Sorry I haven’t posted in a long time, but I have been waging a personal battle against whether or not to continue saying controversial things on this blog. Alas this death penalty talk has smoked me out of my cave, but first a disclaimer.
The opinions put forth by Jungle Cat, and/or Devi’ls Advocate are not necessarily the opinions of the authors of this blog, rather they are carefully calculated to be controversial, offensive, and downright dastardly. Too much non-critical parroting of the popular opinion right or wrong makes me physically ill. This blog is my tums.
That being said, on with the show . . .
The death penalty is a just and proper punishment, at least in theory. I believe that the death penalty is truly deserved for some crimes, and by some people. The only problem I have with the death penalty is how it is currently meted out. The idea of reserving the death penalty only for murderers, and only for those murders committed with special circumstances is right on, the problem is that the current character of “special circumstances” isn’t so special. I challenge you to look at the special circumstances in the code, and to think up a hypo where a first degree murder is committed, but where there aren’t any death qualifying special circumstances. Any hypo you come up with is sure to be ridiculous. If the special circumstances were indeed special such as murder involving torture, or other particularly heinous acts than I would whole heartedly support the death penalty.
As for Tookie the man deserved what he got. He shot a man lying face down on the floor with a shotgun . . . twice. Moreover, he founded the crips. Whatever cleansing he has accomplished with his immortal soul over the past decade is for the afterlife to deal with, but the social damage he caused by founding the crips was for California to deal with.
Now for the controversial part. Repentant or unashamed, good man or bad, Tookie’s death was beneficial for California. The media circus surrounding Tookie, and his high profile execution meant that his execution had to go forward. The message to would be wrong doers, that repentance after the fact is insufficient to escape the cold clammy hands of justice, was essential.
If Tookies knee jerk supporters (Yeah right like he was an innocent man. Free Mumia free Mumia, er. . . Tookie.) realy wanted him to receive clemency, they should have kept the static down. Instead they painted Schwarzenegger into a corner. Sometimes I think that liberals are their own worst enemies. Maybe someday I will spearhead the liberal resurgence, I already have a plan. All I need to do is start placing Machievelli’s “The Prince” in every hotel room. I can be the Anti-Gideon. That way when the liberal elite are done having sex with their mistresses they can brush up on power politics and maybe learn how to win a few fights.
