Bout time.
I never did have the chance to yell Cameron Todd Willingham’s name from the rooftop of my creepy old shack to a passing-by Scalia down below.
The thing is, it never turns out to be “rarely used.” In this country, the states have proved to be incompetent in the implementation of the death penalty. It is selectively used. It is incompetently administered. And a scan through the news on any given week shows the number of people wrongfully convicted of capital crimes, as well as non-capital crimes. It appeals to the very base instincts of citizens – take a look at how Texans and Louisianans and Floridians love their death penalty. Take a look at how little they care when an innocent person is executed. Take a look at who gets executed, at the quality of their defense.
I will not defend the worst of the worst criminals and whether they “deserve” death. The point is, is the State (writ large) capable of administering such an irrevocable sentence in a fair, impartial, and competent way? The answer is clearly, in the US of A, no. They are not.
That has nothing to do with the Nazis that you named. I do not argue with that.
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Well, see, that’s just it: there won’t be ‘differences between it and Clinton’. The platform is the platform Hillary’s going to be running on. Nothing that’s included will be things she or her people object to strenuously enough to matter. That’s kind of the point of all this.
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Excellent. Absolutely the right thing to do. I appreciate Sanders’ efforts to include the ban in the platform. Time for Hillary Clinton to get with the platform on this issue.
At this point, an endorsement of Clinton by Sanders is mostly irrelevant. Rational people will see the danger of President Trump and vote the right way. I fervently hope there are enough of them to elect Clinton.
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Bin Laden’s death was a military action against a war criminal, not a civilian criminal prosecution, and Jefferson, likewise, was talking about warfare, not criminal prosecution. And yes, the French Revolution and other popular uprisings constitute warfare.
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Correct, arrendis. And thanks for bringing it up, because there is a difference, as you point out.
Again, not knowing Mrs. Clinton’s full statement (being lazy today), I wanted to allow for the distinction that sometimes government can take life. I don’t mean to presume Sen. Sanders position is or isn’t that government can never do it under any circumstances.
Perhaps bin Laden could have been captured, tried in a world court, and given a life sentence. Even so, should he have been?
I’m a pacifist, idealistic peacenik, but some rabid dogs should be put down, and someone who orchestrates the murder of thousands of innocent people in order to get attention is a rabid dog. If Mrs. Clinton was saying that, I agree.
I realize authorizing government to take any life threatens a slippery slope. I certainly would want such authority checked by a democracy, but I agree with the Senator that the death penalty has no place even in a fair but imperfect trial-by-jury system.
I know that but he was sentenced to death.
But should it be debated in a party platform?
I’m in favor of the death penalty, but you damn near have me convinced. Excellent post that had me thinking and leaning closer to the fence. Thank you.
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Lovely sentiment.
How does the national Democratic Party intend to accomplish this? The death penalty is very rarely used on the national level but it can be abolished. By Congress.
The death penalty that gets enforced all but daily isn’t one death penalty - it’s 49 or 48 - however many states still have it on the books. In other words, Bernie, the Death Penalty is a state issue.
Or a SCOTUS issue if it becomes a constitutional question.
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I was in a bookstore browsing through a book entitled The Nazi Hunters which I did buy mostly because in the prologue there was a description of the 10 Nazis being hanged after the trials. Revenge is a dish best served up whenever possible.
@tena Those old Nazis that are still around become very pitiable when they show up for trials or hearings. It doesn’t matter to me how old they are. Those ten that were hanged after Nuremberg mostly suffered from being strangled not broken necks. The hangman made no excuses.
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Every time the run down one of those ancient Nazis and drag his ass to trial I cheer, loudly and longly don’t care how old and/or sick they may be.
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Trump said last week his team was seeking at least $10 million in total fundraising before June’s end.
Here’s the best part:
The DNC and state Democratic parties have now received about $90 million in joint fundraising from Clinton, her campaign said, through a joint-fundraising agreement called the Hillary Victory Fund.
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VERY, VERY proud to be a Democrat.
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Not a surprise. Hillary’s supporters are just as liberal as Bernie’s. The only difference is is where they came down on pragmatism.
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True, Hillary cares about results, Sanders cares about grandstanding.
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I don’t think it’s a distraction. Capital punishment is certainly used quite a bit in places like Texas, and the number of people who are exonerated on death row is astounding. I don’t disagree that war crimes and terrorist attacks are different then the typical cases in civilian courts, and I’m in favor of treating them differently than civilian crimes.
I think it is absurd to suggest that the state can’t kill people engaged in war on the people of that state. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for ordinary crimes. I think that’s the distinction.
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Sorry, but many of us Democrats where there on $15/hours as an eventual goal on the Federal level long before Sanders opportunistically jumped on that band-wagon. But if Sanders dead-enders want to fancy themselves as having been the revolutionaries who invented that… ok I guess.
As to calling for an end to the death-penalty, I can get behind it for the reason of the fallibility of our criminal justice system. We know for a fact that we have executed innocent people. But I have no moral objections to it. Just the aforementioned problems of the application of it.
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It is a good question. I would prefer that it be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is pretty evident that the conditions may be ripe for revisiting the question, as Kennedy has indicated his discomfort with the abhorrent practice. Remember the evolution of the platform for marriage equality. The third platform got there.
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