…damnation, that was a long post…I’ve gotta get a new keyboard…this one just can’t seem to get to the point….

Puritan1648 on November 6, 2006 at 1:43 PM

Well, you oughta… get a new keyboard. */me ducks* Your post reminds me of Back To The Future, wherein McFly would accept the perilous challenge of anyone who called him “chicken”. I think it took him 3 movies to learn his lesson.

Actually, your comment about the keyboard made me laugh. :)

I agree with Hitchens that it is most desirable and will be an excellent day when Iraqi’s break with the depressing tradition of executing the previous leadership, and, more specifically, when the previous leadership of Iraq no longer deserves execution.

Cost: $5 to $10, depending on how much ammo expended. (One burst or two.)

All the waste of money, time, energy, food and even lives on this reptilian scum’s foregone-conclusion trial, when innocent people in Iraq are underfed, under-housed, under-employed and under-educated, is the typical economic absurdity / legal-oid frivolity that you expect more from the squandering, spendthrift U.N. than a struggling, nascent state.

The EU will re-instate the death penalty when tens of thousands of their citizens start falling to the Islamic Imperialist jihadists in their midst.

Corpses rotting around you tends to concentrate the vital instincts.

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….”

The Brits have no problem killing babies by the millions, but can’t support capital punishment against mass murderers. Oh, what moral authority. The consequences of a secular, progressive, atheistic culture? The churches of England continue to close for lack of attendance, or are sold off to convert to Mosques. The demise of Great Britain is accelerating.

liberty on November 6, 2006 at 11:24 AM

This is what gets me about a certain segment of those against capital punishment.

On one hand, I can respect those that are against capital punishment when they apply that same philosophy to opposition to abortion. Granted, I still disagree with them on their opposition to capital punishment, but at least their is a consistency to their view which I can respect.

On the other hand, those that favor legalized, elective abortion but are against capital punishment are effectively in favor of allowing the execution of the most innocent beings while sparing the lives of the most guilty. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I’m personally against the death penalty.

I’ll make an exception in this case.

Slublog on November 6, 2006 at 12:16 PM

Ditto.

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

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. Regardless of your personal views of justice and capital punishment, European countries have very long history of war, torture, and execution and if at this point in their history they believe their countries are better off without the death penalty, I believe it is a decision that should be respected by you and the rest of the world.

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.

Besides, I think it would be great if they outlaws executions after Sadam’s. There would be a measure of justice if the last person executed by the government of Iraq was the person who has done the same to thousands and thousands of others.

Mr Hitchens can stuff his standards where the sun never shines.

Good point. To what do we owe Chris’ presence in this nation which does not belong to the “community of civilized nations”?

I’ll make an exception in this case.

Moreover, now that even the Turks have abolished capital punishment just next door, in order to conform with European Union stipulations, why should Iraq not signal its membership of the community of civilized nations in the same way?

Let me rewrite this:

Moreover, now that even the Turks have abolished capital punishment just next door, in order to conform with European Union stipulations, why should China not signal its membership of the community of civilized nations in the same way?

China is a permanent member of the UN SC, by the way.

Mr Hitchens can stuff his standards where the sun never shines.

I thank God for the Aussies.

Apparently the Brits are going the way of the French.

iNeXuS on November 6, 2006 at 11:30 AM

I sincerely hope not, but seeing Blair being practically forced out of office over his support of our efforts certainly doesn’t help.

I have to wonder about the consequences of an executed Saddam. The verdict alone will result in an up-tick of Sunni violence. The actual execution may result in the first stages of a full-blown civil war.

Food for thought.

The Brits have no problem killing babies by the millions, but can’t support capital punishment against mass murderers. Oh, what moral authority. The consequences of a secular, progressive, atheistic culture? The churches of England continue to close for lack of attendance, or are sold off to convert to Mosques. The demise of Great Britain is accelerating.

liberty on November 6, 2006 at 11:24 AM

Indeed, liberty. Great Britain’s crime rate is pretty bad and getting worse because there’s no real punishment, much less the death penalty for murder, if one commits a crime there.
I appreciate Blair and Great Britain’s support in the GWOIT, but as far as his domestic governance of the UK, it’s been an unmitigated disaster and I fear it will only get worse.
The coming of Eurabia will happen in either Britain or France and when shari’a is set up there, the ruling IslamoNazis won’t have any problem with carrying out many death penalties.
Chilling. The news from Europe is never very good these days.

But I’m sure a British NGO will soon step in and demand that Britain offer political asylum for Saddam to spare him the death sentence.

And at the end of that trail, the death penalty comes back with a vengeance.

Pablo on November 6, 2006 at 11:28 AM

Good observation. How true, how true. Off with their heads.

Apparently the Brits are going the way of the French.

The churches of England continue to close for lack of attendance, or are sold off to convert to Mosques. The demise of Great Britain is accelerating.

And at the end of that trail, the death penalty comes back with a vengeance.