We’re keeping this one up a little longer.
This is a different view of the whole raging controversy over, effectively, which entity has the right to control a woman’s body: the federal government or states.
The Right Without Which No Other Right Exists
The fetus only exists because of the woman’s body — not yours, not that of some possibly corrupt and stupid politician in Washington, and not the body of some possibly ignorant and venal politician in a state legislature. As I have watched this debate develop, and as I have considered with astonishment the increasingly byzantine efforts to ” draw lines” about the point of viability, the time at which a full set of rights attaches to the fetus, and all the rest, I have become increasingly convinced that the right of the woman to control her own body when she is pregnant must be absolute up to the point of birth. All the attempts to craft legislation circumscribing that right prior to birth quickly become enmeshed in what are finally subjective claims that can be disputed into eternity, and impossible of proof in one direction or another.
To all “pro life” folks. In an already overpopulated world, whats wrong with infanticide?
What is so wonderful about an unwanted kiddie that the burden of raising it to compete with all the wanted kiddies is a worthwhile endeavor?
The only relevant issue is whether or not the STATE provides sufficient support for wanted and unwanted kiddies, and atleast for the GOUSA, we all know we don’t! Taxes raised to support kiddies their parents don’t want? Lets not be hypocrites, umhkay?
#57 – noname,
Actually, though there are obviously crimes being committed in your own thought experiments, to the question of murder, my answers are:
1) no.
2) no.
3) no.
4) no.
5) no.
Sorry, but that really is how I feel about it. I have a lot of problems with the hypothetical actions you suggest. I just don’t find any of them to be murder.
#60 – bobbo,
We’re dealing with the taking of human life, presumably in retribution for the taking of human life. If this is done in a fair and consistent matter and we could make a 100% guarantee that we are never executing an innocent human being, I still have issues with it.
If it can be shown, and it can, that it is being implemented unfairly, then I feel the practice must stop. The problem has to do with equality before the law. Interestingly, from a racial standpoint, the short answer is that the victims are not being treated equally.
I was quite surprised that the real inequity is that capital punishment is used overwhelmingly when the victim is white. The murder of a white victim is 4.3 times more likely to result in execution than the murder of a black victim. Are we willing to live in a society where white life is valued more than black life? Where we make this blatantly obvious by punishing killers of white more strenuously than killers of blacks? I’m not.
Further, while women make up 15% of murderers, they only make up 1% of death row. Are we willing to say that it’s OK for women to kill but not men?
Lastly, when 90% of death row’s inmates are people that could not afford their own lawyers, are we really willing to say that poor people are not entitled to equal legal representation? Clearly, they are not getting it, and with the death penalty, it is costing them their lives.
So, fairness is a huge issue to me. Guaranteeing correctness of the verdict is a huge issue to me. I’d be willing to bet that a higher percentage of the 90% that were poorly represented are actually innocent than the 10% that had good legal counsel.
In short, yes, the numbers matter. Unfairness indicates an unfair percentage of innocents killed. Unfairness indicates an inequality in the value of human life. Unfairness in the taking of human life is unacceptable to me.
#57, Noname,
The answer to #1-4 would be no. The answer to #5 is yes.
The first four would be involuntary manslaughter, or the equivalent in your State. The fifth is premeditated.
In case you never read Roe v Wade, which you obviously haven’t, if the fetus is viable outside the womb, then the right to terminate becomes limited. So obviously if the fetus is terminated when it is that close to being born there is a very strong case to be made. But it is not murder because the fetus has yet to be born. I believe some States might consider this murder, but I would consider it manslaughter.
If during the delivery, a viable fetus is deliberately terminated then that would be murder.
But those are silly arguments from someone who obviously feels a dire need to clutch at straws to make a point that falls apart.
Any abortion in the third trimester, rare to begin with, would only be made as a last resort. That would mean the mother’s life is at stake, continued pregnancy would seriously injure the mother, the fetus is dead already, a deformity that would not allow life outside the womb, or the fetus has a known condition that demonstrates there is no viability. Or any combination. The mechanics of the third trimester abortion is that it now becomes a birth instead of a extraction. The sooner this is done, the healthier it is for the mother.
The argument about having an abortion the day before the baby is due is such a stupid argument it defies description.
*
Your comparison to slavery in the 1600s and 1700s is also baloney. Attitudes and social conditions were so very much different then. There is no comparison.
FYI, most “slaves in the 17th century (the 1600s) through to early 1700s, were actually indentured servants. White folk who agreed to work a set number of years to someone in order to gain passage from England to the New World.
63–Scott–The argument (ie “logical dialectic”) is shopworn. I’m surprised you remain one step behind rather than leap frog to the next level.
Your tone disagrees with me, but everything you post in fact agrees with what I posted. The race of the perp and executed is not relevant to any legitimate discussion. What is legitimate is the rules by which guilt and no guilt are applied and what crimes are eligible.
I sense that by “unfair” you mean non-white groups should be free to murder whites because they are disproportionately murdering whites. Maybe you in fact mean that it is unfair that whites are getting off, but I doubt it.
Someone is engaged in “the big lie” – – either you or Lauren? Good thing the execution statistics are pretty cut and dry but as I said earlier, such statistics really aren’t the important issue. The differential execution rates rasises a red flag, but is not proof of anything.
I welcome further discussion, especially if you would clarify your position and desired outcome? Now to read your references.
Thank you, bobbo. You nailed it. The deception practiced is the old standby of implying causation where no evidence for it is found – or better yet, when evidence against it IS. But stand by while I take this up with the Right Honourable M. Scott…
#45 – Scott
“…your arguments … do indeed sound racist.” Sounds, as with the better-known appearances, are often deceiving; but more to the point, one tends to see what one is already looking for. If you are looking at the world though race-colored glasses, you’re bound to see racism, even where it doesn’t exist. To digress briefly, I’d like to refer to Jägermeister’s comment elsewhere, where he asked:
“Why is that when someone writes something that is the slightest negative about Jewish people, they’re automatically anti-semitic?” to which I responded by replacing ‘Jews’ with ‘any ethnic group.’
This points up the reason why so little honest discourse on race issues in America is possible. Certain select ethnic groups are designated by Political Correctness to be sacred cows, so any criticism of that group is instantly and automatically condemned as “racism” or “anti-Semitism” or some other “-ism,” thereby immediately shutting down any productive dialogue.
Guess what? The behavior, either individually or collectively, of ANY ethnic group is a mixed bag of good and bad. No ethnicity or culture is immune from wrongdoing. But the agenda of latter-day Marxists – to enshrine seperatist group identities and undermine individual rights – would be compromised if they permitted free speech about the pathologies of their pet minority groups. Posing as champions of the underdog is how they regain respectability – even if they have to create that ‘underdog’ status themselves…
Black crime is a growing epidemic in America. It needs to be brought out into the open and discussed, the causative factors and proposals for what we can do as a nation and as individuals to find solutions.
Foreclosing discussion by ad hominem accusations of “racism” is the Marxist ploy to exacerbate racial tensions. As the self-appointed guardians of “oppressed” minorities, they know that they must make sure that any pathologies in the culture of the black American underclass is not a result of what blacks do themselves, but what the evil white “oppressors” do TO them. Total abjuration of responsibility. Everything is white people’s fault. Anything that whites can’t be blamed for is denied to even exist. That is the major feature of “professional victimhood.”
I say all that to say this: Americans who are peaceful, law-abiding citizens, white / black / Asian, are intimidated by the slimy propaganda tactics of the Podestas of the world into silence. Non-blacks are frightened of being smeared as “racists” – blacks who dare speak out against the lying demagogues and race-baiting self-serving hypocrites like Sharpton are smeared as “Uncle Toms.” So a culture of dishonesty prevails, where those not brainwashed by the promoters of ‘professional victimhood’ have to put on a public face of uttering PC platitudes while secretly knowing they’re lies. Decent, tolerant people who want to find fair solutions are driven underground – which, paradoxically enough, engenders resentment and bitterness which the true racists – neo-Nazis, white supremacists, etc – then use to promote their own destructive agendas. So really, the tactics of PC, far from helping blacks, actually aids their enemies, and even helps to create them.
Until such time as this situation can be brought to the table in a civilized, intelligent and honest manner, free from the gratuitous cries of “racism” and the racially divisive lies and distortions that permeate the discourse, the situation will only get worse. More and more blacks will secede from mainstream American society into the cancerous gangster subculture of self-destructive crime and violence and the rest of us, no matter what our race or class, will watch our society rot as well for doing nothing to end it.
And then, when things are at a nadir, is when the Marxist contingent will move in to fill the gap – as planned, having received the indispensible – and unwitting – assistance of the dupes who thought they were simply promoting “equality” and “justice.” Thus does the hardcore Left regain some degree of power in America – and if you think the hardcore Right slime have done a number on this country, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
So, Scott; do you prefer to continue with name-calling, self-righteous judgements and other discussion-preventing irrelevancies which serve no purpose but furthering racial divisions and animosity, à la a certain notorious PC clown here – or do you have the guts to discuss the actual issues?
Just curious…
sucking brains out? partial birth abortion…
ARE YOU HIGH? This doesn’t happen you moron. It’s bullshit that you swallowed.
First, educate yourself regarding the reality of how/when and the medical procedures. You nitwit!!!
See, it’s always the morons who tell their true lazy natures by promoting this nonsense about sucking fetus brains out, and partial birth abortions….when the reality isn’t anything like that, nor has it ever been.
I’m ashamed to admit that you are human. Honestly, I think someone should shove a drinking straw up your peepee and suck out the remaining brains you have left, because you aren’t using them, anyway.
63–Scott, I finally got to your two cites. No statistics are there, just arguments that capital punishment is wrong for so many reasons.
Now, I too have heard for a long time that black on white crime was harshly punished whereas white on black crime was not. My interest was pricked when lauren said it was just the opposite. Given I do believe we live in a country with a racial history and racial issues, I would expect the differential treatment to be on a curve.
Those wishing an old argument will look to the 1900’s and those wishing to be relevant, will look to the last 20 years? But neither you or Lauren provides cites. Maybe we can look to our own prejudices and just argue? That sounds about right.
Who here wants an “unfair” legal system—no hands.
Who here wants a fair legal system—all hands.
Nope, no disagreement on this topic.
67–Meetsy–I know Freud is a bit outdated these days but there still is truth to the notion that sex plays a vital unseen role in many if not most of human activities. So, as you outlaw sexualizing everything, I hope you leave a bit in for male/female relationships? And maybe just a touch for everything else we do?
I always find it amusing when people try to compare fetuses to slaves. Even a racist should be intelligent enough to realize that slaves were people, not fetuses. In fact, if slaves had been fetuses, there would not have been an European slave trade for 400 years. Fetuses can’t be forced to do a lick of work. But, people can.
I would like to see racists driven underground, but as demonstrated by Lauren the Bigot’s incessant white supremacist blathering on this blog, there is not much danger of that happening.
Actually, crime, including violent crime, has been down for more than a decade, mainly because of fewer young males in the population. The numbers of some violent crimes are starting to creep back up in the last year or so, but there certainly is not an epidemic. It is a stock false claim of the white supremacy movement to pretend that a lot more violent crime is occurring, that most criminals are black or Hispanic and that most victims are white. Truth of the matter is that a cohort of young men of whatever race are responsible for most violent crime. Persons not in that cohort are not likely to commit violent crimes — women, children, older people — regardless of race. Most crime is intraracial. African-Americans are particularly likely to be victims of violent crime. The facts are so different than what a Lauren will tell you that one wonders why he even bothers to post his lies.
Bobbo, surely you are not foolish enough to actually believe Lauren’s bigoted claims? The overwhelming majority of crime is, as I said above, intraracial. Furthermore, violent crime is usually at the hands of family, friends or acquaintances. ‘Stranger danger’ is much overstated. I think many people find it discomforting to admit the reality that they have the most to fear from those they know, so projecting onto black people or some other scapegoat puts them at ease. Here’s hoping you haven’t joined the very paranoid Lauren in expecting a Marxist revolution in the U.S., too.
The main issue of abortion is that the scientific community, who profits from the procedure, has not stepped up and claimed when life begins.
We already have a scientific clue as to when sentient life begins by when it ends. The majority of medical practioners agree that cessation of brain functions is indeed cessation of life. So let’s turn that trolley around and state that when we detect brain functions (ie brain wave activity) then we have the ONSET of life.
This activity has been spotted in tests as soon as 40-50 days after conception. Ergo BEFORE that period, there is NO sentient life and it is a splat of cells no more different than a cyst or cancerous growth.
No sentience, no life. That should be the rule of thumb no matter what.
What we need is to draft and pass a bill that states just that. That life begins at the onset of brain activity and ceases at the cessation of it. Put it in black and white terms and eliminate the emotional responses. Test for the presence of these. If its not there, its not murder, as you canot kill something that has no life. And when the activity ends they are legally dead.
And just to placate the religious factions that may be present here: St. Augustine stated, after being inspired by God, that the soul of a child enetered into the womb for a male at 45 days after conception and for a female at about 50 days. Now I can’t understand the differences, BUT he is very close to the studies that medical professionals have seen of brain activity in the womb. So I suppose that the religious-minded could put some comfort in knowing that if that is so, then a Saint and God agrees with Science. WOW who would have guessed?
Its time to end this idiot debate with common sense and ‘abort’ the emotional baggage. Whether one believes in God or not should not stop us from using logic and prudence.
Cursor_
It boils down to one thing. Forcing all women to be “breeders and feeders.”
How appropriate for American, land of not no longer free
#66 – Lauren,
Everything in this post is correct. As for looking for racism, I wasn’t. In fact, I was quite surprised to hear any from you as I had not gotten any hint of it from you on a long history of your posts.
However, this did not really sound that way to me. This sounded like you were merely spouting on the conventional racist view of blacks. I’d be interested to hear, for example:
1) Has anyone correlated crime to socioeconomic status to find whether the true correlation is stronger with income level and inner city slum living than with actual race?
2) Has anyone performed the statistical corrections for the fact that police do indeed target blacks as suspects more than whites? Perhaps blacks are just getting caught more.
I’m not a statistician. I suspect there are other investigations to be performed as well, since I have a hard time imagining criminal behavior to be inherited with skin color.
As for Al Sharpton, he’s pretty much the same as Pat Buchanon, a total racist son of a bitch thriving on racism. Educated blacks hate him as much as you and me.
Racists come in all shapes sizes colors and creeds. We do need to be able to discuss issues intelligently. However, when we do so, we also need to be sure to weed out any preconditioned bias in ourselves to the best of human ability, whatever that means for a xenophobic species.
So, feel free to post some of your sources. But, if you want to continue to post on the subject, I would definitely make sure that what you really mean is race not socioeconomic status. If the real difference is in the latter, knowing this would be tremendously helpful in addressing the cause.
#65 – bobbo,
I don’t believe going with the well-studied opinion of the ACLU legal staff is likely to be behind any curve. You may also have missed that the issue turns out not to even be the race of the convict, but the race of the victim. So, yes, I still have a huge problem with a society that says that a black life taken is not worth the death penalty but a white life is. This is a terrible message to society.
Besides, being behind the curve to take a step to the right is a good thing to me. The nation has already taken so many steps to the right that a jump to the left couldn’t possibly get back to anywhere near center.
#69 – bobbo,
I think you must have missed the first post, the ACLU link. It was chock full of numbers and percentages. It even pointed out that the Supreme Court actually acknowledged the racial bias, but just failed to accept it as an argument in the one case they were hearing, just as you do. I’m going with the ACLU on this one. Once we have proven extreme bias in the implementation, and we have, the death penalty must be stopped until the situation can be corrected.
#72 – Cursor_,
I don’t agree with your definition of the beginning of life. Nor do I find the answer all that important. Your logic would have us all become vegetarians. Certainly pigs are quite intelligent and have measurable brainwaves. Cows come when you call them by name, so something must be going on there too. Perhaps we can still eat chicken. There’s not much going on in the brain of a domesticated chicken. They might not register on an encephalogram. Jumping spiders actually perform well on certain intelligence tests, perhaps killing them should be illegal too.
I know, my post sounds silly, but really, so does yours when you think about it. You’d be outlawing the killing of anything with brain waves. Maybe that’s not a bad idea. Just make sure you’re willing to do that if you follow your own argument.
Humans are not special. We’re different in magnitude, not in kind.
My, what an interesting thread this has become.
#71–Podesta==one of my greatest failings as a human being is my tendency to believe what people tell me unless I have knowledge otherwise. So, yes, my inclination is to believe BOTH Scott and Lauren. From this potentially errant position, I assumed there might be a “curve” showing executions of minorities starting high on the left and declining with time as it goes to the right==so both parties could be looking at a large body of statistical reporting and have their attention and reporting drawn to different parts. But I take your counsel, which is why I did call for both parties to cite their facts. Neither have that I can see. What is an argument without facts?
72–Cursor, You ought to read Row v Wade==the issue has never been when life starts but rather at what stage of development should certain rights attach to the fetus. Different groups would make different attachments at different times and the Supreme Court struck a pretty good compromise. Not the line I would draw, but then I’m nuts.
75==Scott, you really are still overly focused on differential racial impact? and you STILL don’t say what outcome or solution you want? I am willing to suppose that our multiracial system of justice nonetheless hands out the death penalty to non-whites more than to whites. That easily could be for non-racial reasons like there are more white DA’s than non-white DA’s and white attorney’s relate better to white clients even when they are murdering trash – – and so forth. What would get me excited though is if juries are convicting people “because of” their race. I’m not going to get excited because non-whites who murder white people more often get the death penalty than do whites who murder non-whites. The solution in that case is to get those white bastards convicted like they should be===NOT as you seem to argue that the non-whites should get off.
I did not find any ACLU study cited, but I did find the wikipedia entry which was informative but not on what I am advancing above. But you are right, I agree with the Supreme Court. Any racial bias “in general” should not accrue to any specific defendant. His case should stand or fall on its own merits.
Doug and HMeyers – Keep in mind that this message board is primarily used (and operated) by people who have overestimated their ability to determine their own capacity for understanding. How could they possibly be blamed for their views?
Long live Dunning-Kruger!
I will reiterate; this is not the Deep South of Jim Crow. This is modern, diverse, multicultural America, and the A.D.A.s, the judges, the jurors, the police, are composed of whites, blacks, Asians, men, women, gays and straights.
PCers still get mileage by beating on the tired old drum of “the racist justice system.” Their dishonest emphasis on race as a factor – THE factor, to hear them tell it – in the disproportionate arrest / incarceration / execution rates of blacks vs. the gen pop obscures the TRUE scandal of American “justice.” Blacks, the vast majority of the time, in the large urban venues where most crime and it’s punishment take place, do not, and have not for a long time, received unjust treatment due to their race. This is simply a tired lie.
The subpop of people who get truly fucked over by the system today reflects the changed nature of the national ethos. Today we have racial quotas and affirmative action forcing diversity on the institutions that comprise the system. Whatever ethical and moral issues that attend those programs, they have demonstrably had the effect of removing control of the justice machinery from the hands of white men, racists and nonracists alike.
Instead of being railroaded for being nonwhite, the system has found new victims, victims no one cares about, who have no pressure groups to champion their cause, who get fucked royally and have no recourse but to take it on the chin. Who are these people, what is this subpop that gets shafted in broad daylight, with no one raising a hand to stop it? Here’s a hint. Think about the #1 cause of true inequality in America today. Something bigger than skin color. Something that Americans increasingly turn on each other to grab before the other guy does. Something that has fueled the epidemic of corruption in business, gov’t, private industry.
By now, the coin should’ve dropped. You should’ve snapped to the fact that money is the by-far dominant cause of unfair treatment and unjust discrimination by the powers that be.
Poor people are the new victims. Any ethnicity will do, but those who are neither black nor Hispanic – actually, any poor person who does NOT belong to a specific, gov’t-targeted minority group is, due to the lack of legal protections minorities enjoy, fair game. They can be shat upon with total impunity – and are. Cops needing to meet arrest quotas and A.D.A.s who, like most, are moral Nifongs, who work to convict as close to 100% of the people who come before them, to maximize their wins, working to convict people they know to be factually innocent – so they can demand higher pay when they move into private practice; these corrupt slime – mind you, of all races, creeds, genders and what-have-you – seek their job success at the expense of people who can’t fight back.
If you’re black, the system’ll make sure that you’re represented. The system bends over backwards, even when run by the usual suspects, to ensure they don’t commit civil rights violations against gov’t-protected minorities and get themselves and their departments in deep shit. But their mill needs grist, and some 15, 20 years ago, Republicans learned that they needn’t use blacks and Hispanics as their preferred whipping boys, that that would get them in trouble – no, they noticed that they could do as they pleased with poor people, who elicit little sympathy from even liberals, conditioned as THEY are to see only racial victimization. And so America’s “new niggers” were discovered – the urban poor.
And it’s going on right under your noses, every day, all over America – although the usual sociopolitical-climate conditions still apply. Even poor people will get a fairer shake in blue-state liberal bastions such as San Fran, Seattle and Boston, while GOP-run places like my home of Houston run poor folk of all races through their wood-chipper of a “justice” system with nary a peep from the ACLU or anyone else. No one wants to be caught sticking up for the poor, there’s no advantage to be gained, no moral high ground to claim. Besides, they’re smelly, they don’t pay their bills, and have you seen how they live??
There, for you, is the principal – but make no mistake, NOT the only – reason why the tired, mostly obsolete emphasis on criminal defendants’ race is a crock, that the only people left promoting it with distorted statistics and a full panoply of other dishonest and unethical tactics are the professional race-baiters like the “Reverend” Al and his allies, the radical left contingent, ruled from behind the scenes by the Marxist intellectual Mafia of Harvard and similar Ivies.
Think on it before you shoot your mouth off, eh?
#78 – bobbo,
Guess I’ll have to post the link in its long form. It’s not that long, sorry ed.
http://www.aclu.org/capital/general/10441pub19971231.html#unfair
There’s another link in my post #53 as well. I think that one is really long and doesn’t make the point quite as well as the ACLU link above.
As for results, yes I want results. I want a law-abiding society. This must include respect for the law, which in tern depends on having reasonable laws that make sense and treat people equally.
#80 – Lauren,
Nice rant. I genuinely hope you enjoyed typing it. In between ranting though, please read the links in my post #53. Thanks.
If the first one doesn’t work for you, as it did not for bobbo, use the link in post #81. I tend to have a pretty good trust for information from ACLU. They’ve got a good team studying the situation. They also point out that someone in fact did convince the U.S. Supreme court that in fact it is still the Deep South of Jim Crow, as you put it. So, perhaps not all the racial ills of society have been cured just yet.
I do agree though that race is not the only source of inequity. Certainly wealth persecutes non-wealth quite effectively as well. However, that does not erase the race issue.
Scott–I will take more time to really look for those statistics in your cite because you are meeting me half of half way. BUT you are still avoiding my direct question and the position of the Supreme Court.
Do you want more non-whites who murder whites to avoid capital punishment, or do you want more whites who murdered non-whites to get the death penalty. “Logically” it has to be one or the other or both? (sic)–or how would you phrase it other than you want “fairness?”
You are starting to sound like someone who is against capital punishment per se ((even though you say you want fairness)) and have just found the racist angle as a good way to undermine it. If that is the case, just admit it and go after the many faults of capital punishment rather than this backdoor and dishonorable approach.
Scott –read the ACLU material. Its a bit confusing in that it switches back and forth from describing the defendants to statistics on the victims? I wonder if that is done to manipulate anything?
I wonder why go back to 1930 and state that blacks get capital punishment for rape whereas whites don’t? Does this color (ahem!) the remainder of the analysis? Yes, I think it does.
I wonder if the white victims are seen as innocent of contributing to their deaths and therefore the convicted murderers get the death penalty, whereas the black victims are too often involved in criminal activities and therefore contribute to their deaths and therefore the convicted murderers catch a break? I don’t know, just one set of maybe’s that could moderate the outcome?
Black defendant, black victim, black judge, black jury, black cops. Defendant gets life in jail. How is this racists?
Black defendant, white victim, asian judge, black jury, white cops.
Defendant found not guilty. How is this racists? (smile!)
Yeah–the death penalty is often unfair, especially in the felony murder rule. My take-away would be not to murder people and avoid the whole issue, I hope thats not ducking any major issue?
79–KevinL==will you exceed your own competency before or after you tire of posting the Dunning-Kruger observation? For bonus points, how do you tell what opinions fall within/outside that judgmental aphorism?
bobbo – the ACLU itself is currently undergoing a major leadership crisis. It is informative to note than on one side is the membership that happens to have typically lawyerly disregard for truth or ethics, which has resulted in no small number of highly suspect reports, featuring the pet causes of the Ivy League Marxist cohort, and the propagandistic “data” used in support of said causes…
87—Lauren, if I ever joined any group, the ACLU would be one of the few. Now, I might get kicked out for suggesting they don’t need to protect NAMBLA, but any other issue doesn’t really come to mind. No one, no organization is perfect, so I go with the general performance. Without the ACLU, where would this country be?
In church on our knees I suspect. and the list of issues it fights is very long and mostly admirable. If they have recently taken a turn to the extreme, look who they fight with every day? Got to be a few miscues here and there.
I support the death penalty, but I wouldn’t mind much if it were done away with. Life in Prison is close enough. So, ACLU’s and even Scotts debateable position on its being racially biased doesn’t concern me much.
What issues do you fault the ACLU on?
I RTFA and I can say that it was just some weak reasoned liberal crap. First they say that the argument is about what a woman does with her body. That is frankly stupid a woman is not allowed to have certain types of breast emplants. She cannot have herself tattooed in some states. She cannot go to town and get a big bag of Meth and snort till she falls over. The issue is about whether or not a medical condition that only lasts 9 months is something that she can have reduced or not. The fact is that a separate person who relies on her for her life is involved. That separate person does enjoy unalienable rights are those rights observed?
#83 – bobbo,
I want to get rid of the death penalty.
That’s my short answer. I have other reasons for being opposed to it as well. For starters, the killing of the innocent, the extra expense of prosecution under the death penalty actually costing more than life without parole, the lack of any evidence of crime deterrence, the lack of any way to know whether the criminal genuinely feels horrific pain that is totally masked by an inability to move due to the first drug given, etc.
However, if we’re going to live with the horrific death penalty, I want it implemented fairly across the board. I don’t care if that means fewer killers of whites get zapped or more killers of blacks get zapped. I also want less discrepancy in who gets capital punishment based on sex and income.
#84 – bobbo,
Does this color (ahem!) the remainder of the analysis? Yes, I think it does.
I don’t see how. They state quite clearly when they are giving history of the death penalty and when they switch back to current data.
As for switching between victim and criminal, they are pointing out that if we prosecute differently based on the victim, we are ascribing greater value to the lives of certain victims, i.e. the ones with white skin. This is morally repugnant.
#86 – Lauren the Ghoti,
Mind citing the source of the internal upheaval in the ACLU? It seems to me that it would make great repugnican propaganda. So, I’d just like to hear that it was not a Fox story.