The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by doggo:

Okay, I lied. I am back.

Well Lydia, it's certainly hard to swallow, but of course you make a lot of sense.

This is why it's difficult. This 17 year old kid who allegedly killed my girlfriend(a more complicated relationship than that, but for brevity's sake) had a long history of criminal behavior. Which is disturbing when you consider his age. Not only that, he had just been let out of juvenile detention a few days earlier after being held for some other violent crime.

And I suppose I could accept as justice that he would get a life sentence, but if he got anything less, then he still gets a chance for a life. Something he deprived a hard working, coming up in the world, just starting to live HER OWN life, young woman. But anything less is unthinkable.

For what it's worth Lydia, you've appealed to my more liberal nature. But as you say, our system of justice in the US is terribly flawed.

And I have to say using Texas as an example is just not fair.

Here's a question for the rest of you: do you believe that killing someone in self-defence if your life is in imminent danger is acceptable? If you do, how can you be sure that person is really going to kill you? Do you not protect yourself and potentially die?

Let me just add one more point and I'll trouble you no further.

The experience of losing a loved one to murder is unlike losing someone in any other way. Many of us have lost loved ones to old age, illness, accidents, war, maybe even execution. Murder is different. The closest is probably accidents, but death by accident doesn't have the element of malice and intention. But it has the same suddeness, the unexpectedness, the unreasonableness.

For those of you on your moral high horse I suggest to you that your feelings might change when you see the dead body of a girlfriend, mother, father, best friend, etc., and you realize that someone stood over them in their last moments and actively made it their business to take your loved one's life. Or when you examine the crime scene or autopsy photographs. Or read the police report. Or attend the trial.

And for those of you who remain faithful to your God and moral principles and decry capital punishment even after the brutal murder of a loved one. Well, you people are saints. And bless you.

"a conservative is a liberal who92s been mugged." "liberal is sometimes a conservative who92s been arrested." These are very trite cliches, but they do hold some truth. Our life experiences change the way we think, what we believe. This is why so many young people are so ardently one way or the other. They see things in black and white. They have yet to experience the things that will cause them to question their beliefs.

Avram,

"Oh, let's make it a bit more interesting: The sacrifice is someone near and dear to you -- spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, child, best friend, whoever you love best"

Okay. Done. Someone near and dear to HAS been sacrificed. Murdered to be exact. May 10th as a matter of fact.

Let me give you a clue, until you've lost someone you love to violent crime you have no idea how evil criminals really are. Nor do you understand the impact it has on the lives around the victim. Murder destroys the lives of the survivors as well. It's like dropping a stone into a pond.

I'll say this, anyone who values life so little as to kill someone else for $10 & a credit card, and brag about it to his "homies", doesn't deserve all the compassion you all espouse.

You guys forget, the people we're talking about would snuff you out if you so much as inconvenienced them. And I resent my taxes going feed and clothe and house them.

I still believe it's worth the risk of wrongly executing a small percentage of innocent people in order to exact vengeance, justice on those who aren't innocent. To rid the world of people who would pass on either genetically, or socially the kind of values that believe that taking someones life casually is acceptable.

And your point is well taken Avram, the risk is very high at this point, the justice system being the way it is. I would want the percentage to be very low. How low? I have no idea.

And let's "make it a bit more interesting", I was the number one suspect there for a while. Imagine how that feels.

Believe me, I don't think of the death penalty casually in any way. I understand the consequences of innocent people being executed, it could have been me. I understand the consequences of guilty people being executed. They have families, and loved ones too. I just believe the price to be paid for breaking society's laws and taking a life should be harsher than allowing someone to have a life, even if it is in prison.

Like I said, I don't have the answers. I know the justice system needs to be reformed. I know that it needs to work better to prevent innocent people from being incarcerated and executed. A lot better. I just don't know how to do that. But I do support capital punishment.

And Xopher, I don't believe execution is murder. It is killing a person to be sure, but not murder.

Kip,

Absolutely not aiming for parity.

My point about the death penalty is that I'm willing to accept a small number of failures in conviction (that is, innocents sentenced to death), in order to reduce the larger number of innocent people killed by murderers.

But at this point, our justice system is mired with people in jail for socially archaic crimes.

This is not to say that I don't support efforts to reduce the causes of serious crimes. Things like an economy that produces jobs. Healthcare that works, including support for mental-healthcare and addiction treatment. And other programs which reduce elements in the society which produce criminals and crime.

But I admit, I personally don't have the answers. I'll leave that to people who're much smarter than me.

I used to be very liberal. Then I spent some time in Cabrini Green. Then I was a lot less liberal, but not quite moderate.

Recently I had a very special friend murdered in a botched purse snatching. The guy choked the life out of her for $10 and a credit card.

I have a cousin in jail for murder. I've never visited him.

I'll tell you what, it not quite as simple as you might believe. Maybe if we'd quite wasting our resources on the "war against drugs", and use our justice system to prosecute murderers, rapists, and thieves, epecially corporate thieves, then maybe the resources of the justice system could be used to ensure guilt and prevent the conviction of the innocent.

And prison is prison. I don't give a damn if they can't get information from the Internet. They shouldn't even have television.

I'm all for the death penalty too. If the justice system isn't overloaded by recidivists, and petty drug offenses, then the liklihood of bad convictions would be lessened.

Besides, what's the ratio of innocents executed in death penalty cases to innocents executed by criminals on the street?

As a lifelong liberal, I have to say that Michael Moore disgusts me. What better way to get your views dismissed than to lie. What a jackass.

Comment statistics for doggo on the Electrolite blog

Total: 6 comments. View all these comments on a single page.