Spiritus: Hee hee! You’re gonna just love libertarian/Republican Ron Paul. After you send the letter, see if you can figure out that whole libertarian pro-life thing.
Bill H:
Ding! That’s exactly why being anti-DP is conservative in my mind, and that’s what we’re running on.
Biggirl:
Ooh. You’re not gonna like this, after that whole Anita Hill thing. But the guy you want is Arlen Specter. I don’t know where he stands on gay marriages, but he’s actually pretty moderate, so you might get the hat trick! Doubt it, though.
Weird_AL_Einstein:
Yeah, that would get the votes flowing. But the liberals are going to have to decide for themselves what issue they want the government out of. I’m betting this ain’t gonna be it.
elucidator:
Fair enough. But if we don’t do this, whenever anybody executes somebody, I’m going to blame you.
Jonathan: Ha! I wish. Sorry, that’s more a bureaucracy thing, and transcends liberal/conservative. The first step is to convince the Washington Post that a cut in growth is still growth, not a cut. Best of luck.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Jonathan Chance *
**
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Thank you. No, actually, I don’t. Do you find them helpful?
There are many issues, indeed, the vast majority, wherein an open-minded consensus seeking approach is to be applauded. This is not one of them. When you execute the innocent, as we surely have, they’re dead. Period. There is no “Death Lite”. No amount of consensus will sanctify the unholy.
*Originally posted by elucidator *
**Where were the conservatives during the civil rights movement, when men and women of color were denied their citizenship, often their very lives? **
A larger percentage of Republicans than Democrats in Congress voted for the Voting Rights Act, IIRC.
**And where were the conservatives during the debacle of Vietnam? **
It was two liberal Presidents, Kennedy, and, especially, Juhnson, who got us into Vietnem. It was Republican Nixon who got us out.
Conservatives aren’t less moral than Liberals, but they ARE better historians.
manhattan - I belong to a human rights organization that is one of the well-known proponents of an abolition of the death penalty (Amnesty International.) As a letter-writing organization, our members write many letters a month (I figure I average about 20) to various government officials concerning human rights issues, which naturally includes the death penalty in the USA. Let me reassure you that many of the actions coming from London or Amnesty International USA are letters to “conservative” senators/congressmen/etc… thanking them for their vote/public pronouncement/support on a particular issue. As another example, a speaker at one of our local Amnesty International events was (my) congressman Dana Rohrabacher (California - 45th District), who is not particularly known for his “liberal” views.
So I don’t really feel the need to “trade” issues with anyone. I will support any politician who helps pass legislation to further human rights causes.
Having joined in the opinion of the Court, Justice Thomas, one can safely assume, saw reason in his his separate concurrence to repeat what the majority had said. His opinion most certainly “acknowledges 60 years worth of Commerce Clause jurisprudence.” Indeed, the point of his concurrence was to “demonstrate that the result we reach today is by no means “radical,” see post, at 1 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). I also want to point out the necessity of refashioning a coherent test that does not tend to “obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government.” Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp, supra, at 37.”
One can certainly disagree with his analysis, but saying that the opinion lacks “thoughtfulness” shows only that, well, I guess you disagred with the result.
**
Actually, I do. Half a dozen note cards in front of one can keep a presentation on track. Don’t let anyone tell you different.
And here we again have the soul of compromise. My objection wasn’t to your point of view (though I think you’re naive to expect a blanket statement to actually get anywhere) but to your, in a thread about the art of compromise and the give and take of politics, need to make a speech which has no (and the Rock says NO) compromise in it.
If you expect your viewpoint to be effective in today’s political climate you MUST have compromise in your soul. Otherwise you are A) not taken as a person interested in what can actually be and B) ignored.
Politics is, as always, the art of the compromise. If you can’t see that then you’ll be lumped in with the radicals on all subjects. Marginalized at that point, you will be as ineffective in promoting your cause as it is possible to be.
So, in a thread about give and take, keep your hijacks to yourself.
Honestly, suppose you COULD convince one or two leaders to vote your way on the issue of the death penalty. What stance of your own would you change to acheive that? Would you (had you a vote on the hill)(as so many of us do ) change your stance on abortion? Deficit spending? Civil liberties? What?
Manhattan, I apologize if I altered your OP there.
Why is this a “liberal” issue? As the OP says, people opposed to the DP tend to be of a more leftist persuasion, and, he agreeably notes, that is all to their credit. This is very persuasive reasoning, very consensus building. He’s quite correct, of course.
Where the thinking goes astray, I think, is to underestimate the value of confrontation as the means toward eventual consensus. It also comes dangerously close to a horse-trading political approach. Are we to trade a favorable vote for a highway in N.C. for a vote for a temporary moratorium while a blue-ribbon committee is assembled to consider studying…
Liberal issue? I think not. Bill Clinton flew back to Arkansas in order to sign off on the execution of a patheticly retarded man. He was catching some “soft on crime” heat, had to look stern. I have never been more ashamed of a man I ended up voting for. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have voted for Richard Nixon is he promised to ban capital punishment instantly.
As the evidence gets out, those on the right with a moral compass will change thier opinion. That is all to the good. Let us be supportive as they walk upon the unfamiliar ground of moral rectitude, they likely will be somewhat disoriented. But I see no reason to offer them candy to walk over, do the right thing, and then scurry back. If they won’t do it because they should, to hell with them.
Speaking as a guy who covered the hill for two years, yes. If you want to accomplish your goals.
We’re a nation of 275 million people (or more, I guess). All 275 million of those people are going to have different priorities and goals. Those priorities and goals lead to the election of 535 Senators and Representatives at the federal level. Each of those elected officials have their own priorities and goals (admittedly, to my own disgust, mostly their own aggrandizement). The political give and take on the hill is the means by which those priorities and goals sort themselves out. It’s how things get done. If each member felt themselves to be absolutely and uncompromisingly right, very little legislation would ever be passed (whether that would be a good thing is another debate!).
So if you want a federal moratorium on the death penalty it behooves you to find some other issue, about which you don’t care so deeply and someone else does. Then you have the art of the possible. Everyone gets what they want and no one loses a deal breaker.
You should realize, of course, that those on the right are thinking the same thing about you. You present here, only a mirror image to Operation Rescue and similar, rightist groups that see themselves as right, utterly, ruthlessly, uncompromisingly right.
But, as I said, if marginalization is your game, you’re on the right track. Confrontation is far over-rated in it’s political effectiveness. Mostly it does nothing more than solidify the oppositions determination to stand against your cause. As Tom Lehrer said about folk songs, however, it does make you feel better.
As an example, those kids doing the anti-tobacco commercials (OK, I don’t know who’s bankrolling or directing them. They certainly TRY to make it appear as if it’s kids doing it) will have far less impact on the state of tobacco use in the United States than the acheivement of consensus that smoking is bad for you. That simple fact accomplishes more than any amount of guerilla theatre.
Actually, a great many guilty people can, and usually do, come up with “interesting evidence of innocence.” I can’t be sure, but the guy from Va. you might be thinking of is someone named Coleman. I do not remember the details now, but I do recall the impression I was left with when I first learned about Coleman’s calim of innocence (yes, I do try to follow this stuff), and “laughable” is what comes to mind.
There may be many good arguments against the DP (I certainly have a few favorites of my own), but the prospect of executing the innocent does not seem to be a particularly persuasive one. The safeguards we have in place in this country to ensure against the risk of wrongful execution – including a system of substantially redundant judical review and oversight – are unparalled in legal history (and I might add, vastly superior to those employed throughout much of the rest of the world, including most of the countries that so quickly condemn us as “barbaric”).
More than 24 hours has elapsed since I issued the invitation to identify a single instance in which an innocent person was executed. Having read the responses, I remain reasonably confident that it hasn’t happened.
Which is not to say that it couldn’t. And surely we should do everything feasible to ensure that it doesn’t. But since when do we demand perfection before settling on other public policy choices which are no less a matter of life and death than the administration of the death penalty.
Well, yes. On the other hand, I have held a number of these same utterly marginal opinions for…quite some time.
But, lo! As I stand there, the waters of the mainstream come lapping around my ankles!
Perhaps its just as you say, I had nothing to do with it. But one must participate, yes? Even if one has nothing more to offer but sincere sarcasm, one has a duty to all who have been silenced by fear. To let one’s “freak flag fly”, so to speak.
Have you ever known a cynic who did not regard himself as hard-headed and realistic? Do you see him behind you, nodding his head in agreement?
That is a problem, Rmat. There have been a few questionable executions, but proof of innocence has yet to be discovered. But mere doubt is enough for me.
However, to take on one of the main pro-dp arguements, I challenge anyone to prove that execution (as opposed to life w/o parole) has ever prevented that convicted killer from killing again.
I’m sure that there are quite a few people on death row who, if released tomorrow, would never kill again. I’m certainly not advocating such foolishness, just trying to make a point.
Peace,
mangeorge
More than 24 hours has elapsed since I issued the invitation to identify a single instance in which an innocent person was executed. Having read the responses, I remain reasonably confident that it hasn’t happened.
Quote
The executed men identified as innocent are Brian K. Baldwin, Cornelius Singleton and Freddie Lee Wright of Alabama; Thomas M. Thompson of California; James Adams, Willie Darden and Jesse Tafero of Florida; Girvies Davis of Illinois; Griffin and Roy Roberts of Missouri; Odell Barnes, Robert N. Drew, Gary Graham, Richard W. Jones and Frank B. McFarland of Texas; and Roger K. Coleman of Virginia.
I just have to ask this question: How, in an increasingly conservative political climate, do you see the ‘waters of the mainstream come lapping around your ankles’?
I’m all for standing your ground. It looks great on TV. But really, that’s all it’s good for. It let’s you strike a pose and tell yourself, “Self, I am noble.” Meanwhile, the rest of the political world gets on with getting legislation and budgets passed.
You’ve got to be kidding. Claims by an anti-DP group that it sees “compelling evidence” of innocence is a far cry from proof of innocence. Take just one example cited by this partisan group: Thompson, in CA. Innocent? Thompson’s case was repeatedly review by no fewer than five courts for well over 10 years. He couldn’t even get relief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a court that blocks executions with about same frequency that most people take a breath. “Innocent”? Get real. Learn something about the Thompson case – Each of his multiple cases is fully reported and available online – and then return to this message board with your “findings.” There’s no accounting for what some people find “compelling” (or hope to portray in the media as “compelling”), but an honest and informed debate about the Thompson case should prove edifying to the less partisan among us. Bring it on.
Strange, last time I checked, I agreed with the result and most of the majority’s analysis in Lopez. Wait a sec, let me double-check . . .
:polls self:
Yep, Lopez was still decided correctly, and Thomas still utterly failed to address sixty years of precedent while babbling on about original intent. O.I. is a perfectly legitimate means of analysis, and it may even be decisive, but it’s half-assed scholarship to cry “Original Intent!” while shielding your ears from dozens of precedents that showed Lopez easily could have gone the other way.
I don’t know about anybody else on don’t ask’s list, but there was very compelling evidence–eyewitness and circumstantial–that Gary Graham was guilty as charged. You might be able to claim that there was reasonable doubt, but claiming actual innocence is a huge leap.
Part of the problem with identifying the name of an innocent person who has been executed (and I concur with *elucidator that it would be nigh unto miraculous to believe that we’ve managed to catch all the innocent death row inmates just in time) is that, whenever the name of a possibly innocent person is floated, DP-proponents simply dismiss it with, “Oh, him? Well he was obviously guilty.” Since, as far as the police, the courts and the victims’ families are concerned, the perpetrator has been caught and executed, what’s the impetus to investigate further to find out if one of them was innocent?
Rmat:
Wait–are these the safeguards that include laughably unprepared and underpaid public defenders handling capital cases, as well as a Supreme Court Justice who was opined that actual innocence is not sufficient to halt a legally-ordered execution? Yeah, paradise on Earth, that.
The question was about liberals vs. conservatives - those didn’t mean the same things vis-a-vis party affiliation that they do now. If you’ll look more closely, you’ll find the largest bloc of votes against it from Southern Democrats, now nearly all converted to Republicanism.
Ahem. The first “advisers” were sent in by Eisenhower after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. Nixon (very arguably, of course) kept the war going, and people dying, until after his re-election. There’s no defending Johnson, of course.
The evidence you have presented suggests otherwise.
Just curious: Is anyone prepared to state, before God, that he’s certain that the US has never executed an innocent man? Certain posts here suggest that confidence.
As to the OP: Fuhgeddaboudit. I wouldn’t trust anyone who disagrees with me on a moral point to shut up about it, and I wouldn’t give them credit for holding a moral stand if they did.
Well, I’m not a historian, but I was under the impression that there is considerable consensus regarding the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists who were charged with murder in 1920 and executed in 1927.
Rmat states:
First you ask for evidence, then when presented with it, you ask for proof. It is a strange twist: since when did the US justice system require that a man (or woman) prove their innocence?
minty green asserts:
Isn’t reasonable doubt good enough?
If someone is convicted and executed, and it later surfaces that there is in fact reasonable doubt concerning his/her guilt, then I think we’re looking at a pretty serious problem.
) change your stance on abortion? Deficit spending? Civil liberties? What?