# Damn murderers! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 22, 2011, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186 "2011-09-22T10:54:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/41 "2011-09-22T13:26:01Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Ann Coulter is an attorney and officer of the court. Plus she is employed by and writes columns for corporations that bear a certain amount of civic responsibility. That puts [this](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183006,00.html) in an interesting light. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > If you or anyone else has proof that anything she said was inaccurate I will be happy to read it, but until someone comes up with something substantial to indicate she’s in error I think the weight of evidence with regard to factual honesty is in her favor. Well, there’s [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_coulter#Ionizing_radiation_as_.22cancer_vaccine.22). ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/42 "2011-09-22T13:42:41Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > how does it feel to know that the USA belong to the same club as human rights bastions like China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and Saudi Arabia? And congratulations on that, too This is patently absurd. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/43 "2011-09-22T13:49:27Z")
It really, really isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/44 "2011-09-22T13:51:53Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Ann Coulter is an attorney and officer of the court. Plus she is employed by and writes columns for corporations that bear a certain amount of civic responsibility. I have heard many complaints about her political views but no substantive accusations as the her honest when reciting facts. I looked over her Wiki page for the express purpose of trying to find out if she has a history of lying about the facts she presents, and while I didn’t read every single word I didn’t find anything to indicate a history of her having done so. If you or anyone else has proof that anything she said was inaccurate I will be happy to read it, but until someone comes up with something substantial to indicate she’s in error I think the weight of evidence with regard to factual honesty is in her favor. …No, Anne Coulter is a right-wing retard on the same line as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. I’d call her the right-wing Michael Moore, but then again Moore is at least right _some of the time_. If you think she’s a reliable source, then you are _not paying attention_. [http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/01/ann\_coulters\_lies.php](http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/01/ann_coulters_lies.php) > **[Ann Coulter on Evolution: Part 1](https://outsidethebeltway.com/ann_coulter_on_evolution_part_1/)** > > Today at the bookstore I saw that Coulter's book, Godless was marked 30% off and I decided to buy it. I've skipped the first 7 chapters as those arguments bore me (as is true of Coulter in general). But chapter 8....chapter 8 is very good, if you... [http://slannder.homestead.com/](http://slannder.homestead.com/) [http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=337389](http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=337389) \<- Especially indicative of just how stupid this bitch is [http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/anncoulter.htm](http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnyquotes/a/anncoulter.htm) \<- Proof that she’s _fucking crazy_ Coulter is insane. She is a partisan right-wing hack with a very poor grasp on reality, science, how the world works, and the like. She is _not_ worth taking seriously. Those corporations she writes for? Either her writings there are considerably different from her books, this article, and anything else of hers I’ve read, or she writes for a site whose “civic responsibility” is in the same category of that of Conservapedia and Answers In Genesis. And as I said: using her as a source on a topic like this is like using Michael Moore: sure, maybe you can’t immediately prove that he’s a serial liar, but you can guarantee that his view on the subject will not, by any stretch of the imagination, be balanced. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/45 "2011-09-22T14:01:01Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > It really, really isn’t. No, it really, really is. The notion that the US is within even a couple of orders of magnitude of North Korea in terms of human rights, is ridiculous. Amnesty International’s implication that this is the case because we execute the clearly, obviously, blatantly guilty is a severe case of crying “Wolf”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/46 "2011-09-22T14:02:25Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Ann Coulter is an attorney and officer of the court. Plus she is employed by and writes columns for corporations that bear a certain amount of civic responsibility. I have heard many complaints about her political views but no substantive accusations as the her honest when reciting facts. I looked over her Wiki page for the express purpose of trying to find out if she has a history of lying about the facts she presents, and while I didn’t read every single word I didn’t find anything to indicate a history of her having done so. If you or anyone else has proof that anything she said was inaccurate I will be happy to read it, but until someone comes up with something substantial to indicate she’s in error I think the weight of evidence with regard to factual honesty is in her favor. She certainly has a history of strawmanning the opposition. In _Slander_, for instance, she says of the Bush tax cuts something like, “The Democrat’s argument against Bush’s tax cut was to demand to know how exactly it would help anyone, but it’s obvious: People would have more money. That’s an improvement right there. More money will give people more money. What am I missing?” Now, I am a fan of the tax cuts. But her statement ignores several cogent objections to the policy – not the least of which is that by cutting taxes, you either run a deficit or cut services, and if you cut services, then people lost money or its equivalent in services. That was the debate, not the simplistic assertion that Democrats couldn’t understand that tax cuts gave more spending money to people who pay taxes. And I can think of deliberate lies. In Slander again, Coulter skewers Gloria Steinem for hypocrisy, claiming she accepted over a million dollars from her then-paramour Mort Zuckerman to keep Ms. Magazine going, and then bragged to Primetime Live that she didn’t even love him. But the truth is that Zuckerman did not give Steinem or Ms. Magazine the million – he assisted them in obtaining a $700K bank loan and donated about $400K. By deliberately eliminating the fact that the bulk of the money was a loan (repaid by the magazine, by the way) and not even a loan from Zuckerman himself, she lies. And the Primetime Live about not loving Zuckerman was itself out of context, a present statement about a past relationship. In an effort to show how dismissive the New York Times is to conservative Southerners, Coulter claimed that the paper didn’t cover Dale Earnhardt’s death on page 1. It did. These are off the top of my head. Undoubtedly there are quite a few more fetching examples. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/47 "2011-09-22T14:03:29Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > This is patently absurd. [Here’s a map of the company you’re in](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Capital_Punishment_In_The_World). Good job you guys. ---
**Author:** ![ballardfam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@ballardfam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ballardfam)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/48 "2011-09-22T14:10:39Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > An American columnist with not only a political agenda, but more history of insanity than Sheen and Manson put together as well. > > Look, I’m not particularly informed in this case, nor am I particularly _interested_ in it. I have not been following the media reports. At the moment, it seems kind of like a “he said she said” story to me, probably because I’m not that well-informed. However, regardless of the state of my information, **Starving Artist** , you should know damn well better than to cite Anne Coulter. That’s like citing Michael Moore in response to a topic where there’s partisan anger on both sides and the results are unclear: as far as evaluating your source material goes, you might as well be citing The National Enquirer or Mad Magazine. Agreed. There’s too much agenda there. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/49 "2011-09-22T14:23:53Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > [Here’s a map of the company you’re in](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Capital_Punishment_In_The_World). Good job you guys. You’ve got your logic backwards. Bad people are bad because they do bad things. Bad things are _not_ bad because bad people do them. So please, stop trotting out this association fallacy as if it means something, unless you’re willing to tar [the International Military Tribunal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trial#The_main_trial) with the same brush. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/50 "2011-09-22T14:28:08Z")
Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but in this exchange: > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > > [@Norse](#): > > > > how does it feel to know that the USA belong to the same club as human rights bastions like China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and Saudi Arabia? And congratulations on that, too > > This is patently absurd. **2square4u** is plainly correct and **FoieGrasIsEvil** is plainly not. You can argue that you’re all right being in that club and like it perfectly fine, but you can’t argue the US isn’t in it. > [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t believe there’s any doubt as to the man’s guilt. > > But I do think it makes us brutal and damages us, as a nation, to kill a person for reasons that amount to vengeance. The other classic justification for the death penalty is deterrence and I hope it’s acknowledged that enough studies concerning the lack of actual deterring effect exist that no one is going to ride that horse in here. > > I don’t like to argue for the death penalty because it makes me sick to think that we use it - that a human being, whatever his crime, has his life deliberately snuffed out by order of the state. I thoroughly agree with **Bricker** here. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/51 "2011-09-22T14:31:37Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > These are off the top of my head. Undoubtedly there are quite a few more fetching examples. Thanks for the heads up. I haven’t read any of Coulter’s books and only a handful of her columns, plus I don’t watch Fox, so my view of Coulter is fairly limited. In the future I will do some checking before taking her at her word. I appreciate the information. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/52 "2011-09-22T14:45:20Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I would have a bit more respect for DP opponents if they could say honestly ‘yes, he’s guilty as Cain. But don’t execute him.’ What about, "he’s _probably_ guilty as Cain, but any human endeavor is error-prone, and carrying out a death sentence is beyond the standard humans are capable of because there is no way to rectify it?’ ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/53 "2011-09-22T14:49:07Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I can’t open this link either, but no need to since no one worth reading would > mention the US in the same breath with the others you name. Ah. “I don’t like them, thus I utterly reject that we have anything, up to however not including the fact that we belong to the same species. Regardless of facts showing the opposite”. Got it. Since you can’t be bothered to open the link, here are the facts: Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2010 1. China 2. Iran 3. North Korea 4. Yemen 5. United States 6. Saudi Arabia Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2009 1. China 2. Iran 3. Iraq 4. Saudi Arabia 5. United States Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2008 1. China 2. Iran 3. Saudi Arabia 4. United States 5. Pakistan 6. Iraq Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2007 1. China 2. Iran 3. Saudi Arabia 4. Pakistan 5. United States Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2006 1. China 2. Iran 3. Pakistan 4. Iraq 5. Sudan 6. United States Countries with the Most Confirmed Executions in 2005 1. China 2. Iran 3. Saudi Arabia 4. United States 5. Pakistan 6. Yemen At a quick glance, four countries regularly occupy the top positions on the lists: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and USA. Nice buddies you’ve got, mate. Source: [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-international-perspective](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-international-perspective) Scream, shout and close your eyes as much as you like. These are the facts, no matter how much you try to deny them. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/54 "2011-09-22T14:49:28Z")
> [@bup](#): > > What about, "he’s _probably_ guilty as Cain, but any human endeavor is error-prone, and carrying out a death sentence is beyond the standard humans are capable of because there is no way to rectify it?’ Or how about, “When a rich person commits an identical act, he can avoid the death penalty by liberal use of high-powered defense strategies; so in a sense he’s being put to death not for being guilty, but for being guilty and poor.” ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/55 "2011-09-22T14:52:32Z")
Yeah, that’s good too. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/56 "2011-09-22T14:55:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I would have a bit more respect for DP opponents if they could say honestly ‘yes, he’s guilty as Cain. But don’t execute him.’ From the OP: > [@Norse](#): > > Even if one were to accept the death penalty for certain crimes ( **something I definitely don’t** ) […] (bolding mine) Good enough for ya? This case, where some people - admittedly excluding Georgia’s “justice system” - claim that guilt hasn’t been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, just takes it one step further into the “appaling” territory ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/57 "2011-09-22T14:55:40Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Ah. “I don’t like them, thus I utterly reject that we have anything, up to however not including the fact that we belong to the same species. Regardless of facts showing the opposite”. Got it. Trouble is, the facts don’t show it. With the exception of China those countries have a much smaller population than the U.S., thus the number of executions per capita is much larger. But really, it doesn’t matter anyway. If you kill someone you deserve to die, no matter how many or how few people are being put to death elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/58 "2011-09-22T14:57:23Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > But really, it doesn’t matter anyway. If you kill someone you deserve to die, no matter how many or how few people are being put to death elsewhere. You, sir, are presenting opinion as if it were fact. Which it is not. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/59 "2011-09-22T15:04:20Z")
The fact that the prosecutors and judges maintain his guilt is not new . They almost always do. When guys in jail have been released on the strength of DNA evidence, they generally say they were right anyway. It is hard to admit you jailed someone or put them to death wrongly. For some, it is impossible. Coulter is a lying harpy bitch, with absolutely no credibility. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186/60 "2011-09-22T15:05:32Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Ah. “I don’t like them, thus I utterly reject that we have anything, up to however not including the fact that we belong to the same species. Regardless of facts showing the opposite”. Got it… > > These are the facts, no matter how much you try to deny them. I have not denied any facts cited in your reply #53. They are probably correct. However, they do not address my post #40, which you are either evading because you know you have no good answer, or are too stupid to understand. Here it is again with: > [@colonial](#): > > Establishing hierarchy based on the relative frequency of events is essential > in evaluating political and social sytems, and doing so is not tu quoque argument. > The US has executed 1269 people since 1976. China probably executes more than > that many every year. If executing people is always bad (a premise I do not grant), > then China is undoubtedly much worse than the USA, and so are many other countries. > > It is a fact that AI fails to devote a proportionate amount of attention to those who, > by its own definition, are the worst violators. It is a fact that that is bias. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/damn-murderers/597186.md?page=4)