<DIV>I am not an abolitionist. I would support the death penalty for types such as Henry Kissinger and other war criminals and criminals against humanity. After a proper trial with death-qualified counsel, due process up the wazoo, etc., of course. As the facts are, capital punishment is an (expensive!) excuse to kill minorities who kill whites. It is freakish, a violation of due process and equal protection, and racist to the core. We are not civilized enough to have it. jks Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@jhu.edu> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> Or a sociology professor . . . . jks Wojtek Sokolowski <SOKOL@JHU.EDU>wrote: > Or being a skinhead - that scum should be rounded up and summarily executed. WS: Did you see the French flick _Hate_? This is about three characters who think of shooting a cop to avenge the death of their friend beaten to death by the police. One of them,, an African immigrant who wants to be a boxer, is the voice of moderation trying to convince the other two to drop the plan. As they wander through the streets of Paris, they are attacked by skinheads. The "gung-ho" guy in the pack pulls out the gun, one of the skins runs away, the other cannot and the "moderation" guy tells his buddy to shoot the skin because unlike the cops, these the scum that deserve to be shot (or something along these lines). The gung-ho guy blinks and let the skin go (after all he was mostly tough talk), and then ends up being shot dead by the cops. The line was inspired by this great film! PS. Why is the capital punishment such an abomination to the Left? After all, most (if not all) of us are nonviolent people and abhor violence in most forms, but violence and death is a basic fact of life. Revolutions are rather violent endeavours, and most revolutionaries did not have any reservations to get rid of the enemies of the revolution. What is more, capitalism causes thousands, if not millions, preventable deaths every year (unsafe or unhealthy products, pollution, wars, etc.). Why then the debate centers disproportionally on the death of a few scumbags (even if a few of them got lesser punishment if they had more competent legal defence)? This is a bona fide question, not a rhetorical one. In principle I am against killings of any kind, both animals and people (I do not think humans are very much different from animals) - but I also recognize that killing is a part of life, whether I like it or not. Virtually every human society had capital punishment in one form of wnother, not to mention killing animals perceived as threat. Capital punishment may be completely inefective in fighting crime and violence, worse yet, it creates a false sense of security by taking drastic but ineffective measures - but on the other hand, why should someone who did not think much about taking someone else's life deserve compassion. That is to say, it is one thing not to support death penalty and a quite different thing to actively oppose it. We have about 300 gang killings per year in Baltimore, which is among the top three or so in the nation. People certainly do not like that, but few oganize protest campaigns to stop that mayhem. Why then many of us expend so much energy on behavlf of few criminals whom the law and order types decided to kill? Wojtek ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><hr SIZE=1> Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://rd.yahoo.com/evt=1207/*http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/">SBC Yahoo! DSL</a> - Now only $29.95 per month!