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Live Whacking Permalink Archive
click "Live Whacking" button for the latest entries


30-7-02

Tammy Bruce dumbs it down

I likes Tammy, but this article in favour of the death penalty contains some of the most laughably silly reasoning I've seen outside a Pilger essay.

I've never had the slightest problem with the idea of the death penalty: murderers, rapists and assholes who break into their 30th home deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth. It is a perfectly justifiable punishment in my opinion.

Problem is, I'm against it in practice as an available punishment thru the legal system simply because innocent people get convicted and innocent people get executed.

Tammy provides this infantile justification.....

We do hear stories of the extremely rare instance of an innocent in prison being released due to DNA evidence. That’s great, and it proves the system works. I like eliminating the rare doubt from the process, something the Left has exploited ad infinitum.

Tammy must be undergoing some serious chemical therapy if she wrote this with a straight face. Extremely rare instance? According to Barry Sheck, 109 people have been exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence through the Innocence Project. One hundred and nine innocent people, a great many of them death-penalty cases. Pardon me Tammy, but 109 just under the umbrella of the innocence project alone is not "extremely rare" in my book.

Fortunately, with DNA and other science, the misguided of the Left have lost their argument to end the death penalty.

Um, no they haven't dearie....... Besides, I'm not a member of "the left".

Remember, these 109 are those that have been lucky enough to be found by Sheck and lucky enough to have biological evidence useable in a DNA test. People convicted with without such evidence have no such lifeline. How many hundreds or thousands of wrongful convictions could there be in capital cases? The system aint gonna work for them Tammy....so much for your inane panacea.

I'm the son of a career cop, and we're all pretty right-wing about crime-n-punishment in this family. But even my dad never argued that innocent people haven't been thrown in jail. Anyone who believes that is not only an idiot, they're a dangerous idiot.

And this is just from honest mistakes. That doesn't even take into account some notoriously corrupt police departments around the globe. Anyone in Aus who's been awake for the last 15 years has heard about the frightening levels of police corruption in Queensland, NSW and WA. Sweet jesus, one week ago we had a senior NSW detective on 4 Corners opening talking about falsifying evidence and framing suspects. Was he evil? No. He was a guy who fundamentally still wanted to put the bad guys away. And something tells me the reality in many parts of the USA is no different.

Tammy - and other death penalty fans - engage the predictable arguments to counter this....

1) if murderers get out one day, this will not only be morally unacceptable, they may kill again - sorry, lame argument. Life imprisonment without parole prevents this. Assuming even one of them escape and kills again, the danger from this adds up to a lot less than 109 dead innocents.

2) it is cheaper than keeping people in jail for a long time - um, sorry, but fuck off. You don't end a life because it's cheaper. You may argue it's OK to execute because it's morally justified, but you don't do it because it's cheaper. Especially if that life is an innocent one. That kind of thinking was very big amongst the Einsatzgruppen, and it's no less morally repugnant now. If we're going to have that approach, why have trials and courts at all? Just let the cops execute at will - it will save us all lots of money and time.

3) life in jail is too good and cozy for them - fine, so make it tougher. Work them into the fucking ground and feed em regurgitated gruel for all I care. You don't need the death penalty to solve this problem.

4) the victims must get justice, they are suffering, etc. - yes. But no matter how much they are suffering, executing an innocent person to ease their pain is murder - plain and simple.

You might argue that it's ok to have a sizeable innocent-to-guilty ratio amongst the executed. You may believe this as a kind of pragmatic equation or just because you don't give a shit. Obscene as that is, I could respect it more than deliberately avoiding the issue of execution of innocents with bullshit side issues.

There could be room for compromise of course. ie. as a general principle, save the death penalty for murder cases where there is direct DNA proof of the crime, confirmed by different independent sources.

But as far as Tammy Bruce's argument goes, it rates as juvenile emotive cant, and little else.
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Hey Americans, are you scared yet?

Some entertainingly deluded knob on the aus.motorcycles newsgroup threatened that the USA is "scared to death" of China, and it was only a matter of time before they crushed you like ants, just like the vietnamese did. The Chinese have - apparently - given up old fashioned "bullet" weapons to focus on lasers and sonic devices which will seal your doom........

you may begin shivering in fear
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Hidden terrorist message in song

Music & lyrics from a Pakistani pop song. Turn your speakers up. Can you decode the secret message? Watch & listen carefully.
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Did somebody spike his Mescaline?

...either that, or Jack Robertson must have puffed too much of the wacky stuff. Can anybody follow these endless, demented ravings?
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Robert Mugabe must be killed

The only issue is how to do it in a way that ensures a peaceful transition as possible to more liberal politicians. But one thing is for certain: His ass deserves to be exterminated.
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Greatness regained

The entries for 26-7-02 have now been restored and appear in their rightful place below. Once again the world can enjoy my friendly criticism of Hugh Mackay.
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