It's not often the wheels of justice roll quickly and efficiently. For John Allen Muhammad, the DC sniper and evil raghead piece of human debris, they rolled over him at 9:11pm last night. No overwhelming calls for clemency, no last-second legalistic bullshit (just the standard appeals and protesters and shit). Goodbye and good riddance to bad life.
Now I have two minds on this subject (I know, *gasp*).
The first is obvious. If we have a death penalty and we have clear cases where the guilty is sentenced to death, then we need to get the executions rolling. and if we're going to execute, then we need to get a better system than the pussy method of sticking a needle in them and putting them to sleep first. I've always been a fan of the guillotine myself. Simple, visual, scary as hell. You can see a head getting lopped off. It's got some clear deterrent value. In fact, you set up the execution enclosure so that the top of the guillotine is visible from outside prison walls, and you detonate a small charge when you drop it. That way, everybody knows. I stop short of saying to televise it, because there are too many people that would get off on watching people get heads lopped off (myself among them).
But I've also listened to the reasoning of the anti-death penalty people. And there is room for compromise. But we have to be clear and have an ultimate punishment for the worst of the worst.
So here's how we end the death penalty. First of all, the death penalty people do not get simply reduced to life without parole. We create a new designation, called dead to the world. Then we ship them off to a special prison (in either Alaska or some isolated island). In this prison, there are no amenities. Nutritionally acceptable but bland and shitty food. Minimum human amenities (enough heat in the Alaska prison to keep people from dying, clothes, a blanket). Reading material is limited to the Bible, Koran, etc, history texts, educational stuff. No TV, no music (except for what the warden wants to play). No visits (except by counsel), no phone calls, letters only (all letters in and out are transcribed into type by other prisoners). Work is 12 hours a day for 6 days (including the fun of breaking rocks). Sunday is a day of reflection and isolation. Routine medical to keep communicable diseases under control, but no major medical help (comfort care only). Public display in stocks for troublemakers. Repeated troublemakers get a shock collar. Any attempt at escape is a killable offense, and guards are trained to shoot limbs first.
In short, a life of continuous suckage with almost no contact with the outside world. This satisfies those who oppose the death penalty on moral (and/or religious) grounds, those who oppose it for social reasons (racial inequities in the condemned population, execution of the innocent, etc), as well as those who want these monsters to want death rather than a life of no hope whatsoever with no reasonable chance of getting it. And a prison that saps any hope of getting out, ever, achieves that. It has to be bad enough to make death a release, not a punishment.
The fact is that we have evolved to a point where locking people up forever is now feasible. In prior centuries, killing was clearly a reasonable punishment for the worst of the worst. But we have to have an absolute punishment to deal with those that deserve no right to live ever again in our world. And as they throw the shell of the piece of shit DC sniper in a hole or cook him to ash (but not throw him to dogs to be torn apart), let's consider what punishment would be more fitting.
27 comments:
I wouldn't lose any sleep if the death penalty were banned but in cases like this or Jeffery Dahmer or John Wayne Gacey...or any situation which involves someone having 7 penises in their freezer, I don't see any reason why I and the victims families should be forced to use our tax dollars to give these guys free cable, 3 hots and a cot for the next 50 years. That shit is expensive and in a case where there are multiple murders for no reason and there is no doubt or denial of guilt, this guy should have been dead 5 years ago.
But the bottom line is that we do have the death penalty and he still did this and wasn't going to stop until caught. Even if we had a guillotines, that would not have prevented this crime. The death penalty is not a deterrent. And the list of other countries with the death penalty are as follows:
Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Oman, Laos Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Botswana, Belarus, Qatar, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mongolia, Libya, China, Congo, Indonesia, Iran, Uganda, Tajikistan, Syria, Sierre Leone, Vietnam, North Korea, Jamaica, Iraq, Zambia, UAE, Eritrea, Ghana, Somalia, Sudan, etc. Not the most enlightened group of countries.
Even Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Colombia, Mozambique, Nambia, Angola and Haiti have banned the death penalty.
I don't support the death penalty but I don't shed a tear for those that deserve to die. I doubt you idea about an isolated prison would work because you'd still need guards and other workers and they would suffer the same isolation. Plus, we're getting close to torture.
What we should do is simply get rid of it except for the most heinous crimes.
James: The guards would get combat pay and rotate in and out of the world. You'd only need a few of these prisons to do this, because it would be geared to letting the condemned die quickly if they get sick or really messed up.
As for being close to torture, that's the idea. As I said, I want these scum to be bereft of hope, preferably suicidal.
Uh.. your proposal is remarkably similar to the founding of Australia.
I'm just sayin.
Toad said: "The death penalty is not a deterrent."
I'm against the death penalty, actually, but even I realize that of course it is a deterrent. Criminals to whom this penalty is applied simply do not commit more crimes.
Sorry, Toad, the idea of Vlad the Impaler turning into Dracula after he was put to death is a myth.
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SDD: How perceptive of you. I think one or two "American Colonies" (now southern US states) were started this way too.
Saty,
I'm proud to be in your company. Patrick named me as AOTW a while back.
I think he named himself one time as well.
I don't know if that's a compliment or not.
Best wishes,
Shaw Kenawe
Stay tuned for the naming of Jesus, Mother Teresa, and Ghandi as AOTW.
Coming soon at Sane Political Discourse!
dmarks said:
"I'm against the death penalty, actually, but even I realize that of course it is a deterrent. Criminals to whom this penalty is applied simply do not commit more crimes."
Neither do criminals who are put away for life.
"Neither do criminals who are put away for life."
Actually, criminals "put away for life" do commit more crimes. They assault other prisoners and the guards in the prisons. If you have a governor like Michael Dukakis, the lifers end up released at times so they can commit more crimes in the community.
(To Dukakis, a life sentence to prison did not mean that the prisoner would stay behind bars the whole time. Even after the Willie Horton incident, Dukakis was so incompetant that he hesitated to change that policy. He had to be pressured to accept the idea that lifers don't get tiem off).
dmarks,
There you go again. What you said about Gov. Dukakis is equally applicable to Saint Ronnie because...
"Mr. Dukakis has noted that Federal prisons also furloughed murderers. The Department of Justice reported that in 1987 Federal prisons granted furloughs to 64 murderers, 2,850 drug and alcohol offenders (including drug dealers) and 42 sex offenders. In all, 14,568 furloughs were granted among the system's 84,202 prisoners.
Of these furloughs, 4,755 were ''social'' furloughs granted to those within two years of completing their sentences. Others were medical and legal furloughs. About two-thirds of the furloughs, or 9,722, including those granted to 53 murderers, were just before the prisoners' scheduled release. Seven murderers received social furloughs, and four received furloughs for medical or legal reasons. Bush Promises a Review
Mr. Bush said early in the campaign that he had no problem with furlough programs in general. More recently, he has criticized the concept, saying they represent ''liberal thinking'' that reflected more concern about the rights of criminals than the rights of victims.
Craig Fuller, the Vice President's chief of staff, said last week that if elected Mr. Bush would have his Attorney General review the Federal furlough program.
Mr. Dukakis has also noted that two murders were committed by inmates furloughed by California prisons when Ronald Reagan was Governor."
Source
Dmarks:
You will make up anything just to disagree with me wont you??
So if we have the death penalty in the US, which is only applicable to murders, why do we have one of the highest murder rates in the industrialized world?? Obviously it isn't a deterrent. It isn't a deterrent because people don't think they are going to get caught or they are in a blind rage when they commit murder that they never think it through to begin with. Did the Death Penalty keep Dahmer or Gacey from murdering??
NO!
As some of you know, I do occasional work at a large county jail that houses high profile inmates awaiting trial and federal inmates along with the local dregs.
Most of the inmates are kind of pathetic, many have drug problems. We would probably be better off putting them in rehab way out in the country and giving them vocational training.
But then there are the monsters - those so evil and so bereft of human emotion that, when you are up close, you know that they are NOT part of the human race. The malevolence comes off them in waves.
So with those kind of criminals, I'm fine with a death penalty. At least I know that can't hurt on of my loved ones if they are dead.
Then the question of deterrence arises, but if you are looking for a judicial deterrent, good luck with that. Society must take responsibility and correct its shortcomings if you want to change the tide of violent crime.
We live in a constant atmosphere of hate and anger and irresponsible speech. The news is full of idiots screaming about Nazis and death panels and holding up graphic images of violence and destruction.
I have said time and again, and have been berated time and again for daring to suggest that with that old freedom of speech entitlement also comes a great responsibility for WHAT WE SAY. And what we do.
So we can continue to tear each other apart verbally and then others will do it physically and eventually some people will get their wish and the ocuntry will devolve into lawless anarchy.
What about the possibility of a future government with a radically different political orientation changing the law and making people in such a facility eligible for release after all? Even under the conditions you describe, a person sentenced to such a prison at 25 could easily live another 30 or 40 years. It's impossible to predict the development of political movements and thinking that far ahead.
So relatives of the victims would not be truly certain that such a sentence meant no possibility of ever getting out.
(On the death penalty, my mind isn't made up one way or the other. It just struck me as a logical question about the posting.)
"What about the possibility of a future government with a radically different political orientation changing the law and making people in such a facility eligible for release after all?"
That fits in perfectly with the point about careless and grossly incompetant public "servants" like Michael Dukakis thinking it is a good idea to give murderers convicted of life in prison some free time to rampage unsupervised on the streets.
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Rocky said: "The news is full of idiots screaming about Nazis and death panels and holding up graphic images of violence and destruction."
This is often mentioned as a scare tactic to falsely blame Republicans for trying to incite violence. Yet, in this "tea party" era, the violence has been coming from the left: to the SEIU goons assaulting people, to the pro-Obamacare person who bit off the finger of an opponent.
"also comes a great responsibility for WHAT WE SAY. And what we do."
Calling Obama a Nazi, or waving Dachau posters is not a call to violent action on anyone's part.
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Toad said: "You will make up anything just to disagree with me wont you??"
I didn't make up anything.
"So if we have the death penalty in the US, which is only applicable to murders, why do we have one of the highest murder rates in the industrialized world??"
It would surely be higher without it, and that is a fact. Since the recidivism for executed murderers is zero. Quite obviously it is a detterent, and you are "making up" the idea that it is not.
"Did the Death Penalty keep Dahmer or Gacey from murdering??
NO!"
You probably should not have typed that, now. Since the answer is "Yes". Both of them were unrepentant serial murderers. It is quite reasonable to expect that they would have murdered again. Either in prison, or out on the streets if they had been Dukakised out of the prison.
But... this never did happen. The death penalty (in Gacy's case) put a stop to that.
Dahmer, curiously, was murdered by a prisoner. This prisoner was a lifer, who managed to murder while in prison.
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Shaw: Thanks.I thoght you decried the "Well, they did it too, so it must be OK!" logic. You have done so frequently on your blog. And I think quite often you have a pretty good point in decrying it. And there you did it yourself. At least you did not bother this time with the claim that Dukakis did not want this policy.
Saty: And the fact we let anyone from that country into the US is a shame....
Shaw: First of all, it's hard for me to name the dead as AOTW, although if I find a way, you'll be the first to know. :)
Toad and Dmarks; On the subject of deterrence, the death penalty as it is is not much of a deterrent, as it takes forever, there are a gazillion ways people can be remanded to life, and the process itself is lame. If we had swift public executions for all capital crimes, it would be more so.
Rocky: I think you've just ventured into an area that explains why the prison system is the mess that it is: The imprisoning of the non-violent drug offender is what creates an overburden on the system. It also means that there are reasons to go easier than we should on the general prison population. Getting those who can be rehabbed out of the system means we can ramp up the punishment on those who deserve it.
Although equating angry free speech with violence? That's kind of the human condition. We come with that installed. And the truly violent don't need pissed off people to give them the idea to kill.
Infidel: That could be a problem. The only thing we can do is solve the problems of today today (and maybe rig the prison ventilation system with poison gas if the government goes goofy or if there's a riot).
"Although equating angry free speech with violence? That's kind of the human condition. We come with that installed. And the truly violent don't need pissed off people to give them the idea to kill."
Yeah, the whole bogus idea of claiming that "Republicans insulting Obama is the same as inciting violence" is a charade that most see right through.
Not only is it completely bogus, it's like crying wolf. If every negative word is falsely decried as a call for violence, then what do we do when real calls for violence come along?
Dmarks:
Im not talking about letting them out of prison. I am saying while they were on the street, the possibility of them being sentenced to death never weighed on their minds. They didn't kill fewer people because they thought they might be put to death.
"It would surely be higher without it, and that is a fact."
Really?? Says who? Where do you get that "fact"? What study has been preformed that proves your case?? NONE!
Rocky:
The prisons are filled with drug offenders and drug addicts. It would be much cheaper to rehabilitate than to incarcerate because incarceration only turns them into worse criminals and doesn't get to the root of the problem. My brother has committed hundreds of crimes, racked up thousands of dollars in medical bills, court costs, police manpower, etc. because he is a drug addict and instead of the state giving him help, they punish him for it...guess what, that hasn't helped.
Toad said: "The death penalty is not a deterrent."
Dead criminals are 100% less likely to recommit.
dmarks,
YOU are the one who's framing this as a "he did it too," not I.
I merely point out the hypocrisy in calling Gov. Dukakis out for his furlough policy while ignoring the fact that Ronald Reagan supported exactly the same furlough policy and TWO people were murdered as a result.
You take Mr. Dukakis to task over it, but never mentioned Reagan's culpability.
That's not saying "he did it, too," it's pointing out your bias in criticizing only ONE person, a Liberal, and ignoring the same policy in a Conservative.
So you should change your comment to this:
"That fits in perfectly with the point about careless and grossly incompetant[sic] public "servants" like Michael Dukakis AND RONALD REAGAN thinking it is a good idea to give murderers convicted of life in prison some free time to rampage unsupervised on the streets."
to make it fair and balanced.
Shaw: "YOU are the one who's framing this as a "he did it too," not I."
Yes, I did. Because your attempt to divert this from Michael Dukakis gross incompetancy flew right into the fame.
"...while ignoring the fact that Ronald Reagan..."
So, does this make Dukakis policy any less bad? OF course not. We simply ignore the "he did it too!" argument.
"So you should change your comment to this:..."
Do you ever practice what you preach? On your own blog, very typically tend to point out only right-wing liar and problem people. If you devote posts to the people on the Left who do the same things (and there are at least as much), it sure isn't often.
dmarks,
I can always count on you to come to my blog and point out the people on the Left who do all sorts of bad things.
You do my work for me.
You are not understanding my complaint on this particular subject.
You ALWAYS bring up the fact that Michael Dukakis furloughed a murderer who in turn murdered, as though he were the only governor under whose leadership this happened.
That is simply not the case. But you highlight ONLY Dukakis when you discuss prison furloughs.
Shaw said: "I can always count on you to come to my blog and point out the people on the Left who do all sorts of bad things."
I don't do that much any more, at least I think I don't. You said something like it was either off-topic, or you don't point out the transgressing left-wingers since you are one yourself. IF that is a rule, I am trying to keep to it. When you post on Glenn Beck, you make it easy too :)
I accepted that, and that a post about Glenn Beck lying is more about Glenn Beck lying than, say, a left-winger lying.
"But you highlight ONLY Dukakis when you discuss prison furloughs."
OK, I will take the bait. Did something happen that was similar on Reagan's watch?
i.e. a horrible murder, followed by the governor really dragging his feet during the resulting outrage on calls to fix the problem?
I'm mostly with Patrick on this. And as far as I'm concerned, scum like Muhhamed and Hassan don't deserve to die in peace. Let em die in Patrick's prison. That's worse. And they're not martyrs.
On the subject of prisons because Dmarks famously managed to get the debate going about Dukakis, why the "F" do they provide weights to these guys? They're dangerous enough without being able to bench press 400lbs.
I say give em sugar and plenty of it.
And other than seeing a better picture of Saty and appreciating that she is a fine looking lady as well as intelligent, I no longer will be lobbying to be AOTW.
I'm mostly with Patrick on this. And as far as I'm concerned, scum like Muhhamed and Hassan don't deserve to die in peace. Let em die in Patrick's prison. That's worse. And they're not martyrs.
On the subject of prisons because Dmarks famously managed to get the debate going about Dukakis, why the "F" do they provide weights to these guys? They're dangerous enough without being able to bench press 400lbs.
I say give em sugar and plenty of it.
And other than seeing a better picture of Saty and appreciating that she is a fine looking lady as well as intelligent, I no longer will be lobbying to be AOTW.
I know you agree, but why did you have to agree twice? :)
"why the "F" do they provide weights to these guys?"
A justification I have heard is that it gives them an outlet in which to channel their physical energy.
I just had a thought now that the now-considered harsh medieval practice of prisoners on chain gangs smashing rocks with hammers probably made the prisoners as strong and dangerous as lifting weights does.
(I don't think there's any debate on Dukakis, really. What he did was pretty incompetent, especially when he kept defending the policy after the Horton incident. Since Dukakis himself can't be defended on his own merits, I suppose that is why we get the "See they do it too" attempt to hide him in with others).
But, really, I am probably to the left of you, Truth, on the death penalty issue.
They can do push ups and jog in place.
And to channel so many righties, if I may...
Dukakis. Dukakis. Dukakis! What does Dukakis have to do with anything anymore. He's not a governor or presidential candidate anymore. Can't you think of anything else but to tell us Bush, oops, I mean Dukakis sucked?
dmarks,
You can read about the two murders committed by furloughed inmates while Ronald Reagan was governor of California, and in favor of furloughs here.
Thanks for the link. The web page was set up to disallow scrolling, and the only actual proper name I could find was St. Dukakis. I suspect that the Reagan stuff was hidden below the bottom edge.... where there was no way to scroll to it.
So I went looking for other stories. The New York Times said "Mr. Dukakis has also noted that two murders were committed by inmates furloughed by California prisons when Ronald Reagan was Governor"
What appears to be missing so far was how Reagan reacted to this. Did he end the program, reform it, or change the screening criteria? Or did he do as St. Dukakis did and only change things after great pressure?
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