Reply #62: Not the Magic Bullet [View All]

Edited for better analogy.

There are plenty of capital cases where DNA evidence isn't available. What do you do with those? Rely on the proven fallibility of eyewitnesses.

Riddle me this:

One of the reasons people make the easy slide from opposing the death penalty to "coddling criminals" is simple lack of empathy: "I'm not a criminal, so that could never happen to me."

But y'know those people who are cleared through late-breaking application of DNA evidence? They're just as innocent as you are. They got swept up into a Kafka-esque nightmare scenario.

I guarantee that, if you got caught up in that kind of a nightmare, you'd think the death penalty was a bad idea.

Your strange vehement contention that affording the prisoners at Guantanamo some form of due process is "supporting terrorists" is cut from the same bolt of cloth. You have nothing--literally not one thing--to support your belief that those people are terrorists other than the word of the Bush regime.

Now, you may consider that to be all the evidence you need (and I don't use that "may" as a purely rhetorical device--based on your posts, I think you really may believe that), but, last I heard, that group of folks doesn't have that good a reputation for credibility.

It is truly amazing that anybody who claims to be a patriotic American could argue that basic due process, which is prescribed by the Constitution, is coddling anybody. How far would you like to take that argument? Who's entitled to due process, and who isn't. John Ashcroft says drug users support terrorists. Should we do away with trials for them, too? For that matter, those really wicked murderers you think should die right away--why give them trials?

You've got some lines you think are really bright. But where do you really draw them? Who deserves no due process? Who deserves to die without benefit of an adequate defense?

Just repeating, "I support the death penalty, and you people support criminals," doesn't get it done. Support your position if you can. But saying it over and over proves nothing.