BACK OFF, GUYS! He’s got a dictionary cite!
I don’t think he deserves to live in freedom, but I think he does deserve to live in a small cell for many years.
One wrong move and the verb gets it!
I suppose you can try to Bricker this by turning the question solely into one about legalities.
But most people around here are on to his game, and you’re not going to be nearly as good as he is at playing it, either.
People who want to become martyrs don’t hide in boats while on the run from SWAT.
Smapti is right that the death penalty is in no way murder. Saying it is basically makes the word “murder” synonymous with “kill” and it isn’t.
Words mean things.
Back to the OP. I haven’t been following the trial too closely, but this is federal, right?
So if he goes to prison it will be in the supermax out west where he won’t see sunlight for 23 hours a day and will almost never see other humans.
That’s a bid difference from trusting the state of MA to put him away. I’d give him five years or so until he starts having kids from all his weekend furloughs and conjugal visits.
I’m more or less opposed to the death penalty for practical reasons, but as long as we have it I’m fine with killing this guy. But if he ends up in the supermax that’s almost as good as dead.
I am for whatever penalty, consistent with our laws and morals, that would result in the least likely chance this would be repeated.
If that means a long, ignoble prison sentence as a deterrent to other would-be bombers, then let’s give him that.
If that means death, then let’s give that to him knowing its the best solution out of a cloud of choices.
It’s funny to hear conservatives nodding and smiling in agreement on the government’s term for “murder” – execution – meaning it’s not really “murder” when you so often say that “appropriation” is really theft. Especially since you are right about that, in some cases, like when the police steal someone’s car when they find (aka "plant) drugs in it.
Words do mean things, and controlling the definitions is a good way of controlling the dialog.
They sure do. But here’s what Wikipedia says: “Murder is the killing of another person without justification or valid excuse, and it is especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought.”
Now the definition in the first clause is clearly broader than the legal definition, but just as clearly is not synonymous with ‘kill.’
If a person is coming after me with a knife shouting “I’m going to murder you for what you did”. I won’t correct them and say “N-n-no, you’re going to kill me as you apparently have a valid excuse”.
But if we’re going to play the semantics game, does the death penalty change from “killing” to “murdering” if the person is posthumously found to have been not guilty of the crime?
The avengers of his victims.
Avengers? That’s what we want to be?
What is vengeance, and what are its effects?
'Cause, you know, it’s totally plausible that it turns out Tsarnaev was completely innocent and it was some other guy what done the thing.
Great. Now this thread is about the Avengers.
Hulk smash!
It’s interesting that you not only think I’m in lockstep with the conservative position on the death penalty but you also think I’m somehow controlling definitions of words in some sort of Orwellian attack on truth and freedom. I said in that post that I’m opposed to the death penalty so I guess you missed that?
It’s really simple. Murder isn’t just a killing that you don’t happen to like. It’s a word that has a meaning. Calling the death penalty murder just because you don’t like it is like calling a soldier a murderer just because you don’t support a war. It’s simply ignorance. It’s not debatable in any way. It’s straight up, deliberate ignorance.
He was found guilty on 32 counts. I prefer that he spend life in solitary, under the harshest conditions possible. I do not want to pay for endless appeals, and I don’t want his friends in Dagistan or Chechnya coming over here to avenge him. I just want him to disappear.
Assuming that “his friends in Dagistan and Chechnya” were of a mind to avenge him and actually had the capacity to do so, is there some reason that his continuing to draw breath would stop them from doing so?
There’s also the risk that Obama would trade him to ISIS. Just ask Andrea Tantaros.
I oppose the death penalty, and it has nothing to do with this person.
I believe that there are some crimes too horrible and some people so bad that they deserve death…but I have seen too many instances of police and prosecutor misconduct…and now we have the FBI admitting fudging testimony about hair and fiber analysis for decades…and even exoneration where no misconduct was found… I don’t think we are competent enough to make that decision.
To paraphrase Penn Gillette “If Google ran the Death Penalty, I would be all for it. Google doesn’t seem to fuck up much.” Hell, Arkansas still will not admit it made a mistake with the West Memphis 3.
What do the other examples have to do with this case? There is no fudged testimony or fiber analysis. The evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. He did it. There is no more doubt about this than about the Holocaust.
Regards,
Shodan