The families of those involved always get to witness an execution; it's a traditional part of the justice system. But the viewing room only holds about seven people, and if you do the math you'll quickly realize that that's a bit fewer slots than there are people he killed. Closed-circuit is the only option. To pretend this is different than any other execution is to exploit the families for your own political purposes.
If you have a need to dig up tasteless acts that have come out of this, look no further than that gigantic shrine to victimhood, the OKC Bombing Memorial.
posted by aaron at 6:23 AM on April 12, 2001
2. Hey, some people are pro-death penalty and pro-abortion.
3. 'Right' and 'just' are in the eyes of the victor, yes?
Anyway. DO continue.
posted by methylsalicylate at 12:55 PM on April 12, 2001
Bzzzt! Incorrect. The UK's crime rate is not only higher than ours, but their rates are increasing as ours are dropping. The question of so-called civility vs. the rights of citizens to be safe is a very legitimate one.
posted by aaron at 3:34 PM on April 12, 2001
I'm pretty sure that he knew what the broader statistics show and chose to ignore them.
"Pretty sure?" In court, attempting to convict someone by being "pretty sure" of their guilt is a good way to get you laughed out of the courtroom. That's a great thing about being online; you can convict someone without any real direct evidence. Another great thing is that the defendant can come right back at you, like so....
That is the mark of an ideologue. Ideologues don't seek the truth. They think they know it already, and they don't mind misrepresenting the data in order to make their points.
And that's just what you did in your post: Misrepresent the data in order to back up your belief.
You have mastered the ability to make your argument by posting a tiny piece of the evidence. Now if you'd care to push the next button and look at more serious crimes, you'd see that your argument doesn't hold up.
1) You claim I did this because you "were pretty sure that" I knew the broader stastics and chose to ignore them. Well, first, what you posted were not the broader statistics, so your entire argument is voided right there. You merely posted the next page of statistics, which were more categories of the same survey. The only way to get the true broader statistics is to put the data from all the pages together. And this is where I invalide your argument again by pointing out that I had not seen the page you linked to. I had originally done a very specific search for statistics, and was taken to the page I ended up linking here. But before I linked it, I did check other pages of the report randomly, including - and this is most important - the Highlights page. And on there, the very first sentence of the very first paragraph, is the main broader summary of the report:
Whether measured by surveys of crime victims or by police statistics, serious crime rates are not generally higher in the United States than England.
Thus, I DID know the overall stats when I posted. I just thought the page I linked had the most direct evidence. The overall rates are higher in England, period. And in the areas where we do score higher, ours are dropping. And those higher categories are in areas where the crimes occur so infrequently that we're talking of differences between .02 and .10. In the ones where England leads, the differences are more like 21 to 9, 22 to 9, even 80 to 40.
In summary, I could easily take all this and use it to just say flat out that you, anapestic, are the ideologue. Instead, I'm going to do the decent thing and just suggest perhaps you mistakenly mistook the next page for the overall statistics.
And I don't totally disagree with him about capital punishment.
What do you think my stance on capital punishment is, anyway? I don't recall saying much about the DP in this thread. I only spoke of the rights of the victims' families to witness the execution if they so chose.
posted by aaron at 10:27 PM on April 12, 2001
Example: "You're an asshole. I think people can consider my opinion in the light of his entire record of postings and determine for themselves whether you're a asshole." That would be out of line, don't you think? Labelling is always out-of-line, no matter what the label might be.
It's even worse when you do it through lying, which is what you are doing. The original quote, by Doug:
and yet that nation is as healthy (with a lower crime rate than ours) as always.
A lower crime rate. I show this is not true, so you respond by changing the definition of "crime rate" to be "the rate of only those crimes that occur more often in the US than in the UK" in order to falsely portray me as an ideologue and a liar. Perhaps you have some projection issues?
And go ahead and call me an ideologue if you like, but just what ideology am I promoting here?
What ideology am I promoting here? You never bothered to say. And again, since you did not answer the first time: What are my views on capital punishment that you "agreed with" above? If I am the ideologue you claim me to be, you should be able to answer the question quite easily.
posted by aaron at 2:15 PM on April 13, 2001
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Before people call me all sorts of nasty names, I should point out that I'm very much against the death penalty. But if we just have to have executions, they should be public. People should be allowed to see what happens when the death penalty gets carried out. Most people who say they're in favor of the death penalty have never seen an execution, and might change their minds if they did.
posted by Potsy at 4:14 AM on April 12, 2001