Hopefully this is the first step in abolishing the most illogical, barbaric law that is a disgrace to this country - the death penalty.

Here, here!! Now, if he'd just legalize pot and prostitution, the US would be a true paradise...

MrBill

Ah, our puritanical heritage makes that a true pipe dream. Puritanical and barbaric, hmmmmm

Yeah, yeah. I have real mixed feelings about the death penalty. I know all the reasons for and against it. I used to be totally opposed to it. But lets just say that I have revised my opinion somewhat.

In a recent development, David Westerfield just got a death sentence in California. I have a hard time seeing this as anything but a good thing. Eventually, he will get his. Part of me will search within myself for a compassionate reaction to his plight, and part of me will savor his exit from this world.

Who in the fuck would even try and search for compassion over Westerfields "plight?" He sat at home jerking off over illegal porn, then raped and murdered a little girl. The death penalty is probably the easy way out for that scum ... perhaps spending the rest of his life in prison getting ass-raped every other day would be more fitting. If it had been my kid, I guarantee he'd be dead already.

-Superman-

Superman said, "The death penalty is probably the easy way out for that scum ... perhaps spending the rest of his life in prison getting ass-raped every other day would be more fitting."

Here, here... here!! I could not agree more!! The death penalty is wrong, IMHO, for two reasons:

1) Killing another person on purpose, in cold blood, is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. How can we say killing is wrong, and if you kill someone, the state will kill you. Killing is either wrong or it isn't (wartime excluded, of course).

2) A GUARANTEED lifetime in jail with NO possibility of parole is true punishment. Death is the easy way out for these sickos. I say, give them a lifetime of suffering to ponder thier actions. Mr Westerfield, meat your new roommate "Bubba"...

PS - my view on the death penalty has nothing whatsoever to do with compassion. Reason #1 above is simply an effort to uphold the meaning of the word, "wrong" - which IMHO cannot be done when society tries to make two wrongs into a right. But compassion for these guys? Never.

Back off the soap box.

Some of you will understand the (blunt, obvious) subtlety here. The reason to seek a compssionate response rather than a reactive, hateful one is to detoxify the anger within oneself. Operating from a place of hate, anger, and arrogant, vindictive justice is a knee-jerk reaction, pretty ordinary, low and poisonous. And the thirst for operating in this way is like any other addiction.

I dunno if any of you have ever known someone who was murdered, or who has murdered. At some point you have to move on rather than being consumed by it. That involves a form of compassion and forgiveness at the conclusion of successful mourning. Some people confuse this with coddling the bastard and laying out the red carpet. And others confuse it with pacifism and spineless inaction. I'd like to believe that you can have a compassionate death penalty; that's what the status quo strives for in some instances. It is more like fighting off a virus, or cutting out a cancer, than bloodthirsty revenge.

I'm all about an eye for an eye. Revenge is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Very satisfying.

-Superman-

...but if you fight evil with evil, only evil can win.

I think many of you are missing the point.

I and most people are not seeking revenge on Westerfield in particular and the general killing scum of the world in general

I feel it is sometimes a deterent for some of these people to know that if you kill someone, you have a good chance of being killed.

We spend an incredible amount of money in our judicial and later on on in the penal system supporting these child killers and killers of other innocent victims and I find paying my tax dollars to provide for these killers health and welfare for the rest of their lives very unpalatable.

Most of these murders will do anything to keep from being sentenced to death as opposed to life in prison. I would just like for them to have a lot of disappointments in their future.

Ben, I agree. All though my inclinations are to preserve and protect life at any cost, the cost, in this case in life itself.
The death penalty, in part, is a mind game. Its a message being sent that balance will occur if you commit a horrible crime.
Child murders, child kidnappers, etc.. will never be reformed under any system. Nor will they be forgiven by society, nor themselves. Being as ironic as it is, all though I oppose it, the death penalty is necessary and is here to protect us.
Most of you know that the death penalty does not exist in Mexico. And that the max sentence you ordinary get in 25 years (considered 1 life sentence).
But it is also a reality that 100s of children each day are kidnapped either for extortion, or to be sold at a high price, or the most horrible and very commun, to be sacrificed and to sell their organs.
Those who get caught, will never get the death penalty, maybe get 25 years, and get out in 15 years. And those who dont get caught, know this and factor their horrible actions as a low risk crime.
If the death penalty where to take action, a message would be sent, and these horrible crimes would be less.
Remember, the death penalty, as horrible as we persive it, protects innocent life in our society.

Masterater

Masterater,

I know you are a Mexican citizen from Mexicali, so you are the expert. But I understand that there has never been a single case proven of children sacrificed for organs. Do you really believe that? On the contrary, a few years ago some innocent toy salesmen were lynched in a pueblo en Hidalgo because a local said they were organ traffickers. Just curious.

I agree with you though that in general sentences are too lenient in Mexico. Combine the lite sentence with th efact that most crime goes unsolved and you don't have much crime incentive to not committ crime. UNAM estimates that in Mexico City 98% of all crimes go unsolved.

I am not real sure about the death penalty. There have been over 100 cases in the last 15 years of people being freed from death row or from life sentences when their innocence was proven. We have probably already executed an innocent man. Oh well.

What I do advocate fully is making prisons prisons and not some kind of low class hotel. Whats all this shit about Televisions, College courses, Libraries, Internet accsess, etc. Put them to doing hard labor. No entertainment. No reading. Beans and rice for every meal. Put the proven child abusers in the general population. Take away the weight rooms and excercise yards. No lights form dusk to dawn etc. Inhumane? Maybe. But prison should be a real punishment and a place to be feared. Not a nice little escape from responsibilty.

Many tpos in the last post. Proving that i am not a good multitasker. Its a damn shame work has to interfere in my more important activites.

Revenge is good. Vengeance is one of the most satisfying acts known to man, other than fucking. When fucking AND vengeance are combined ointo one act... OH YEAH BABY!!! That's getting a little off topic, though.

The bottom line is, there is no true justice in the universe, other than that which we make ourselves, and that which individuals bring upon themselves.

The bleeding heart pussies who are against the death penalty miss a central point: There is a profound difference between killing an innocent person with no good reason, and killing an evil cocksucker for acts he has committed.

B1, At this time, I can't really prove or digout for you a child organ case, but I can tell you that my children disappear everyday in our country, and there have been cases here at the border of dead chidren bodies being crossed to the USA with there insides missing and filled with coke or heroin. Also, recently, in Querataro, there has been 40 unexplained death of newborns where the mothers are not permited to see the dead courpse before burial.
A missing 10 year old in my town also was found with his inside organs missing. This child was taken by a man in a bicycle. His mother doesn't want to even look at the body because she still hopes she will find her son.
All these rumors, or facts, are a very scary reality we are living in Mexico.
And they will continue until the judicial system takes desperate mesaures in these desperate times.
God Bless us all, my fellow brothers......

Masterater

I read just recently about a very high rate of infant deaths in one hospital in Chiapas. Something like 20 in a month. It does make you wonder. But after 5 years in Mexico, reading Reforma, Frontera, y El Financiero daily, I cant recall a single documented case. So I wondered if it were really just a very prevalent urban legend. I do remmebr about a year ago of the cse of an adult female being kidnapped and being found sevral days later minus a kidney. So I dont completely discount that it occurrs with kids.

Kenny, You always have a way with words. LOL

Kendricks, your response surprised me. Acting out of wrath is a sin.

I am definitely not a liberal. In fact I'm quite conservative. This just happen to be the only issue I don't stand on the same side as most conservatives.

Now that this conversation turned political I want to bring up a hypocrisy that occurs in both the major parties. The republicans are anti-death when it comes to abortion, but pro-death when it comes to the death penalty. The democrats are the exact opposite. I just don't know how someone can have more compassion for a convicted killer that an innocent baby.

Kendricks, at least you're not a hypocrite. You're pro-death in both cases. I just hold the opposite views by being pro-life in both cases.

As far a cost go, it is way less expensive to sentence a killer to life than to go through the judicial system's appeal process. Even if the killer does want an appeal he gets one. If the number of appeals got limited to lets say two, then maybe the taxpayers costs would be an argument.


just my thoughts

-snapper-

The Republicans and the Democrats are both full of shit, in their own way.

Most Republicans would force women to be an unwilling incubator, just because they happened to come down with a case of sperm infection. This is a horrible intrusion on a woman's life, and an attitude which is spawned by anti-sex puritanism, i.e., these evil fornicating women must be PUNISHED! Fuck that. A woman owns her own body, and has every right to scrape an infected egg out of it.

The Democrats, on the other hand, also turn my stomach, with their anti-gun rights, anti-death penalty shit. We already have over 6,000,000,000 people on this planet, and the traffic is getting worse every day. Enough already.

Anyway, Snapper, thank you for noting the consistency of my position! 8-D

There's not much evidence to suggest that the death penalty serves as much of a deterrent to would be criminals. Most studies show that it is the certainty, not the severity, of punishment that acts as a deterrent. I think there are other reasons to have a death penalty. The deterrent argument doesn't seem to hold water.

As far as prisons are concerned, I think that making them *total* hellholes is counterproductive. The misguided assumption is that if you make them hellholes, people will be less likely to commit crimes in the future. But punishment, especially arbitrary punishment within a prison system, makes it MORE likely that they'll be violent and dangerous when they get out.

One problem currently is that criminals don't have to change or rehabilitate themselves to gain access to many of the goodies Batster mentioned. If you make those things contingent on behavior and attitude change, then you are in a better position to change their asses. In simple words, two messages will be effective in a prison setting: (A) Change/improve and we'll reward you somewhat, sometimes, and (B) Change or rot in prison/die.

There are two detectable broad classes of criminals, including those who have zero or near zero chances of changing, based on personality factors, and the rest. With the first class, it really doesn't matter what you do with them, so forget trying to get them to change. They'll always be what they are. So you can lock 'em away, whip 'em, or give 'em all sorts of goodies for being good. It won't change anything, so you might as well do what is most cost efficient (e.g., lock them away forever; use them for medical experiements or fetilizer, or grind them into meat products).

With the second class, systems of rewards and consequences are necessary (but not always sufficient).

I like the idea of making prison rehabilitation cost effective. If we took the least probmematic 10% of the prison population and exterminated the other 90%, we'd have lots of resources to throw at rehabilitating the survivors. And they'd have lots of incentives to work toward the rewards.

Dogster,

I have been waiting for(holding my breathe because of the stench)the arguement that the death penalty does not protect us conservative repubs from being murdered.

"There's not much evidence to suggest that the death penalty serves as much of a deterrent to would be criminals."

My answer is as follows:

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call."


Benhavingoneofhisfewseriousmoments

"When fucking AND vengeance are combined into one act... OH YEAH BABY!!! "

Your right Kendricks1

The ultimate high.

Let's get real. The death penalty exists because we all want vengence. It can rationalized, explained and prettied up in many different ways, but vengence is the bottom line ... it's simple human nature.

For those with bleeding hearts, or those who think they have evolved to some higher plane, I suggest drowning your true feelings away away in a bottle Jim Beam and a 6 of Dead Man Ale every night before bed ... I'm sure it'll make everything better.

-Superman-

"If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers." Sure, fine. But the rest of it is wishful thinking. Like I said, I think there are other, better reasons for having a death penalty.

Actually, vengence-based people do serve a purpose in our society. We can use them to provide entertainment (WWF, NFL, etc), study mental illness and heart disease, slaughter livestock and criminals, and fight our wars against evil people in foreign lands. They make great pawns, sometimes leading the legions of lemmings over the cliff, confusing their subjective biases (anger, fighting, control, excess, risk-taking, tunnel vision, childlike arrogant justice/troublemaking) with objective truth, justice, bravery and depth. The irony is that they have more in common with murderers than the rest of the population.

If they live long enough, well enough, and competently enough, they may be lucky enough to get past it, finally questioning their rigid, angry black and white misconceptions. But don't hold your breath. And don't expect them to comprehend deeper issues in a discussion.

Just so y'all will know...

I have never slaughtered livestock, but I have casterated hundreds

Does that count?

You got it backwards, doggie. People are taught that hatred and vengeance are bad in order to make them tame, docile servants. Notice how peasants worldwide bow their heads when offended by "superiors". Note how christianity advises people to "turn the otehr cheek".

Hatred and vengeance are emotions of the free and the brave. Piety and mercy for evil oppressors is the hallmark of the weak.

When I look at a guy like David Westerfield who beyond any doubt killed a little girl whose parents will suffer for the rest of their life, I have no compassion.

I think that there may another potential killer that might think twice before killing a child if he or she thought the death penalty was waiting for them.

I think a better deterrent is for potential killers is to see what happened to Jeffrey Dahmer when he died at the hand of another inmate shoving a broken broom-stick up his ass.

What happened to being prolife, Snapper? How hypocritical that you preach sanctity of life, encourage a system where death sentences are randomly meted out pursuant to the whims of other inmates.

Anyway, Jeffrey Dahmer is an interesting case study. Anyone who can stray as far as he did from society's norms is definitely someone I would like to sit down with and buy a beer.

I think Kendricks is finally getting back to the one we knew and hated.

oohraaaa

Even though I support the death penalty in concept, I'm not sure Westerfield is deserving of it. I would like to know what, if anything, the girl did to entice him or egg him on.

If her conduct contributed to her own demise, such as sexual teasing with no intent of putting out, for example, I think that could be a mitigating factor. It still wouldn't excuse Westerfield 100%, but it could make his actions more understandable. After all, there are two sides to every story.

Sick Kendricks

Danielle van Dam did two things to entice Westerfield.
1) she lived next door to him
2) she was 7

Clearly she was asking for it.

Will hell, i guess i was a little harsh on the bastard.

Ok how about twenty years and with good behavior and a good solid emotional rehab and medical program he gets out in say 10-12 years. Perhaps a little to vengeful on my part according to our liberal contingent, so how about ten years out in six with good behavior

"I have never slaughtered livestock, but I have casterated hundreds"

Not to sound like I want vengence, but with my background in casterating both pigs and especially calves, I would be more than happy to perform the same type of medical procedure on Mr. Westerfield.

Where does your inside information come from, Snapper? How do you know what transpired bewtween these two?

It's easy to jump on bandwagons; it is not so easy to view disputes with an open mind - especially when you have been brainwashed and preconditioned to leap to pre-approved opinions.

Ha ha, Kendricks fucking rules!

-Superman-

Not to jump on bandwagons, as I have been an admirer for a long time, but he does rule.

Looks like he as neglected his lithium for the past couple of days

Kendricks, Your responses are crack'n me up.

I'm sure the defense attorney wanted to ask Danielle what had transpired between her and the defendant so he could get leniency in sentencing. Unfortunately, the defendant tampered with the witness by killing and burning her.

Ben???

That was below the belt !!!!

NEVER EVER CALL BEN A MUSICIAN

He deserves better than that. On top of that Ben is at least 2 times older than this wacko !!

I'm sorry.

-Aardvark-

Ben has more hair than that pervert.

Fuck you guys.

more hair, like this?


just kiddy'n

or more like this?

Damn Snapper,

You must have taken my picture at Fiesta III?

Good for Gov Ryan. Nothing against killing genuine maggots, but the number of innocent people turning up on the Illinois death row is rather revolting. A lot of people in Calif would have liked for the Mcmartins to be executed, before they came out to be innocent.

"I think Kendricks is finally getting back to the one we knew and hated."

Hee, hee. Kenny, you are much better/sicker here than at the Club Hombre Rejects website. I feel compassion for you, you poor thing.

Lithium??? What is this, the dark ages???

(Did any of you whackjobs get a kick out of Snapper's amputee photo from a few weeks ago? Just curious...)

Anyway, it is nice to see that Kenny and the rest of y'all have coagulated... err... conformed to a unified pro-vengeance stance. And to think that you got there all by your free-thinking, non-brainwashed selves, without the help of any violent media images provided by the power elite.

Isn't next Monday Charlton Heston Day? Anyway, I've gotta go to the Zona Norte and go bowling for concubines.

Byron put me up to this ...

Doggie, you remind me of that pseudointellectual asshole Richard Gere, who was blathering on after 9-11 about how we need to have compassion for those who attack us, etc., instead of blowing the living shit out of them.

You can try to convince yourself of your moral superiority all you want, but no one who has lived in the real world for longer than five minutes is buying it. Vengeance is one of life's sweetest rewards.

Turn the other cheek, my ass. The meek shall inherit nothing, dogboy. The sooner you comprehend this fact, the better off you will be for it.

Milky dancing at the last Fiesta before fucking one of the primas.

I must have turned her on with my dancing !!

"...but no one who has lived in the real world for longer than five minutes is buying it."

Give that man a "Reality TV" show on cable...

Milky, when did you turn into Pee Wee Herman?

He only wishes he could dance as well as PeeWee

More like Chewbacca going cold turkey for 48 hours after a 7 year smack binge.

like this...

Uh. yeah. Is he dancing to cum bi a or bunga I mean banda?

Y'all probably aren't at the New York Times reading comprehension level, but there was a good article on Saturday on eastern spiritual practices, aggession, violence, martial arts, etc.

Snapper: you nailed it with what I was trying to describe. Actually Chris is a few pounds lighter than Milky these days...

maybe a whole lot if he was turned into ashes

Why am I not surprised that you not only read the NYT, but believe their liberal drivel.

You are an idiot.

I never read newspapers or books as I know a tree had to die.

Never said I believe their "liberal" drivel. I occasionally read the Wall Streat Urinal, too, what about it?

Mr Tree Fiber, what is your political stance on Metamusil? Is it true that (a) it costs trees to make it, but (b) it saves trees on the way out? I figure you are the expert, and assume that you are a "regular" kind've guy.

Speaking of trees...

I hear that they are finally going to doze that 400 year old oak tree that "Rainbow McDolphin" has been living in for the past 71 days.

I wondered what happened to Byron?

Actually I heard they were going to try and transplant it.

What's the point? The thing is 400 years old. How much longer can it possibly live anyway?

I don't think that's cumbia Milky is dancing to.

I think it's Kumbaya.