Hey liberals – I’ll trade ya! (death penalty)

Great Debates
1

Opponents of the death penalty are mostly liberal – this is to the liberals’ credit. This thread is directed at you.

As you doubtless know, there are some of us on the other side of the aisle, too. In addition to some of the posters on this board, we claim George Ryan of Illinois and a few others.

Well, we might have bagged the big one. Sandra Day O’Connor has misgivings about the application of the death penalty, and says, “the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.”

OK. You probably don’t like Sandra O’Connor much – in fact, you may hate her enough to have a John Riggins poster in your house ;). But conservatives, especially “moderate conservatives,” still pretty much like her. And in any case, she’s a swing vote on the Supreme Court.

Now, she’s not calling for repeal or anything, but this is big. Especially since she’s usually pretty taciturn about such issues in her private speeches. There’s room here to build a national consensus.

So here’s the deal. I propose that we anti-death-penalty conservatives can deliver, within 18 months, a nationwide moratorium on the death penalty. But we need your help. To wit:

Stop yammering that “killing people is wrong.” Yeah, I know you believe that, and I’m not asking you to deny it, I’m just saying lay off for a while. Enough conservatives believe in the “just war” (or even that God will sort things out!) that that argument just isn’t going to persuade the people who need persuading. We’re going to win or lose this thing by appealing to what the government ought and ought not have the power to do, and government’s general incompetence to do it.

On the same subject, stop with the “all civilized nations except us” stuff. Most of those civilized nations also have welfare systems, gun control regimes and other stuff that make a good conservative blanch. Comparing us to France is just not going to win any arguments. On any subject.

As people change their minds, you’re not allowed to call them hypocrites. Even if they are. We’re going after something bigger than a “gotcha” for the home team here. So if Dubya starts to express misgivings about the death penalty, you have to bite your lip about the people whose execution he’s overseen. He honestly thinks each of them did it and had it coming. That’s human nature. You want them to focus on the mistakes other people make, and that government is bound to make, rather on mistakes they themselves may have made in the past. Forgive them, welcome him/her to the right (heh) side, and leave the guilt play to their pastors.

Find a conservative and support him/her on an anti-government issue. This is easy, if you can get over your distaste for them generally. Phil Graham is pro-immigration. Bob Barr has a jihad against surveillance devices, from traffic cameras to Carnivore. Others are upset about federal government extortion of states over the .08 DWI thing or something else. Some are mad as hell about Echelon. Heck, some even oppose this whole “faith-based initiative” thing. If you need help, tell me your issue, and I’ll try to find you someone. Now, drop him or her a letter describing yourself as a liberal but that you thank him/her for “principled opposition” to “government control of” whatever it is. Then mention that you think that the government is also not competent to be 100% right on death sentences and urge him/her to consider the recent statements of such luminaries as Gov. Ryan and Justice O’Connor. Oh, and say something nice about Orrin Hatch’s stupid album if you write him, and mention to Bob Barr that Clinton supports the death penalty. We’re going all out here!

Agree, in unity, that the government is incompetent at something that you used to think they ought to do. I don’t care if it’s welfare, gun control, schools, affirmative action, gas mileage or even garbage pick-up. That you need to decide amongst yourselves. But I need you to start saying, “yeah, that’s a power/service/whatever that it turns out the government is just not equipped to handle and it ought to be taken away from them.” Don’t make it a crime thing – the right will bludgeon you with it.

So there’s the deal (along with an issue to be named later – maybe double taxation of dividends ;)). Together, we can limit the power of government, save the lives of some wrongfully accused and raise the overall level of society in one swell foop if you’ll help.

Who’s with me?

P.S. While looking up stuff for this post, I found that Billy Tauzin’s homepage is in Cajun French. Appropos of nothing, of course, I just thought that was cool.

2

I may fail the Liberal litmus test, but I’m strongly against eh death penalty. Find me a Conservative who is anti-censorship and I shall compose a letter posthaste.

3

I’m there. I saw Justice O’Connors remarks and felt much as you have posted.

4

Hey what about us moderates? My support of the DP (with the same reservations mentioned in the OP [sub]being black doesn’t help matters either [/sub]) is one of the reasons I define myelf as a moderate.

5

Moderate death penalty supporters. Hmmm, that’s a tricky one.

OK. Join the crusade and I think I can deliver a) No ANWR drilling for 15 years or $55 crude (whichever comes first), b) No government telling you what SUV you can drive (for four years or $55 crude) and c) the next tax cut will be disproportionatly directed to the middle class or the next hike will undo the current cut.

Deal?

Oh, and Spiritus, I’ll find you that 1st Amendment absolutist over the holiday. Welcome.

6

Here’s the problem, Manny my brother.

You’re asking people to engage in discourse, to be understanding, to compromise, to be reasonable, and above all to think–rationally and critically.

Ain’t gonna happen.

You know very well that it’s just far to easy for most people to hide behind labels–and more importantly to limit others with labels.

I’m with you, but I don’t think your idea has much of a chance at grass roots.

7

Sorry for the interruption, but did you notice that only Mssr. Tauzin’s main page is translated; not the entire site?

Oh, I’m a conservative slightly left of center on the DP issue. I used to be pretty pro-DP, and still would be if I didn’t have the realization one day that the same organization that deals sentences runs the DMV. Not a nice thought.

8

I don’t think killing people is always wrong, I just don’t think our government should be in the revenge buisness.

Now for an anti-government law I can get with. . . hmmm. . .

Oh, I know! Get your laws outta my reproductive system! No, that won’t do.

How 'bout: Stop legislating my morality! Ummm, that won’t fly either, will it?

Here’s one— Don’t make intrusive laws against who I can or cannot love or marry!

Sheesh, this is harder than I thought. There’s gotta be something.

I’m against reparations for blacks and/or Japanese Americans. Whataminit, there aint no law for that, is there?
I think I really got something. Stop subsidizing farmers. Don’t pay them for growing crap nobody wants. Is this good?

9

I’ve never had any problem with the death penalty as a concept. There are plenty of people who deserve to be smoked and when they ice someone like Richard Allen Davis or John Wayne Gacy or Timmy McVeigh, I say good riddance, the f***. So here’s a liberal who doesn’t weep into a candle every time they wack someone.

However, I think there is evidence that some people like Mumia Abu-Jamal probably ought to at least have their sentence commuted, at least. And plenty of people who get life actually deserve brisk death. The question whether to put someone down is a thorny one, certainly.

Though I agree with Justice O’Connor - indeed, I take it as a given - that the system is very likely allowing a few innocents to be executed. This is due IMHO to a racist and classist system and to the general application of aggressive prosecution versus undersupported defense.

That having been said, I have, independent of this thread, already voiced my support to the Dickarmey. The Dickarmey has - to my great surprise - spoken out against the deployment of face-matching software cameras in one neighborhood in Tampa, Florida.

These cameras, deployed along the street, take your picture and automatically compares it to pictures of known “felons”, i.e. people who owe child support etc. If you are identified as a “felon” then officers are dispatched to your position to grab you (and woe to you if you “resist arrest”!). The Dickarmey has said publically that these are bad and I almost hate to say it but I agree with him. I mean, for starters, just imagine the hubris of a software designer who claims that such a system makes reliable IDs even half the time.

As long as we are not being set up for some “compromise deal” - cameras every 50 yards instead of every 25, for instance (and it will be a few years before we see whether this is the case or not, and apropos of nothing, I’m not very optimistic) - then I support him on this issue and wish him “well”.

shrug You talk about prominent people being against things like Carnivore and Echelon etc. - what are THOSE things, if they’re not about “crime prevention”?

10

Let’s go even further. If Sandra O’Connor can signal a potential shift on the death penalty (wasn’t she going to retire, though?), just think how the other Supremes might respond to a thoughtful letter-writing campaign by anti-DPers on the left. Something on the order of “Dear Justice Thomas: Though we have been on opposite sides of many issues, I have always admired your principled stands (gag) and thoughtful opinions (retch), and I am sure you will concur with Justice O’Connor and other conservatives that Big Government should get out of the killing business.”

But first you’ll have to shut up people like this guy.

I like the line about “President Putsch”, though. Hadn’t heard that one.

11

Well…IANALiberal, and I support the DP, however, I’ve always wondered if some kind of “grand compromise” on this issue might be worked out. Speaking strictly for myself, I would be willing to withdraw my support for the DP and even lobby for its repeal, IF the liberals were willing to back off on gun control.

12

Not to change the subject or anything, but I respectfully challenge you to identify a single opinion authored by Thomas that is not “thoughtful.” (And by lacking in thoughtfulness, I assume you meant something other than that you merely disagree with the result reached.)

13

I think thats me.

14

As it stands now? No.

Where were the conservatives during the labor movement, when working men and women struggled against a ruthless and heartless tyranny of profit above humanity? Go slow, take it easy, mustn’t rush towards justice. Money and power is largely in the right hands, wouldn’t do to let too much of its slip to the lumpenprole.

Where were the consevatives during the civil rights movement, when men and women of color were denied their citizenship, often thier very lives? “With all deliberate speed”, one thing at a time, must’nt throw out the baby with the bathwater. Even Barry Goldwater, a conservative for whom I had considerable respect, voted against the Voting Rights Act of '64 because he believed it a matter of states rights, thus placing ideology above common decency. To quote Dick Gregory “Get your foot off my grandmother’s neck! NOW, goddammit, not one toe at a time!”

And where were the conservatives during the debacle of Vietnam? “My country, right or wrong” (Sounds better in German). “Love it or leave it” Even now, you hear such puling crap as “Well, we shouldn’t have been there unless we were willing to go to the lengths necessary to win.” Were it not for the Conservatives, we might have gotten the message in '68 and gotten the hell out of there. Six more years, countless lives lost, Pol Pot, horror compounded and multiplied, and for what?

“In loyalty to thier kind, they cannot tolerate our minds
In loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate thier obstruction”

The death penalty debate is not a conservative/liberal issue, it is a fundamental question of morality and justice. Recent evidence is undeniable: we have sent innocent men to thier deaths, for want of competent representation. As long as the scales of justice are tipped by money, the conservatives have nothing of value to preserve.

Justice, liberty and equality are now and have been radical concepts. Now, at last, the debate has become a debate, not hired goons cracking a working mans skull for a dollar. But it was the radicals who made it so, not with the collusion of the conservatives, but in spite of them.

Of course, this puts one in league with dubious allies, tree-huggers, Naderites, Luddites and Trotskists. And a sorry lot they can be, no doubt. And you conservatives?

Cast off your Helms, Thurmonds, Armeys and DeLays, and the other loathesome soldiers of Privilege, and maybe then we can talk about colluding on agreed principles. Because then we will actually have agreed principles, their will actually be something valid to conserve! Until that day, my brother, not one step back. Not one!

15

Although there undoubtedly have been cases of innocent persons wrongly convicted of capital and noncapital crimes alike, I would like to know what “evidence” you have that “we” have actually executed a single innocent person (“for want of competent representation” or any other reason).

16

What, do you rely on the intervention of Divine Providence? If, as you yourself aver, we have convicted the innocent for capital crimes, how then can you demand proof of unjust execution? Is it your assertion that all instances of unjust conviction have been uncovered and “corrected”? As this borders on the miraculous, I think it is your burden of proof.

17

I’m on board, manny. I’ll take Gramm and immigration.

Sua

18

Actually there was a very interesting case in Virginia a few years back. A man was convicted of rape and murder, despite some at least interesting evidence of his innocence. He was executed. A bit afterwards, the rape kit was found (IIRC, it disappeared after his trial for a while - no foul play suspected, just whaddya do after evidence has been used, eh?), and his family asked that a DNA test be done to prove that their executed kin was innocent. The prosecutor refused, and fought vociferously in court to prevent a DNA test.
I don’t know what eventually happened, but it makes ya think - why wouldn’t the prosecutor want to put the issue to rest, if they executed the right man?

Sua

19

Too easy. Try his concurring opinion in U.S. v. Lopez (1995), which is absolutely breathtaking in its failure to acknowledge, much less distinguish, sixty years worth of Commerce Clause jurisprudence.
As for the OP, a ban on the DP just ain’t gonna happen. O’Connor’s newfound reservations go solely to the implementation of the DP, not its substance. We might come out of this with imporved safeguards and better representation for capital murder defendants–which are both quite welcome–but that’s about it.

20

Nice speech, do you use index cards?

And this, my friends, is why compromise is so rare on the hill these days. Elucidators allies? “A Sorry Lot”. Elucidators enemies? “loathsome soldiers of Privilige”.

Until we can get past this negative, less-than-useless demonization of the opposition we will never be able to acheive consensus.

On the OP, I’m with you. I flip back and forth on capital punishment. I certainly think it’s deserved in some cases but I hate having a system so final when it’s open to the error-making ways of humans. And I’m not so much of a technocrat as to believe a failsafe system can be designed.

Manhattan, I’ll right your letter to Frank Wolf, John Warner and George Allen if you can find me some compromise that absolutely brings about the end of the assumption that all federal spending for all existing programs will go up every year unless specifically worked against. I hate the concept of baselining the budget. Too automatic for me.