You know what’s funny? The United States followed the same trajectory of banning capital punishment after World War II as the rest of the western democracies. Whether you’re talking about the United States, or England, or Canada, it was the same pattern: capital punishment was popular among the public, but it was banned by the courts or by some other top-down method, and then once it was gone, its popularity steadily declined.
We were behind some of our peers, and ahead of others, but right up through about 1980, we were running on the same track.
And then, unlike everyone else, we changed course. I’m not sure what to make of that.
I’m going to post here something i posted on facebook… revenge has NO PLACE in justice. the justice system is, as far as i can tell, to remove the revenge instinct, and standardize punishment.
From the annals of justice ain’t revenge. c’mon people… we know how to do this humanely… if you really have to do this (and i strongly believe we don’t need to), do it in a way that the person doesn’t suffer. we know how to do this, but some sick part of us wants to see this person suffer… not as much as that it becomes embarrassing, and that we seem goulish and sick, but enough that the victims family can feel that ‘justice has been done’ in a non-bloodlusty sort of way. (except it is blood lusty and goulish, no matter how you slice it)
if it has to happen, let it be a massive opiate overdose, or potentially with a general surgical anesthetic (hell… it’s hard enough to keep a patient alive, how hard can it be to kill someone?). we know how that works, and it’s probably not two hours worth of living hell for someone who is still actually a human. (cruel and unusual anyone?).
more curiously, why not a public guillotine?
unless you want these humans to suffer? then, as you were…
this is all for if you have to conflate revenge with justice at all… most civilized societies do not. time to stop this bullshit.
I find it interesting to see the different shades of Hate in the Republican Party. Sure it’s all Hate but there’s stone hate, semi-hate, sorta hate, sick hate, fuzzy hate, fluffy bunny hate. We need to distinguish.
It seems that now it’s a distinction that we are not “pussies” like them. Just as we don’t do high speed rail, universal health insurance, paid maternity leave, the list is endless… sigh
McCain told Politico that he does not intend to speak with Brewer about the execution.
“It’s a state issue,” he said. “The decision is made by the state legislature and the governor.”
Yep, it’s a state issue, not something the state senator who’s job it is to represent the state should be involved in. McCain is a fraud, with no interest in representing his state, the people in it, or is waffling ideals when it comes to national or international issues with the exception of invading other countries. American would be better if he retired from public life and espoused an opinion on anything egain.
What with his comment that Congress’s failure to address the VA issue is “embarrassing”, it looks like “sane” McCain is making a last desperate bid for freedom from the embarrassing douchebag with whom he is forced to share a body.
It will be 50 years ago next year when the UK (NOT “England” by the way) abolished capital punishment in the face of over 70% of the populace agreeing with executions.
That percentage has dropped to 50% - a decline, yes, but hardly an acceptance. The percentage goes up when certain categories of crime are involved.
I don’t agree with capital punishment, but its demise has been fairly ugly in terms of the will of the people.
OK, but what about the torture unleashed on the American public by McCain’s choice and elevation of that monster Palin to national “prominence?” That drip, drip, drip is more than this country can bear!!
