The Alice Walkers of the world are the biggest hypocrites this planet has ever produced. She totally ignores the fact that she lives in safety only thanks to those unseen fellow citizens who put their own lives in harm's way to protect hers.

Benjamin Franklin would have a great problem with Alice Walker too. In his autobiography, which I've read, he speaks often of the hypocrisy of the Quakers, who were the Alice Walkers of their time. Some choice quotes of Franklin's can be found here.

God help us all if Walker & her ilk have a strong influence on President Obama!

"Mind your language, Mr President-elect -- Saying you are planning to kill someone is repellent to civilised people"

Oh, I do pity the dear confused lady, for she has mis-apprehended the entire situation. Our President elect was not coversing with the civilized. Rather, he was threatening the uncivilized, using words they themselves use and understand.

I am all for capital punishment, at least as long as we can absolutely guarantee that we will never execute an innocent person. Unless we have that absolute determination, and being found guilty in court is no guarantee, then capital punishment should be out.

OTOH, it gives me a little hope for our country, to hear such words from our next president. Kill the motherfucker already.

"Is someone who is 50/50 Caucasian/Native American always an Indian?"

-Yes, if there are casino royalties at stake.

The Alice Walkers of the world are the biggest hypocrites this planet....

"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - Winston Churchill

I'm so sick of the rest of the world condemning the U.S. for occasionally having a pair of brass ones. Turning the other cheek and using soft speech is great sometimes. Some times you just have to be plain spoken -- an example of that is the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Hmm. Wasn't that George Orwell, not Churchill?

"I am all for capital punishment, at least as long as we can absolutely guarantee that we will never execute an innocent person."

This might shock you, but "innocent" is even the subject of hot debate.

Capital punishment's inadequacies illustrate nicely the need for effective self-defense: you cannot be a victim, nor can you or a court kill the wrong person, if you are skilled at it.

Harboring a huge, steaming load of half-baked theories about "justice" after the fact doesn't protect you or your neighbor. (Note - this observation isn't about anyone specifically, but a lot of people, generally.)

By the way - we don't need a "system" that "guarantees" anything. We just need to recognize that we have the right criminal when we do, and be done with him.

Bang. Done. Effective, cheap.

Hmm. Wasn't that George Orwell, not Churchill?

There are several variations on that quote but all mean the same thing.

It boils down to the fact that many people have died to give the idiot the right to speak out even if the idiot doesn't have a clue what they are talking about. What truly upsets me is when that idiot is in a position to make a law of their idiocy.

If "CON" is the opposite of "PRO", what is the opposite of PROGRESS?

I'd rather Bin Laden were captured alive, imprisoned for the rest of his life, and unable to go out in a blaze of glory like his fundie faith says he should.

I won't shed tears if he dies, but for a would-be martyr, a life of confinement is worse than death.

However, I'm starting to have some sympathies for Crid's belief that the guy's already dead, I mean, no tapes at all from him this year?

It's Alice Walker, who has never gotten over Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize. She needs to go away.

The more I read about Alice Walker, the more I think she a hypocrite. How could she take a paternalistic attitude towards the President Elect when she's unable to raise her own daughter.

On another subject, have you noticed that Walker seems to target Black Men as the bad guys in her writings? The color purple doesn't have much god black male role models in it. Maybe Obama is titillating her in a way we don't know...

>>How could she take a paternalistic attitude towards the President Elect when she's unable to raise her own daughter.

On another subject, have you noticed that Walker seems to target Black Men as the bad guys in her writings...

Toubrook,
Alice Walker's pissed-off daughter has made a career out whingeing about her famous mother I've lost count of the number of articles in which the daughter - who is now almost 40 - declares she is "finally" getting on with her own life - only to serve up another stale slice of Mommie Dearism.

On the other hand, your second point seems valid. Somewhere along the line Walker has transferred the Bad Black Guy archetype from her own fiction to her journalism, which claims to reveal what white folks really secretly fear these days.

It is hard not to wonder about projection.

Radwaste -

We just need to recognize that we have the right criminal when we do, and be done with him.

Which is fine in theory, but in practice mistakes are made. Mistakes that we as a society can't afford to make when death is the penalty. The chance that we will execute someone who isn't guilty of a capital crime is not a reasonable risk to take, just to avenge the victims of capital crimes.

There is no value to be had in executing anyone, beyond not having to house them in prison and revenge. It is not a useful deterrent to other potential criminals and while the execution of the perpetrator might be rather cathartic to the families of victims, when weighed against the potential of executing the wrong person, it just doesn't compute.

This might shock you, but "innocent" is even the subject of hot debate.

Philosophical bullshit. Innocent in this context, is a person not guilty of a capital crime. I really don't care if the potential executee is a bad person - what matters is if they are guilty of the crime that would see them executed.

Harboring a huge, steaming load of half-baked theories about "justice" after the fact doesn't protect you or your neighbor.

Yet you or your neighbor could easily be the one falsely accused of a capital crime, tried, found guilty and executed. It's not just really bad folks who are mistakenly picked up for a crime they didn't commit. Sometimes it's someone who has never committed a crime in their life - as far as such a thing is possible. What would your feelings about those half baked theories of justice be, if it was you going to the chair for something you didn't do?

The only value in execution, is saving a few dollars (small cheese in the larger scheme of things). There is no reason we can't lock folks up for life, without possibility of parole - happens all the time. And occasionally someone locked up thus, is later discovered to be innocent of the crime. If they are in prison, we can rectify the mistake. If they're dead, not so much.

This isn't a half baked theory of justice. The half bakes theory of justice, is the one in which the potential for killing someone innocent of that crime, is an acceptable risk.

DuWayne, you're just not paying attention.

There are cases in which there is zero opportunity for mistake. These creatures are then kept alive by policy - the "if just one life" cry.

If you were not a newcomer to the argument, you'd recognize that the "if just one life" excuse has been applied to many situations - including one where you, DuWayne, would personally be prohibited from defending yourself with deadly force, no matter how many assailants attack you. You're outnumbered? Too bad. You might shoot the wrong person.

I'm not making this up. Gun possession arguments key on self-defense and capital punishment issues because the State takes the literal place of the victim in considering a capital crime.

Let's get logical, DuWayne. You are at the scene, and are the intended victim, the point of concern of a man who is actually shooting at you. Are you going to shoot back? If you don't kill him, should the government if he killed you? How about if he left you paralyzed for life? What happens if he missed you entirely, and you killed him?

Gee. You were judge, jury and executioner, just because you were right there. Maybe he was having a really bad hair day, or thought you were someone else. That should excuse him, you murderer.

Yes, the grand juries determine if you acted correctly. Yes, shooting at someone can mean a lifetime of debt defending yourself in court. That's what happens.

Yet individual cases can be solved without doubt.

How generous of you to suggest that I should feed, house and clothe your murderer.

I don't want you to do that for mine.

-----

You can find today's figures on crime at the Bureau of Justice home page. What you might not find is a quick summary of the prison population. It's not packed with innocent people, not by a long shot. It's been a buncha years (this is leftovers from when I argued crime issues on the now-defunct CNN Furms), but the Bessette Quarterly Report on Crime and Justice compiled these numbers, which they presented in their inaugural edition:

10% of those arrested for a felony violation of state law end up sentenced to a state prison for at least a year.
29% receive a sentence to a local jail for less than a year.
Nearly 3 of 10 convicted felons -- more than 240,000 a year -- receive no time behind bars.
Half of the criminals released from state prison each year serve 13 months or less.
For murderers, the median time served is 5 years 8 months; for rapists, it is 3 years 8 months.

Back in 1991, living felons had killed 112,000 people, raped 90,000, robbed 299,000 and assaulted 94,500 people.

What are we complaining about Iraq for?

Radwaste -

It's you who aren't listening.

There are cases in which there is zero opportunity for mistake.

These cases are exceedingly rare and, as I said, if we have absolute, one hundred percent certainty, go ahead and execute. But a jury finding them guilty is not one hundred percent certainty.

If you were not a newcomer to the argument, you'd recognize that the "if just one life" excuse has been applied to many situations - including one where you, DuWayne, would personally be prohibited from defending yourself with deadly force, no matter how many assailants attack you.

Please. please fucking argue with what I am saying and not bullshit that I am not. I really don't care about bullshit anti-self defense arguments. I am not anti-self defense. And this argument has absolutely nothing to do with the death penalty.

Let's get logical, DuWayne. You are at the scene, and are the intended victim, the point of concern of a man who is actually shooting at you. Are you going to shoot back?

Absolutely and he will not be alive after I do.

If you don't kill him, should the government if he killed you?

No. Unless there is incontrovertible evidence of his guilt. Keeping in mind that in this scenario, I am not around to point the finger and say it was him.

How about if he left you paralyzed for life?

As cathartic as vengeance might be, I support the death penalty in very narrowly defined situations and this is not it.

What happens if he missed you entirely, and you killed him?

Unfortunately, that depends on where it happened and a host of other factors. What should happen, is I get a fucking medal for ridding the world of a useless waste of oxygen.

But let me put my question to you again, in a better fashion.

You are at a dinner party. There happens to be another guest there with whom you have had serious problems in the past. After you have all had a few drinks, the guy starts razzing you about whatever problems you have had in the past and you start arguing rather voraciously.

After dinner he steps outside to have a cigar. Around the same time, you run to use the restroom. You come back to the room where everyone is having an after dinner cocktail, but he doesn't return. After a while your host goes out to find him and discovers someone has bashed his head in and he's dead.

The police investigate and find that he's been killed with the tire iron from your car and only your prints are on said tire iron. You are arrested and ample evidence is presented that you had a significant hatred for the deceased, that you were not with the rest of the guests when he was killed and that the murder weapon belonged to you and only your prints were on it. You are found guilty and sentenced to death.

No one knows that the deceased best friend (including the deceased) and co-worker has recently become aware that the deceased was fucking his teenage daughter. No one knows that he thought this would be a great time to kill the bastard that was fucking his little girl and blame it on someone else. Lets say this comes out a few months after you've been executed. The actual murderer is caught and duly punished - even punished for your murder, because that is effectively what framing you has made it.

Are you really ok with sacrificing yourself, for your idealistic notions of capital punishment? Keep in mind that if you had been sentenced to life in prison, without possibility of parole, you would have been released. But since you're dead, your mistaken sentence can't be reversed.

All the crime stats you bring up subsequently, are again, completely unrelated to the discussion of capital punishment. There we are dealing with different problems, problems that can easily be solved without capital punishment.

"All the crime stats you bring up subsequently, are again, completely unrelated to the discussion of capital punishment. There we are dealing with different problems, problems that can easily be solved without capital punishment."

This is about as false as anything I've ever read, anywhere, for the simple reason that the current jail population is a major and continuing factor in American jurisprudence. It's even a reason for your point.

I'm not sure what you're reading or how - but I'll feed and clothe your murderer, just like you want, because I don't have a choice right now.

Because people like you have mistaken anecdotal evidence and exceptions for the rule. It's amazing that anyone can strike for personal responsibility and accountability and then treat a group of people only as a class - when it's convenient.

Radwaste -

The problem isn't that I am mistaking exceptions for the rule. I just don't believe that the exception is worth the rule. I don't care if it is one innocent person executed, out of five thousand. That one life is worth the cost of housing the five thousand for life, instead of executing them.

Let me put it plain and simple; Would you still support the death penalty, if by some twist of fate, the exception were you?

By and by, it will probably be Tuesday before I am online again. I'm on a train and just happened to get a long stopover where I found wireless.

"Radwaste - The problem isn't that I am mistaking exceptions for the rule."

No, it's that you are mistaking individual cases, and individual rights for something a "rule" deals with appropriately.

Every case must be decided on individual bases. Every one of them.

And when you use a 20-cent bullet on the courthouse killer, you save a bunch of money you would have totally wasted feeding, clothing, sheltering and guarding him. Exactly what you would have saved had the bailiff shot him dead.

Notice this: I wasn't mistaken for him. Neither were you.