A Brutal, Savage Scumbag Murderer Is Going to be Murdered In Prison 12/13.

I don't think what the second murderer is going to do is right. Not by a stretch, not by a long shot....

...But I don't feel an iota of sympathy for the scumbag murderer who's gonna get whacked either.

Does that make me a bad person? Does that just make me human? If you heard that a guy that just murdered a family was then robbed on the corner at gunpoint and killed, would you feel sorry for him? If you didn't, isn't that ok? You would still think the 2nd guy was wrong, but not feel sympathy for the 1st right? I wouldn't. Fuck Tookie and Fuck the death penalty. There. I said it.

The death penalty argument cannot be reduced to 'feeling sorry' for the perp. Anyone who argues this kind of thing has fallen into a trap. It is about whether or not we believe the state should be in the business of executing its citizens.

Cause many have said they don't support the DP but don't see any particular reason to defend tookie. They are then given all sorts of guilt trips and are called names such as being told they have blood lust or should pull the switch themselves. Sorry, but that's just bullshit. I can not condone the DP and still not have to have guilt shoved down my throat for shrugging my shoulders about Tookie "I killed the fuck out of 4 people" williams ya know?

I hear ya though, state sponsored murder IS bullshit.

Tookie Williams has maintained his innocence. When did he confess to killing these people as you suggest?

:eyes:

:puke:

What's the penalty for war crimes?

(that's rhetorical)

World Court now has I think life in prison

to my mind, it's a fool's game to address the subject from the standpoint of sympathy for a specific perp. The DP has much larger implications than whether or not a petty gang banger gets fried. It get right down to our definitions of what a civilized society believes and does. There are many subcategories of arguments beneath that, but first and most important is what kind of power we allow to be hung over our heads.

I understand the frustration of those who drop to the kind of arguments you describe, but in my opinion, they're being stupid. All you'll get is a tit-for-tat back and forth about rights of the family, victim, etc. When you get to that level, it's hard to win the debate.

BUT civilized.

America is about money. Rather, the Euro if we judge the examples of corporate executives' actions over the last 12 months...

but not this thread.

why have them waste time eating and laying on their ass on my taxpayer dime?

and having the state exact some sort of reveng fantasy on the part of its less civilized citizens is a wrong.

And yes, I did survive the murder of a family member.

"An eye for an eye" is a particular fave of mine.

A revenge fantasy? That's interesting. I know, it doesn't bring anyone back, but it keeps the scum from killing anyone else.

I personally don't think murderers should be housed and fed till they die of natural causes. It insults their victims, IMO.

That seems like pretty twisted logic. Are you aware of the number of victims' families who don't want the death penalty or feel no relief from the murderer's death?

So, how many more innocent people have to die for crimes they didn't commit. Look how many convictions have been overturned based on DNA evidence. After you kill them, it's too late to say I'm sorry. Or, is that the price you're willing to pay?

Also, is it perfectly acceptable to you that you're more likely to be given the death penalty if you're low-income or a minority?

I think in some cases the grief just takes the fight out of them.

I'd want the murderer of someone I love to die a slow, painful death.

If the state caught him first, I'd be forced to settle for the couple of minutes he'd spend in the gas chamber. I could live with that.

and so nice of you to be able to read the minds and hearts of the families of murder victims. HOWEVER, please address the other points I made.

I speculated on the reason some people don't want their loved one's killer dead.

"So, how many more innocent people have to die for crimes they didn't commit."

The answer is blowing in the wind. What kind of point is that for me to try to address?

"Look how many convictions have been overturned based on DNA evidence."

Look how many wrongful convictions can now be avoided.

"After you kill them, it's too late to say I'm sorry. Or, is that the price you're willing to pay?"

When we know for sure we have the murdering scum who actually committed the muder, the DP is appropriate. That's why DNA evidenc is such a boon to the justice system.


"Also, is it perfectly acceptable to you that you're more likely to be given the death penalty if you're low-income or a minority?"

Right. I think low income people should be put to death. Give me a break.

I don't... and on those groudns alone, I am not willing to make a mistake and have the state execute the wrongly convicted. Oh and techology will NEVER be fool proof.

... and I'm not willing to risk the sacrifice of the innocent over an emotional vengeance fetish. The state should not be in the business of killing its own. Life without possibility of parole, not murder fueled on outrage.

and whether we empower politicians to decide who lives and dies.

If you want to debate the rights or wrongs of the DP itself feel free to start a thread of your own. Or you can always discuss it here as well, it's all good. But you are wrong if you are telling someone in THIS thread that it isn't about tookie. This thread is about tookie. It is about how he is a murdering piece of shit and we don't have to feel sorry for his murder even if we don't condone his murder.

thanks.

and this is the heart of this discussion (just change Tookie to Bundy and change the body count - same topic, same arguments, same discussion) , you are talking about the policy that underscores the details. The details of the day will change, but the DP is the heartbeat.

That isn't the heart of my thread. The heart of my thread is that tookie is a piece of shit that I'm not gonna feel sorry for regardless of the fact that I don't condone the DP. That alone is the point. That those of us that feel that way shouldn't have to be subjected to overly dramatic guilt trips because we could give a rats fat ass about a murderer killed by murder.

The Death Penalty and your conflicted feelings about it seem to be right out there. What are your conflicted feelings about again? Oh yeah, the state sanctioned killing of Tookie. If there were no death penalty, your post would be pointless.

exactly where I stand. No confliction at all. In fact, even the snippet you posted clearly shows that. Saying fuck tookie and fuck the DP seems pretty clear on its face where I stand.

Let me explain it to you as simply as I can one more time (beating a dead horse: This thread is about not feeling guilt about the murder of a murderous piece of shit in spite of being against the DP.

Please, read that line a few times so that next time you respond it will actually be in context to the point. Thanks.

:hi:

the fact that you would like to see him dead and your contrary feelings about the death penalty represent the conflict. I understand that you have a position, yes... but I'm saying that you had to face that conflict to get there! At least that's how I came to my own conclusions. Perhaps I'm projecting a bit. Funny thing is, as much as we've screamed at eachother, I think I agree with you! Take care, friend. I think you're right...dead horse.

to see him dead. Dude, I know you mean well, but you are just drifting further and further away from the topic with each further post.

"I don't feel an iota of sympathy for the scumbag murderer who's gonna get whacked either."

Seems to say it all. But I yield to your point. If I need to stop jumping to conclusions, perhaps you should consider the implications of your words.. :-)

Take it easy, man. I'm outta here for the night. Thanks for starting a thoroughly stress inducing thread!

are two completely different things. I don't want him to be murdered. But I'm also not gonna feel sorry for him when he is. That's the short of it.

Goodnight and It's all good DU brother.

I can start whatever thread I feel like, thank you. In this case I wanted to get it off my chest. Didn't think to ask your permission first. My bad.

Oh, and for the record I don't recall having a problem with the concept of whether he is remembered or not, but whatever.

There was nothing about permissions involved. Why are you so defensive?

overreacted. I just took issue with the questioning of why I posted a thread. It had nothing to do with rememberance, it had to do with my annoyance at all the guilt trip drama flyin around. If you meant it harmlessly than sorry I jumped.

Whatever the angle from which one presents the discussion.

The guy's suddenly a "nice guy" because he talks to kids? He's been convicted, had it appealed ad nauseum and has his date with destiny set, and suddenly stop the presses, let's give him another chance?

I know it sounds cliche, but I wonder if his victimes begged for another chance.

Most of the stuff you've spouted on this thread simply sound like RW talking points. You really should broaden you horizons by visiting anti-death penalty sites and becoming more educated about the topic instead of posting a bunch of emotional rhetoric.

RW talking pionts? Sorry I don't fit your little mold.

I read somewhere that executing a prisoner costs the tax payer more than the room and board of a life sentence due to all the legal wrangling. Just a point to be
checked out is all.

they languish in a cell so long before someone finally throws a switch.

...in the way... Horrible thing, that.

to kill again, and only after another horrible crime is committed does the creep's history become known. Then, the cries of "Why was he let out" start coming out of the assembled mob who just want "justice". Feeding and housing murdering scum is not justice, IMO.

You would think that I would be screaming for the killer's head on a platter. But do you know who I hate more than the killer? --The fucked up system and prick cops that dropped this case because my uncle was a poor alcoholic who lived alone in a dingy apartment on the bad side of town. Had he been a pretty little cheerleader from a rich family, this case would have been all over Faux News for years to come...

Not sure this is relevant to you or to this discussion, and it probably doesn't make much sense to you, but after seeing this system at work, I despise the bastards that are in charge more than I do the pathetic schmucks who are out committing the crimes.

for the killer's head on a platter."

Absolutely. Your blaming the system and not hunting the killer down once he became accessible is confusing.

Different personalities deal with loss differently.

I'm sorry you lost your uncle.

The real money is spent in the lengthy and redundant appeals process in death penalty cases. You think there aren't teams of lawyers working on this man's appeal right now on taxpayer money?

is the reason they languish.

There have been innocent people killed. The long appeals process attempts to reduce the number of innocent people killed.

Wait, IS THIS NANCY GRACE?!?!?!?!

a waste of money when someone's life is at stake?

Considering that not all that many killers are caught in the first place, and not so many of them are senteced to the DP, it would seem to make sense that those that are so sentenced would at least have the right to have their cases looked at for as long and as deeply as possible.

The mandatory appeals run out pretty fast for the most obvious cases, but there are those with potentially reversible trial errors, possible innocence, extenuating circumstances, etc., that anyone scheduled to be killed should allow to explore.

If anyone objects to the costs of capital punishment, the answer is simple-- eliminate it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%2B%22death+penalty%22+%2B%22life+in+prison%22+%2Bdollars

it costs a lot more money to kill someone than keep them alive for life.

It's become a $300 toilet seat the taxpayer has to pay for.

killing this asshole or building two schools in South Central?

Right now even with the amount we are spending it's still a system full of flaws... can't get much cheaper and not be a totally transparent mockery of justice. Well, moreso than we have already. The state of California has killed a man who pled innocent until the end, when another man confessed, was convicted, and sentanced to life for the same crime. And the prosecutor refused to admit as evidence in the death case that another man had been convicted for the crime.

How much do bullets cost?

With the price of "gas" what it is, we could do it cheaper.

It's the lawyers.

in the process or poor, minority defendants don't receive a fair trial that's just too bad, right?

Why don't we just turn him over to the victim's family to be torn limb from limb as soon as he's accused? After all, the criminal justice system never makes mistakes and anyway, God can sort them out.

Oh yeah, society evolved beyond endless blood feuds a few hundred years ago.

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more than one county has been close to bankrupted for holding them. The costs are for legal services on both sides, and the appeals.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

(click "costs")

views. Personally, if anyone ever brutally and savagely attacked one of my loved ones I would want them to die in the most horrendous way possible...or maybe that would just make me feel worse, somehow just like the killer. I guess in the end I can't support the death penalty. I empathize with victim's families, but it feels like revenge, frontier justice, and not the actions of a civil society. But then again, I respect those who feel otherwise.:shrug:

it down this way - The only time it's okay to kill is in self defense or in the defense of others who are under immediate and deadly attack/assault.. However, once the perp is caught and is controlled, either by being placed in custody or sent to prison, then that ends it. Keep the bastard off the street if he/she is guilty. But the government should not be in the business of killing.

I feel the same way you do. But I've found that once a crime is committed, no amount of torturing the perp is ever going to bring back the dead or undo the crime in anyway. As civilized people, we must resist the urge to kill for vengeance. Just my opinion... probably not worth much, but there ya go... :-)

Shouldn't a loved one's death be paid for with the life of the piece of shit who took it?

Not sure it's the kind of world I want to be a part of.. but they are out there.

We need to rise above hate, violence and revenge if we are to call ourselves civilized.

I don't support the DP but I am not going to shed a tear when the man the did http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5560689&mesg_id=5560689">this to four people dies in jail. I will not stick up for a mass murderer and I can't believe people are making up excuses for him.

While 99% probably deserve it, what about the 1% that are innocent? Does anyone know with 100% certitude the guilt or innocence in the majority of cases? It's on this basis that I favor life imprisonment. I don't care about the truely guilty, but I think there have been more than a few that have been put to death who were innocent. That's not right.

I'm against it for the reasons you stated and then some. But that wasn't really the point of this thread at all.

...the investigations that led to that moratorium a couple of years ago showed a LOT of scary cockroaches scuttling around when the light was turned on.

I don't have any sympathy for killers either. But I think the "justice" system has a lot of innocent blood to answer for too, I can't possibly trust it anymore, which is the main reason I oppose the DP.

why don't you put out an extra special holiday prayer toThe Big Guy (tm) that he (The Big Guy (tm)) starts doing his job and lay some old testament waste to those you deem undeserving of life?

have died due to Bush's deliberate policy of not spending money where it is needed for our security. Who is the bigger murderer Tookie, born in a deprived ghetto, or George W. Bush born into oil and wealth?

Tookie is a chump change piker compared to the murderous frat boy who is responsible for the death of thousands of americans and a hundred thousand Iraqis.

I mean you both are right and all, but who the hell is saying otherwise on DU. Did I miss the "Tookie is an even worse piece of shit than bush" thread?

this discussion pops up. We are all too quick to chase down the brown skinned guy who gunned down 5 people on the streets and rarely go after the white motherfucker in a suit whose narcissism has killed thousands...

:eyes:

only that this sort of perspective is a good thing.. especially when people insist this discussion is "all about Tookie"

And that perspective is completely warped in this context. One has nothing to do with the other. They are seperate entities of discussion and the latter topic is irrelevant IMHO within this thread. But whatever.

But who is the bigger murderer in this context who is getting away with it?

Yes, Murder is murder, duh. And yes, * is getting away with it and we are all fighting to see that it comes to an end and justice is served.

Having that said, it has nothing to do with the point of this thread, whether you like it or not. As it has been stated many times within this thread, it was about venting my frustration of the self-righteous shit shovelers that have been over dramatically shoving guilt and rhetoric down other DU'ers throats all week just because they think Tookie is a murderer and doesn't deserve sympathy. It was a thread aimed at saying we can be against the DP but think Tookie is a piece of shit murdering thug of which we won't have sympathy for at the same time.

It had nothing to do with *, as that is a whole other discussion. So yes, murder is murder. Yes, * is a criminal that should be brought to justice. But No, in this thread's context it fails the test of relevance.

murderous frat boy's responsible for the deaths of thousands of ammericans and a hundred thousand Iraqis? Of course only if the hypothetical frat boy in charge were found guilty in a court of law...(don't want anyone to think I actively support killing murderous frat boys willy nilly)

I mean, it is a problem, just not one that has any context of my topic.

class. It used to be the same in ancient Rome. Criminals of the pleblian class were executed in the arena and the Patricians went free unless they pissed off a Patrician of higher status than them.

Welcome to American imperialism and the people who support it against their own interests. I believe all crime should be punished, however, when it only punishes a certain demographic of people, then it shows how unfair our system is.

Cause I find nowhere anyone saying that murder is ok depending on class. I mean, did you just make that up or something?

And yes, the system is unfair. No shit. But just because someone else didn't get justice doesn't mean that the murdering scumbag piece of shit that did is any less worthy of it.

I lived in the town that bred the Crips and the Bloods. I am very aware of their criminality. However, when you call for their heads, just remember that there are bigger criminals in the ranks of the self-righteous judges and juries, who convict and sentence them to death.

BTW I thought these threads were for discussion. I promise I will never answer one of your threads again because apparently you want applause and agreement not discussion.

I mean seriously, did I say anywhere you couldn't discuss in my thread? But when you choose to discuss something that is completely outside of the point of the thread well then please also have a thick enough skin to accept the consequence that the OP might call that out. Ya know, that is MY right to discussion. I have as much right(if not moreso since I am the OP) to say it wasn't really connected to this topic as you did to say it was in the first place, but if you enjoy practicing hypocrisy than that's your right too.

I also challenge you to point me to anywhere that I called for anyone's head, because I fail to find any point of any of my posts where I did that. You may have just been making things up again, or being melodramatic, but I wanted to give you a chance to show otherwise.

Furthermore, I really could care less who did the sentencing. This wasn't about that. The DP is wrong, whether sentenced by a fellow criminal or not. But again, I'm not gonna miss a wink of sleep because a murderous selfish criminal brutal piece of garbage is going to be murdered whether I think it is right to do so or not.

Either way, they're both psychos.

Your comment illustrates a perfect example of the two ends of the spectrum psychos can come from.

Indulged, or neglected and/or abused (assuming "Pookie" was)they become dangers to society.

I guess children growing up in rat infested, crime ridden neighborhoods is desirable from your point of view.

Murder ain't justice, no matter what.

Keep all murderers locked away from society, even society.

days on DU.

That's ok with you I hope.

or anything. Just the disgusting behavior of those who claim to care about victims here. Your friends aren't doing you any favors. I just hijacked your thread. You'd probably get a better reaction with lots of pictures.

you are referring to and am not sure how to respond to your post. (it also isn't about friends as my opinions are always my own, but as I said I'm not really sure what you meant)

And there seem to be plenty of barbarians on this board today. Yuck. I have to go wash my hands.

teaching that killing is wrong by killing is nonsense . . . and very counterproductive to a civilized society . . .

but the problem I see with that statement is that you're forgetting that the DP (in well publicized cases at least) actually causes the murder rate to rise slightly for a short period after the execution. Same with really popular boxing matches. (I could find a source but I learned it in college about 4 years ago...maybe after coffee.)

I understand that you don't give a rat's ass about tookie b/c he allegedly murdered those people and that's fine. I don't really see the problem with hating people who murder, or with thinking they are bad people (even though most murders happen when the murderer is extraordinarly fucked up drunk/high), but you can't resign yourself from the debate because you think he's getting what he deserves/doesn't deserve another appeal (and I'm not taking a stance here either).

It's like, I know you don't give a damn about tookie, but there are going to be consequences (at least as far as research has definitively shown) as a result of his state-sponsored murder. It's not that you have to feel sorry for him in particular, because you believe that he murdered those people and you also beleive that people who you believe to be murderers don't deserve that (and in the end isn't this whole thread about relativism anyway?) But you do have to feel sorry that, according to hardcore research, people may die as a result of this DP administration.

So fine, don't feel sympathy for Tookie, but definitely feel sorry for everyone in this country.