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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLarry Flynt urges clemency for Joseph Paul Franklin, the killer who shot him
Source: The Observer
Edward Helmore in New York
The Observer, Saturday 19 October 2013 13.43 BST
By the brutal norms of American capital punishment, few recipients of a lethal injection will trouble consciences less deeply than Joseph Paul Franklin.
In a spree of racially motivated violence across the US in the late 1970s, the Ku Klux Klan-affiliated gunman murdered as many as 20 people on a mission to "cleanse the world" of those he considered to be of inferior status.
But if Franklin is strapped down to receive the fatal shot of drugs on 20 November, in conformity with the Missouri Department of Corrections' schedule, at least one of his surviving targets won't be raising a glass in celebration.
"If it was a deterrent, I'd support the death penalty, but it's not," Larry Flynt, the notorious pornographer and civil liberties campaigner who was paralysed by a bullet from Franklin's hunting rifle, told the Observer last week.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/19/larry-flynt-clemency-joseph-paul-franklin-crippled
Warpy
(111,270 posts)Thank you, Mr. Flynt. You are doing the right thing. Again.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Everything you said.
loudsue
(14,087 posts)He always hated the bush cabal.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)Cha
(297,285 posts)so amazingly forgiving and logical.
Warpy
(111,270 posts)He's always fought the good fight as far as that goes. He's gotten into a lot of trouble over the years for over the top misogynism in his magazine (the woman being fed into the meat grinder being one glaring example although I identified with that feeling), but I know a lot of women who read his magazine for the humor.
So yes, he's keeping it classy. I'll always appreciate him for fighting Falwell all the way to the USSC.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)half of the finger-waggers and huffy moralizing harumph-parumphers (even Henry Hyde, ewwwww) were busy having affairs of their own.
The media blithely ignored that shit while breathlessly reporting on every incoherent fart uttered by Linda Tripp or each sordid detail about the stained dress, etc.
deaniac21
(6,747 posts)hog
(51 posts)MindPilot
(12,693 posts)Pink is what they started with, now it's hard core. No judgement; merely observation.
And welcome to DU.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)than a lot of Christians.
My thoughts exactly.
It's a common phenomenon.
Cha
(297,285 posts)RW Christians we hear about blaring their are CINOs.
My sister happens to be a Liberal Christian and is the most caring thing for her fellow human beings. She and her kind give true meaning to the religion. Too bad about the mean spirited ones who are so vocal, loud, and evil.
DinahMoeHum
(21,794 posts)Let Franklin preach his hateful rhetoric to the bedbugs and cockroaches in a supermax, for the rest of his fucked-up miserable life.
For such a hateful, self-righteous fanatic with no remorse or forgiveness of heart, life in prison with no parole is worse punishment than death.
Cirque du So-What
(25,941 posts)and if one chose to get all fiscally responsible - for real - one would realize that capital punishment is a much bigger drain on tax revenue than life without parole...in addition to the myriad reasons why the death penalty has no place in a so-called 'civilized society.'
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Tip my hat to him, not sure if I could show that type of mercy.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)JI7
(89,251 posts)the guy will continue to be locked away .
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Larry has a greater sense of morals than many that cloak themselves in the mantle of piousness.
I have great respect for Larry Flynt.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)...and its hard to get people who feel that way to be rational"
Yeah. A lot of irrationality running around these days, 15 minutes hate type stuff.
I don't think the DP makes sense. Probably the strongest argument against is the fact that the justice system is at times unfair, and often gets the wrong person. A wrongful incarceration can be undone, at least somewhat. A wrongful execution cannot.
It says a lot about Larry Flynt that he can approach the topic rationally, even in regards to the person who shot him.
gejohnston
(17,502 posts)heathen pornographer. Ironic, isn't it? Or maybe not?