That sounds hideous to me.
Yeah, but the point is that the rich will not be electrocuted for sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets, and stealing bread—because they don’t need to do those things.
It’s irony.
No prob, appreciate it.
You have a point, but I don’t think, say, the 1963 Randolph/Rustin/MLK “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” was really about a plea for specific governmental actions. And yet it’s gone down in history as one of the most significant protests or “marches that matter most”.
Sometimes an important demonstration is not so much about a particular targeted action as a general pushback against systemic fuckedupness.
The bolded part is why Trump got elected: voting for him was a general pushback against systemic fuckedupedness.
You two understand that the point of Ike’s quote is that rich people do not need to do those things, hence, to say that the law is agnostic toward one’s level of wealth is fatuous. The quote is intended to look good on the surface of it but become ugly upon even cursory examination.
It’s the appropriate punishment for certain crimes.
Close to home for me, but Ted Bundy. That was one scary mo-fo. The world is better off without him - granted he’s an edge case.
I am disturbed by the frequency with which the death penalty is handed out and I think the bar should be higher for its application, but having it available is, I think, a potentially valuable asset in the prosecutorial toolbox.
I am well acquainted with the work of Anatole France, whom Uke is paraphrasing. I just didn’t understand why anyone would find it desirable.
U.S. lawmakers delay action to hold Trump adviser Conway in contempt.
In other words, Congress isn’t even pretending to try to exercise oversight now.
Utterly and completely toothless. Now Trump will increase his attacks, confident that no one will try to stop him. Meantime, his base will conclude that “nothing succeeds like success” and come out in droves. The left will be dispirited, and those (few) in the middle won’t bother to come out - and if they do, they’ll vote for the active party, not the party of appeasement.
If no impeachment inquiry is begun soon, I predict Trump will “win*” the election in 2020. No, the Senate won’t convict - may not even hold a trial. But it will energize the leftist base, remove maybe some of his less fervent supporters. His base? They’re already energized. They’ll come out and vote for him anyway, no matter what comes out.
Trump will dismiss it as “failed partisanship”? So what? He’s already doing that, on just about every issue… He’ll get no more bump than he would otherwise.
Look, this is just basic psychology. You don’t beat a bully with appeasement, you beat him by taking the offensive, and getting in his face. Attack, relentlessly, with everything you’ve got.
sigh Unfortunately, the appeasement faction has control of the Democratic leadership. Nothing I say here, or in my letters or emails, will change that. Those of you here patting yourselves on the back for your “realism” will change either. I believe that you’re wrong about the effects an impeachment inquiry will have on the voting public. But again, it doesn’t really matter what I say. I hope I’m wrong, because it looks like the Democratic leadership will keep spinning its wheels, hoping things come out all right on election day.
But it isn’t the way I would bet.
*Or he’ll say he has - which will come to much the same thing, as things are looking right now.
Timing, dude.
Start an impeachment inquiry now and it’s over by September. What then for 14 months?
July 25, 2019
Federal troops are being housed in facilities also being used to detain immigrants, in possible violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
Active-duty U.S. troops are now just feet away from migrants in Texas?
That is a killer response, if your goal is for justice to be about appearance, where it works superficially without doing anything substantive below the surface.
How do you feel about Gary Ridgeway?
The third world banana republic shit-hole will have affordable healthcare 
You are incorrect. The only thing the death penalty does is satiate your blood lust. That is why you “eye for an eye” types want it carried out swiftly, without the legal controls to protect those who are actually innocent.
The government’s job is to protect the people. They do not need to be killing people to do that.
The idea of a jury of my “peers” making life and death decisions is terrifying.
I feel like he should be dead, but I understand why the prosecutor did what he did. Note though, that it was to save himself from the death penalty that Ridgway finally confessed. Take that tool away and he might have just gone to prison for the original 7 and the families of the other women would still be wondering. Is that justice?
For me at least, it’s not about blood lust. It’s about society protecting itself from people who are, for lack of a better word, monsters. No prison is completely escape proof and the ones that come closest seem, at least to me, perilously near to sanctioned torture - especially for extended periods of time. Personally, I would rather be dead than go through 20+ years in SuperMax.
The death penalty should be judiciously applied and subject to very strict controls, but it should be there.
El Chapo escaped, with help, from a Mexican prison. When was the last American death row prison escape??
I find it amusing that those who are not actually facing the death penalty say they would prefer to die than spend decades in prison.
And it fairly disposes with those who no longer deserve to live.
You assume wrongly. The process we have in place today does a thorough job of ensuring that the convicted is truly guilty, the trial and sentencing process was fair, and the sentence is just. It works well - that’s why we haven’t had a wrongful execution in 50+ years, and I do not support weakening it.
By that logic, absolute pacifism, even in the face of invasion, civil war, or NBC attack, would have to be our defense policy.
Fortunately, in our system of government, the president does not have the power to have people executed by decree.