Of course Blaire wants him dead, as do probably many Britons. But Britian, the rest of the EU, Canada, and even beloved Australia all outlawed the death penalty in the 80s so no one is going to come out and support it just this one time for Saddam.
JaHerer22 on November 6, 2006 at 11:59 AM

…when your world exists as theory — “wouldn’t it be nice if…” — is all ideals and no practical application, and is no more stubstantial than your own preconceived notions, the worst sin is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is “treason against ideas”, and, is among intellectuals and the other broken toys running things in Europe and European-Lite countries nothing more or less than heresy, with the punishment itself meriting exile…because they’re too enlightened to burn at the stake anymore.

I wonder if they have really given any thought to what this guy’s done, and what he’s still capable of doing. He’s smallpox on the hoof, and we have only to look away and let him loose, and the infection’s started again.

The death penalty may or may not deter other nascent dictators, but it will certainly deter Mr. Hussein from ever gassing, shredding, or ordering the deaths of anyone else. It would, in this case, be a positive deterrent indeed.

Puritan1648 on November 6, 2006 at 12:37 PM

Personally I have have no qualms about Saddam being executed and I can’t say I have a strong stance on capital punishment in general; I think both sides of the argument have merit….

…well, I think that the argument that the innocent can be wrongly executed might be factored into every sentence, and, with today’s enhanced ways of determining almost irreducable absolutes in evidence, I’d say that we’re closer than ever before to eliminating that.

Putting someone to death for crimes involving murder, including kidnapping and murder, robbery and murder, sexual abuse and murder, is only chlorinating the gene-pool.

I don’t think it’s fair to berate countries that have outlawed the death penalty however.

…I’ve never been overly enamored of being “fair”.

There once was a couple of folks in Germany, self-styled satanists, all eaten up with the whole black/gothic/vampiric/Hollywood-horror-genre thaaaang. They lured some schmoe to their digs (I think it was using the female of the couple as bait), where they proceeded to stab the guy a gazillion times, drink some blood (I seem to remember), and then have sex themselves in a coffin they kept ready on hand for such purposes.

The trial was a real Jerry Springer affair, they said (literally) “the devil made me do it”, and the guy was sentenced to about 15 years. A life, even that of the sort of scum-bag that would hang out with this sort of wacko, is only worth 15 or so years in Germany.

…and, on his way into the crowbar-motel…er, crowbar-gasthaus…the guy-half of the couple said that, once he’s out, he’ll buy a chainsaw, so’s he’ll be all that much more prepared when the Devil calls him again. So much for remorse.

I’d have to say that I would lose no sleep if we were to lose these guys from the well of humanity.

Those governments and their citizens made that decision, most of them decades ago, and most of them firmly believe execution is wrong and a violation of human rights.

…so long as we’re agreed that these citizens call down upon themselves the consequences of this action…and, if we can get them to *STOP* waxing “holier-than-thou” about countries like ours which agree to disagree about capital punishment…instead of looking down their long continental noses at we poor, benighted colonials, cowboys and dust-bowl-white-trash, who don’t put mayonnaise on our “freedom fries”.

European countries have very long history of war, torture, and execution…

…which brings up two points: 1) With that sort of history, they’re the *last* people from whom we should tolerate any lecturing, and 2) their new-found respect for human rights (one could be excused for calling European “human rights” European “misfit rights”, as it’s the square pegs who’re catered to over there) sound a little hollow. Germany as an example, they went from generally absolute monarch to absolute mess to absolute dictatorship to general mess to absolute general mess…socialism.

…I believe it is a decision that should be respected by you and the rest of the world.

…now, there we have a problem.

I’ve been to Europe — lived in Germany, lived in England, have more than a passing acquaintance of Scotland, have been through and have a personal measure of Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and even have seen a bit of Iceland — so Europeans and their ways are not “National Geographic channel” factoids to me. For one thing, the charm of their legal systems and social experiments have evaporated.

The problem is with the phrase, “should be respected by you”, which I’m certain is an unfortunate choice of words on your part, and utterly unintentional. It sounds a bit like “well, you ougta”, which are usually the words which proceed the reply “wait, I’ll show ya!”

Something that the eggheads up North never realized about the South and Southwest back before the Civil War, then again during Reconstruction, all the way through the Civil Rights marches up to today. This is that there’s a population — my people, the “rednecks”, the “crackers”, or more “indigenous population” of that region” to put it into sociological terminology — which reacts *VERY* badly to “well, you oughta…”.

Example: “See there, Southern yeoman! Espy those dark people over there? Well, you oughta….”

Now, a lot of those “Southern yeoman” had been raised by the mothers of those “dark people”, while Northern Cousin Jonathan wouldn’t know an afro pick from a pickaxe. Still, he was being lectured with the unfortunate phrase “well, you oughta…”. You might as well have waved a red flag.

Nowadays, things’ve calmed down, and Ol’ Hick, the yeoman, has seen the error of his ways…no thanks to Cousin Jonathan, who lectured and vamoosed back to the Land of Leaf-Peepers and “three months of bad sledding”. Still, the whole “well, you oughta…” has overflowed its bounds and has seeped into quite a few places in this country. The quickest way to get someone to do what you would want them *NOT* to do in this country is to “well, you oughta…” them…and today that goes for black, brown and red yeomen, as well their white cousins.

…no criticism, just a point of sociology you may or may not have noticed in your life’s travels.

I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I’ll start respecting their decisions and pronouncements on capital punishment when they stop pronouncing on them as if to say, “now, you guys over there…well, you oughta….”

Puritan1648 on November 6, 2006 at 1:42 PM