On the one hand, it’s terrible public policy. It’s expensive. It’s capricious and arbitrary. It’s racist in application. It doesn’t deter crime or make us any safer. It’s a terrible power to give the state. And worst of all, there is the horrible risk of executing an innocent person.
On the other hand, keeping it pisses off unctuous euro-weenies, which is always an important policy goal, so there’s that.
Probably best to get rid of it. There are other ways we can piss off the euroweenies.
And yeah Clayton Lockett sure is the Rosa Parks of our time. You know, if Rosa Parks had raped a nineteen year old girl and buried her alive.
Seriously, if we do get rid of the death penalty, as we should, it will be in spite of inhuman monsters like Clayton Lockett, not because of them.
I used ‘accident of birth’ on purpose- those people who just happen to be in a country- travelling, visiting etc. Only the Americas recognise such a strong lex soli (the UK comes close). Many other countries choose to limit citizenship to children of citizens and take little notice of the place of birth.Countries make their own laws. Very few choose lex soli.
He was tasered in the morning as he refused to cooperate. ( I see that as justified civil disobedience and a move to discomfort prison staff who were about to kill him. If more of that happened, staff would be less willing to kill people.)
He slashed his wrists and was refused sutures.
He was refused his choice of last meal.
The staff were so incompetent they could not find a vein in his arms and resorted to the groin! This is a skilled procedure compared with the usual areas- no wonder badly trained incompetents screwed it up.
Because of the area involved the idiots covered his groin as he had to be exposed to the ghouls next door to ensure the execution was theatre rather than justice. Consequently they did not notice that the cannula had tissued.
There is a comprehensive timeline of the whole day, but somehow it fails to describe in detail his attempts to sit up and talk before they gave up (are they ashamed of this and wish to minimise the results of their incompetence), or of the last ten minutes after they gave up their botched attempts to butcher him. There is no record if CPR was used after the Governor ordered a stop to the procedure- this is required under law- seems strange, but once the execution is off, the state has no right to kill him or let him die. They drew the curtains and it is suggested that they did not try to revive him.
The Governor was not willing to say that the procedure as carried out was constitutional.
The Governor has appointed one of her employees (not a neutral person) to review the case!
For someone who prides himself on how “civilized” he is this is an extremely archaic comment to make.
Beyond that, the rest of this quoted passage is one of the stupidest sentences I’ve ever read on this site.
Words alone cannot describe just how asinine the idea that people from India are of the “same stock” is.
India is almost certainly the most diverse country on the planet containing countless different castes ethnicities, religions, languages, and dialects.
I say this as someone born in a really diverse country(Iran) and who grew up in another one(the US).
Similarly, I nearly pissed myself laughing at the idea that people in “China”(which you rather oddly failed to define) at the idea that the people there are of “the same stock”.
China also contains several different ethnicities of whom “Han” are the most dominant, but hardly the only one and at least eight different spoken languages.
Yes, in the words of Paul Johnson, it used to be common for most people from the UK to put everyone from India as being of the “same stock” but I thought with the 21st Century such racist bullshit was a relic of the past.
The comment “by accident of birth” absolutely reeks of bigotry.
I’d recommend choosing a different phrase because it sounds far too much like the bigoted racists in the US terrified of being overrun by Latinos or the European bigots who insist on resisting granting citizenship to the children of immigrants because they’re terrified of the Muslim hordes.
Thankfully, in the US the bigots are losing the fight and the children of immigrants are automatically granted citizenship as anyone except a paranoid racist would agree they should.
Sadly, this is not the case in Europe, but if you’re correct about how “civilized” Europe is, before long the European countries which out of fear of being overrun by the Islamic hordes reject Jus Solis will soon embrace it and we will no longer be left with the outrageous sight of the children and in some cases grandchildren of immigrants denied citizenship due to bigotry.
You are far too sensitive and I am probably more liberal than you.
I chose the word ‘stock’ rather than ethnicity exactly because of the diverse ethnicity inIndia, China etc. Stock in these terms means lineage or family- exactly what I intended.
I use accident of birth to mean tourists or temporary residents- people with minimal affinity for the country or anchor babies purposely created.
I am no bigot- I welcome the current immigration into the UK from Europe and the previous immigration from all over the world which makes us one of the more ethnically diverse countries on the planet. In general I would rather work with the least restrictive borders- if people want to come here and are not a burden, they should (Over 350 million people have the absolute right to live and work in the UK- I support that.
I also understand why most countries only allow citizenship to people born of parents with that citizenship.
I didn’t insult you so I don’t understand the attacks on me.
Also, I’ll confess to finding some of your terminology a bit confusing.
You are British right?
I do ask because I was a bit taken aback by the phrase “I am probably more liberal than you” because that phrase means something different in the UK than it does in the the US and I’ve never heard anyone use the phrase “anchor baby” except for Fox News types claiming that illegal immigrants were deliberately having children in the US because of the supposed fact(in the minds of Fox News only) that the parents of so-called “anchor babies” were also automatically granted citizenship.
Anyway, Pjen
You have yet to answer my question so once more, perhaps you could.
Which would you find preferable?
A)If the US were to adopt European style citizenship law and refuse to grant citizenship to millions of people(most of whom are non-white) based not the immigration status of their parents even if they were born in the US while refusing to execute a small a handful of convicted murderers.
or
B)If the US were to execute a handful of murderers every year but grant citizenship to millions of the children of immigrants(most of whom aren’t white) who would be denied citizenship in most European countries.
BTW, this is honestly not a trick question. I obviously despise the death penalty but find B far preferable, but if you genuinely feel that A is better and can explain your reasoning, I’ll be happy to consider your opinion.
It is a stupid question that conflates two separate issues and is a sad debating techniques despised by people who really want to discuss a matter.
I dislike all actions that cause harm to a human being unnecessarily.
I find state sanctioned judicial killing as a contemtible act.
I recognise that no state can be forced to change its citizenship laws to make a blinkered American Exceptionalist happy. Very few countries recognise Jus Soli- get over it.
The UK has far more open borders than the USA. That is a fact- the USA has almost total control over who settles there. For Europeans the matter is different and many different countries have voluntarily agreed to share residency arrangements. The USA even stops Canadians from moving freely into the US!
We’ve gone beyond that since he started arguing about how European nations which within the past few decades engage in large scale ethnic cleansing and discrimination are more “civilized” than the US.
I’ve asked him for clarification and I presume that he’ll provide it.
The topic is the death penalty and, more particularly, will one botched execution cause a general revulsion for the practice among the American electorate.
Take the hijacks regarding the better rules of citizenship or what countries are more “civilized” to a separate thread (or two).
You know what bugs the crap out of me on this topic? We have records of god knows how many people who have been executed and proven innocent after the fact. But we accidentally kill someone clearly guilty of a heinous crime in a “less humane” way, and that’s the reason to scrap the system? Granted, we should be getting rid of capital punishment anyways, but this is a terrible reason to do it.