House of Eratosthenes

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, makes a point of revisiting the point whenever there is occasion to do so: Opposition to the death penalty is not something people do because of personal principles. It is something people do out of ignorance. Ignorance of the potential of the human species for evil.

Sadly, there are situations in which you can’t show your compassion to the guilty and innocent, both. You must choose. It’s an ugly thing to have to acknowledge, and not everybody is up to it. That’s fine by me…all I ask, is that if people can’t come to grips with how ugly and depraved human behavior can be, to what depths it can sink — they should politely excuse themselves from the process of figuring out what is to happen. They don’t belong in it. And the people who engage in these heinous acts, don’t belong on the same plane of existence as the rest of us. Sounds terrible when you put it that way, but it’s true.

And unfortunately, we are reminded yet again.

A premature baby delivered after his mother was kidnapped and set on fire during the robbery of a Polk County insurance office died early Sunday, authorities said.

The 1-pound, 2-ounce baby, delivered by Caesarian section Thursday night, died at an Orlando hospital, Lake Wales Police Chief Herbert Gillis said. The child was born more than three months premature.

The baby’s mother, Juanita “Jane” Luciano, 23, and his aunt, Yvonne Bustamante, 26, were set on fire during a robbery Thursday at the Nationwide Insurance office where they worked, police said. Both remain in extremely critical condition.

Update: As if John Corzine himself was scanning the pages of The Blog That Nobody Reads trying to find new and improved ways to do stupid crap that doesn’t make sense…this post goes up, and then over the radio I hear the New Jersey Governor has just signed legislation that will ban the death penalty in that state.

This is crass social elitism of the sort America was founded to oppose. You prune back on penalties for violent crimes, you get more violent crimes — and yes, that includes banning the death penalty. Once you have more violent crime, those of the most modest economic means are victimized first. And that neatly excludes the plutocrats who make the rules, like John Corzine, and decide our “civilized values” are incompatible with the death penalty.

The opposite is true. Our values represent the height of civilization, and they say the people who make the rules should uphold and cherish the same principles as those who must live the most rustic lifestyles, and are the first to be exposed to unseemly side of society. And that means we remove the monsters that have been proven to walk among us, time and time again, from the equation so they don’t injure the innocent. In the manner described above. And worse.

Is that so hard?

In my misspent youth, I was a strong proponent of the death penalty for many of the same outraged passions you expressed. But, I’ve come to understand, much to my chagrin, that this world is populated by folks of convoluted thinking and bankrupt morals which serve dubious self interests – sometimes at the horrible expense of others.

We have an increasingly flawed society supporting a painfully expensive and unwieldy government, with both oft times being cleaned up by an over burdened, inefficient, and corrupt judicial system. There are innocent people in jai, and all too often, the wrong person has been executed. DNA is millennial knowledge and a cruel mistress, but infinitely more reliable than jaded judges, fallible eyewitnesses and monied justice.

In short, I don’t believe the state has the right to take away that which it cannot fully restore if found in error. If your liberty or property is erroneously confiscated by the state , and a mistake is found, your property or liberty can be restored or compensated for. But, if your life is taken and an error is found….whacha gonna do??

Besides, confinement in an 8×10 cell, if done properly as punishment, and carried out for the full life of the criminal, is a much more severe punishment than the wussy way out via quick, over-regulated, medically administered, aclu approved death.

imho
- locomotivebreath1901 | 12/17/2007 @ 14:44
Ah, but the incarceration is seldom carried out throughout the life of the criminal. We have a justice system that likes to constantly invent & discover brand new “rights,” which, translated practically, are just fallacious grandstanding reasons to pronounce that justice should not be done. For entire classes of cases at a time.

And we aren’t debating the cases where DNA exonerates someone later, are we? I’d be fine with restricting the death penalty to cases where DNA has already spoken, blocking it entirely as an option where conviction relies solely on testimony. Most of the pro-death-penalty people I know, would agree with me on that. So the pro-death-penalty conclusion is the moderate one. The anti-death-penalty position, on the other hand, is extremist. It says you NEVER execute anybody no matter what. Even if the convict is looking you straight in the eye and saying “I’m tellin’ ya, dude, if I ever get out there I will kill more kids.” Even then, says the anti-death-penalty position, you just lock the guy up. And wait for a lawyer to come up with a reason to let him out.

And this supposed epidemic of people being executed, with DNA later proving their innocence, is an unfortunate mythology. The campaign to get rid of the death penalty in the United States, is well-organized and well-funded. It’s as far from a popular grass-roots effort as you can get. Interestingly, if you research it and find out who’s paying the bills for this movement, you find the same cast of characters who are trying to dismantle civilization in the western hemisphere — George Soros and all his minions. Makes sense when you think about it. Get rid of a nation, get rid of a culture, get rid of a strong national defense, get rid of justice.

Finally, I would like to challenge this whole argument about not being able to give a man his life back. It’s technically true. The trouble is what to do about it. The solution, as I see it, is simply to take the decision more seriously. If we’re going to just refuse to partake, just because the consequences are severe, logically we’d have to stop doing a lot of other things. Imprisonment is out; can’t give a man his twenty years, or even a single day, anymore than you can give him his life. And when you think about it for awhile, you’ll see if we’re going to refuse to hand out sentences just because they’d be injurious if the defendant was innocent, we might as well water down the entire process and just hand out sentences by random chance. I’m not altering your argument to make it look silly, I’m just taking it to its logical end.

We can take justice seriously, or else not. It’s not a false dilemma. It’s two options with no in-between.
- mkfreeberg | 12/17/2007 @ 17:26
“And we aren’t debating the cases where DNA exonerates someone later, are we?”

Perhaps you weren’t, but I was. At least until this current generation of ‘deathers’ is gone and the ‘all DNA, all the time’ next generation is incarcerated. Ever vigilant, you know. Better that one man go free than an innocent man be imprisoned, and all that…..

To clarify, I think there is a moral imperative for the death penalty, but we are no longer a moral people, but an increasingly corrupt political animal who can no longer pass such judgments – Re: govt schools, secular society, george soros and all his minions, etc. On this I think we both agree.

So, my opposition to the death penalty is a political one – not a moral one. Serious decisions should still be rendered about other people’s lives, but I am ever cautious about lethal mistakes. Lawsuits are easier to settle than raising the dead.

And the relativistic utopian pollution of George Soros and all his minions should be met headlong, challenged, and countered, but I don’t think the death penalty is not the proper nail to hang that hat on.
- locomotivebreath1901 | 12/17/2007 @ 20:21
…but I don’t think the death penalty is the proper nail to hang that hat on.

fixed it
- locomotivebreath1901 | 12/17/2007 @ 20:24
Well okay, I think we agree on the fundamentals then. My argument pretty much boils down to: You don’t stop building a car just because a model or two rolled off the assembly line with some flaws. Even if those flaws actually got someone killed, you don’t stop building cars.

Except I am more receptive to the argument than that. You would be able to convince me we should abolish it, or perhaps have a George Ryan type moratorium in place, with a sufficient collection of anecdotes about exonerations taking place posthumous. I would find that somewhat convincing (and perhaps I shouldn’t, you know…it’s not a very durable argument).

But with things as they really are, the anecdotes just aren’t there. Meanwhile, kids are getting killed by people who are “supposed” to be in prison — and aren’t.
- mkfreeberg | 12/18/2007 @ 11:16

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For The Anti-Death-Penalty Types XIIIMonday, December 17th, 2007

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Monday, December 17th, 2007