A culture of death

I just saw a new gallup poll showing that over 50% of the people in America believe that the Death Penalty should be used more often. I know the hypocrisy amazes me too. We have a part in the constitution which forbids cruel and unusual punishment, yet the government still is allowed to kill people. I think the issue here is that the people in the States are igrnoant. They have never been outside the country or their own state so they can't understand the world around them. They don't know that we are the only industrialized nation with the death penalty. I know gallup leans right, but this poll is still very disturbing.

Choose Life....until birth. The anti-life postures of the far right never cease to astound me.

When we get clergy shouting from the pulpits that the death penalty is wrong then we'll see those numbers plummet. Too many people need to be told what is right and wrong these days.

which is a highly UNenglightened viewpoint, IMO.

is what I say..

and what the polling sample was.

I don't know the answer to this question, but to know what that number truly means--i.e., are we progressing or regressing--you'd have to look at the results for the same question ten or twenty years ago. Is it trending up or down?

more authoritarian.

Even the idea that the president should be able to make lifetime appointments of anyone he wants while still being subject to term limits himself without any recourse to congressional review or minority action is just another outcropping of this.

Der Führer Must Be Obeyed.

So it's small wonder that Our Great Leaders, including The Pope, Jerry Falwell, and the Californicator Must Never Be Questioned, and anyone who does should be executed for treason.

Heck, you can execute someone yourself in Florida if you feel threatened, and it doesn't even have to be mortal danger. I personally can't wait :popcorn: for the executions to begin, and the idiots who voted for this to start wailing when they're being capitally punished for not paying their credit card bills.

highly likely that Pope Benedict XVI opposes capital punishment just as Pope John Paul II did. John Paul II often worked to try to stop executions in the US and elsewhere, including that of Karla Fay Tucker in Texas when you-know-who was governor there.

in fact you just advised me not to question that particular authority.

I agree with you on this particular topic, but the pope gives more of a damn about criminals than he does about gays, so I'll keep him right where he is, thank you.

.....civilized democracy. So where did we all go wrong ???? This country sure is not the "model" we should be promoting to other countries; we can't even get it right !!!!

we should be promoting some sought of model to other countries. This is liberal imperialism at its worst i fear. We should strive to make a democratic and free society, but should not be promoting it on anyone. it should be only an example. a very bad example up to now.

Puts a big dent in the recidivist cause...



<sorry-couldn't help myself>

the more I learn of our history, the more it seems every inch of this land is soaked with blood. Slavery, genocide. Even in my nice, liberal Minnesota three young black men were lynched by a mob in Duluth, Minnesota in 1920 while the community (Christian) watched and cheered. In 1862, in Mankato Minnesota, 38 Dakota were hanged in the town center, the largest mass hanging in American history. Families (Christian) came from miles around for the "show", they brought the kids, packed a picnic lunch.

but to make us feel good about our country. That was an explicit claim by the Texas Textbook Board, and it's the underlying principle everywhere.

Remember, we were the LAST civilized nation to ban slavery. Our nation was built on a genocide so horrific that Adolf Hitler used it as a model to exterminate the Jews. We have a national holiday to a man who, while not discovering a damn thing that anyone didn't know was there, exploited, raped, enslaved, and massacred millions, either himself or through his followers. He also gave instructions to his slave merchants to seek out young women, because his men were growing bored with the women "over 12" that he was providing them.

America's written ideals are amongst the greatest rhetoric of all times, and we have done tremendous good for the world, but we have also drained enough blood to make Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot look like amateurs--a fact at least two of those knew.

death" and "culture of life" (which Bushboy stole -- well, Karl Rove stole and put in Bushboy's mouth.)

The "culture of life" that John Paul II advocated is not only opposed to abortion and euthanasia, it is equally opposed to the death penalty and war.

More information/ history that seems little known at DU:

John Paul II personally pleaded with many heads of state to spare the lives of convicted criminals. That included pleading with American governors, notably a certain governor of Texas famed for approving more executions than any other. Of course Dim Son didn't listen then or later, when JP II told him not to invade Iraq.

Some of the most dedicated activists against the death penalty are Catholic. It's always been that way. Catholics have always been central to anti-war activism, nuclear disarmament activism, civil rights activism, etc.

other democratic nation and also has the worst murder rate amongst its citizens. For a start it obviously doesn't work. Secondly, a nation that claims to be free, reserves the right to forcibly end its citizens lives, and thirdly, it is simply barbaric. The right to kill lies with no institution such as a government.

however i may be wrong

Max Weber the German sociologist composed one of the earliest definitions of the nation state/country/government.

"A body of armed men who have a monopoly on the legitimate, or thought to be legitimate, use of violence within a given territory."