--- Sean Johnson Andrews <inciteinsight at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> Um...that's kind of a dumb response. Regardless of
> which popular figures
> were involved, the people who were trying to change
> the verdict weren't
> asking for him to be set free or for him to be sent
> on a Caribbean vacation,
> just that he not be, as Paul says, murdered by the
> state. This fairly
> obvious fact seems to be lost in the national death
> penalty debates which
> seem to pose it as all or nothing: if they aren't
> getting put to death, then
> they aren't getting punished. Isn't being in prison
> for the rest of your
> life punishment? Or maybe you think we should kill
> everyone who commits (or
> is at least accused and convicted of) murder?
You are barking at a wrong tree. As I said on this forum numerous times, I am against the death penalty on the grounds of its irreversibility of the conviction if made in error. But I also think that selecting this case as a rallying platform against death penalty was either totally dumb, or an attempt to discredit bona fide attempts to delegalize death penalty - or most likely an effort to gain popularity by a bunch of third rate celebrities and mountebanks posing as artistes. How else would you exaplain the fact that the 1,000th execution of Mr Boyd http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4490842.stm went virtually unnoticed, but this case of a popular "gangsta" became a media circus? It is that bunch of mountebanks and wannabe aristes that find it cool being associated with tough thugs. Fucking clowns!
Another thing, the phrase "killing by state" is another of those emotionally charged yet meaningless phrases circulating in the fringe circles calling themselves the "left" in this country - which is totally oblivious to the fact that death penalty is supported by two thirds of the population in this country - veto proof super-majority if you will. It is a legally imposed penalty that the vast majority of this society finds acceptable - not a "klling by the state" despite what the fringe elements decide to call it.
So my point here is is that if anyone is serious about changing the popular views and pass laws declaring the death penalty illegal, let's do it in a politically effective fashion, instead of clowing behind celebrity figures, which has the exact opposite effect. Many reasonably people, including myself, would vote for such a legislation, whereas only a bunch of loonies can rally behind an obviously guilty gangbanger who murdered in cold blood fouur people.
Wojtek _______________________ DISCLAIMER: Opinions posted by this writer to this forum are solely forms of literary criticism exercised as the First Amendment right, and do not necessarily reflect the author's views or attitudes toward real-life people, including other writers posting to this forum, groups of people, institutions, or events to which the critiqued texts may refer, either explicitly or implicitly. Any statement asserting or implying such views or attitudes on the basis of this writer's opinions posted to this forum is thus unfounded, and may be libelous. ________________________
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