I thought this must be a bad a joke, but it isn't.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/utah-firing-squad-executes-ronnie-lee-gardner-10949666
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/utah-firing-squad-executes-ronnie-lee-gardner-10949666
Killer Executed by Utah Firing Squad
- Thread starter Ponder
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mjp
Founding member
Because they never execute anyone anywhere else, right?
The soil of all of Europe - and most of the world - is dark with thousands of years of blood, pointlessly shed, but now you are going to look down your fine nose at poor, backward America for executing a murderer? Oh, pardon us, pardon us. Maybe it's the use of bullets that you find repugnant. Perhaps we should have used a guillotine, or an iron maiden? One of those humane execution devices that you civilized cocksuckers pioneered.
The soil of all of Europe - and most of the world - is dark with thousands of years of blood, pointlessly shed, but now you are going to look down your fine nose at poor, backward America for executing a murderer? Oh, pardon us, pardon us. Maybe it's the use of bullets that you find repugnant. Perhaps we should have used a guillotine, or an iron maiden? One of those humane execution devices that you civilized cocksuckers pioneered.
When it comes to blood ... Money talk$ and Bullshit Walks!
I quote from an article I read "As former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell explained: "Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the US military machine to run".
http://www.bruneinews.net/story/648536
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1332529811306781463#
Colateral Damage is in truth babies`arms flying in the air ....it just happens that it is not YOUR baby this time
I quote from an article I read "As former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell explained: "Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the US military machine to run".
http://www.bruneinews.net/story/648536
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1332529811306781463#
Colateral Damage is in truth babies`arms flying in the air ....it just happens that it is not YOUR baby this time
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number6horse
okyoutwopixiesoutyougo
I am opposed to the death penalty for a couple of reasons, but I have to say that if I were facing the death penalty, I'd want the firing squad too.
1) It's quicker. Today I read where all of the shooters aim for your heart, which takes you out in about one minute or so. Lethal injection (assuming the executioners know wtf they are doing) can take about nine minutes.
2) It drops all pretense of being clinical, neat, and civilized. Go ahead and be loud and messy and dramatic. This is death.
1) It's quicker. Today I read where all of the shooters aim for your heart, which takes you out in about one minute or so. Lethal injection (assuming the executioners know wtf they are doing) can take about nine minutes.
2) It drops all pretense of being clinical, neat, and civilized. Go ahead and be loud and messy and dramatic. This is death.
bospress.net
www.bospress.net
Utah is not really part of the US. It is run by the Mormon church.
They do have one damn fine poet, tho!
Bill
They do have one damn fine poet, tho!
Bill
mjp
Founding member
Well, I'm opposed to prison in general, since it's just a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that does nothing but breed crime and violence. But we have prisons, and we have the death penalty. There are almost 700 people on death row in California, but we don't generally execute them (there have only been about a dozen executions since 1976).
If you don't like the death penalty, change the laws. Good luck with that. People everywhere (even in the Netherlands!) like vengeance, real or imagined, and what better vengeance than an eye for an eye?
I'm with number6horse though, in believing that being shot would be a far preferable death to the slow poisoning of a "lethal injection" or suffocation in a gas chamber. You know, if someone is going to kill you anyway.
If you don't like the death penalty, change the laws. Good luck with that. People everywhere (even in the Netherlands!) like vengeance, real or imagined, and what better vengeance than an eye for an eye?
I'm with number6horse though, in believing that being shot would be a far preferable death to the slow poisoning of a "lethal injection" or suffocation in a gas chamber. You know, if someone is going to kill you anyway.
number6horse
okyoutwopixiesoutyougo
mjp - You pretty much narrowed down the challenge of changing death penalty laws to it's essence. It all comes down to taming the blood-thirst and transforming the primal need for vengeance into a more evolved human desire for justice. And yeah, "good luck with that", for sure.
But when you look at how far DNA testing has come (and will continue to improve), it seems we have to re-think applying the ultimate penalty, I think. Once it is carried out, THERE IS NO RE-DRESS OF GRIEVANCES. The state can pay you big money and officially pardon you, and you can write a book/screenplay and make up for lost time if you've been wrongfully imprisoned. But dead is dead and the state cannot try to make good on that, however egregious the miscarriage of justice later turns out to be.
Before anyone perceives me as a "do-gooder liberal" (which I kind of am), let me give you my LARRY HOOVER EXAMPLE of why I am opposed to the death penalty. Mr. Larry Hoover was the founder and "CEO" of The Black Gangster Disciples in Chicago. No need to detail the mayhem he has personally directed over the years, but he has been in prison for a long time and deservedly so. However, inside prison, he has full privileges and rights granted especially for him that virtually no other prisoners enjoy. He doesn't even wear a jumpsuit - he is allowed personal clothing. He has cooking privileges in his cell. And of course, nobody tries to fuck him in the ass. Plus, you can be assured that a portion of those millions of dollars earned in the drug trade by his gang on the streets is waiting in a bank account somewhere. But here's the thing: As good as he has it on the inside, he still wants out. But that can't happen because he is serving life without parole. And I would see that as Win/Win, if every convicted murderer/rapist/monster could be shut away for life, and - simultaneously - there would be no possibility that an innocent man/framed man/wrong man in the wrong place would be put to death. Replace the death penalty with life without parole and it's all good ( to put it simplistically)
The death penalty is the one unique sentence handed down by the courts which cannot be "corrected" after the fact. What's done is done and when the state fucks up (or just railroads you), you are never walking out of those gates with a chance to start over. And good luck with that...
But when you look at how far DNA testing has come (and will continue to improve), it seems we have to re-think applying the ultimate penalty, I think. Once it is carried out, THERE IS NO RE-DRESS OF GRIEVANCES. The state can pay you big money and officially pardon you, and you can write a book/screenplay and make up for lost time if you've been wrongfully imprisoned. But dead is dead and the state cannot try to make good on that, however egregious the miscarriage of justice later turns out to be.
Before anyone perceives me as a "do-gooder liberal" (which I kind of am), let me give you my LARRY HOOVER EXAMPLE of why I am opposed to the death penalty. Mr. Larry Hoover was the founder and "CEO" of The Black Gangster Disciples in Chicago. No need to detail the mayhem he has personally directed over the years, but he has been in prison for a long time and deservedly so. However, inside prison, he has full privileges and rights granted especially for him that virtually no other prisoners enjoy. He doesn't even wear a jumpsuit - he is allowed personal clothing. He has cooking privileges in his cell. And of course, nobody tries to fuck him in the ass. Plus, you can be assured that a portion of those millions of dollars earned in the drug trade by his gang on the streets is waiting in a bank account somewhere. But here's the thing: As good as he has it on the inside, he still wants out. But that can't happen because he is serving life without parole. And I would see that as Win/Win, if every convicted murderer/rapist/monster could be shut away for life, and - simultaneously - there would be no possibility that an innocent man/framed man/wrong man in the wrong place would be put to death. Replace the death penalty with life without parole and it's all good ( to put it simplistically)
The death penalty is the one unique sentence handed down by the courts which cannot be "corrected" after the fact. What's done is done and when the state fucks up (or just railroads you), you are never walking out of those gates with a chance to start over. And good luck with that...
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Mormons believe God lives on a planet way out in the far reaches of our galaxy so a firing squad makes sense. The convicted murderer requested to be shot and asked that none of his family witness it. He said, "He lived by the gun so he should die by the gun". Sounds like he was accepting his fate.
In one of the wealthiest countries of the world they still have public floggings and beheading. We make up for our cruelty by welcoming millions of undocumented aliens. I think everyone gets from this world what they put into it.
Number6 reminded me: California owes it's prison population billions of dollars in health care. Yes, make sure he doesn't have any cavities in his teeth when we inject him.
In one of the wealthiest countries of the world they still have public floggings and beheading. We make up for our cruelty by welcoming millions of undocumented aliens. I think everyone gets from this world what they put into it.
Number6 reminded me: California owes it's prison population billions of dollars in health care. Yes, make sure he doesn't have any cavities in his teeth when we inject him.
jordan
lothario speedwagon
well, jan - at least utah banned death by firing squad in 2004 (because it led to bad publicity - not any other reason). and if you look at the amount of press this one incident has generated, they probably made the right decision, if they are looking to execute people quietly.
Since I eat meat, my argument against the death penalty will likely seem weak. I also need to preface it with a few points. Once you stop yawning, read on if you care to:
1. Although I am not at all religious, I do believe in some conception of god.
2. My conception of a god-thing has nothing to do with any doctrine, dogma or dog shit.
3. I simply think that there is a collective essence that those of us who exist share. Just some thing that is inherent to all of us who exist. It's that unknown thing that makes us "be."
4. Save your arguments about bacteria and ferrets. No time for them right now; I'm talking about sentient beings. So, there is a certain exclusivity in my position that further denegrates my point. So be it.
But my position on the death penalty is this:
Grant me my point #3 above (if you can't, you've won, so move on, I suppose, or slam me; I don't care). While the concept of ridding society of child-fuckers and mass-murderers seems like a sane proposition, my point is that we aren't really here to judge who deserves life. Ridding society of killers is like denying the fundamental part of you that stems from my point #3 above. We are everything that exists. Some of us are more "socially pure" than others. Some of us are "socially disturbed" and others lie in between. My point is that if we decide who we should kill, we are simply trying to remove the members of society who represent our baser qualities (refer to my point #3 above for clarification). We all share good and bad traits. Since my basis for what is god lies in the reality that we share a collective essence, as it were, removing anything by our own hand is like rejecting the the bad things in our own selves that we don't want to acknowlege as being part of reality.
I'm not trying to equate mass murder with being an arrogant prick or a condescending bitch; no, I'm simply stating that it probably makes said arrogant prick or condescending bitch feel better if we kill a mass murderer rather than dealing with our own fundamental flaws.
OK, off to have a hamburger.
1. Although I am not at all religious, I do believe in some conception of god.
2. My conception of a god-thing has nothing to do with any doctrine, dogma or dog shit.
3. I simply think that there is a collective essence that those of us who exist share. Just some thing that is inherent to all of us who exist. It's that unknown thing that makes us "be."
4. Save your arguments about bacteria and ferrets. No time for them right now; I'm talking about sentient beings. So, there is a certain exclusivity in my position that further denegrates my point. So be it.
But my position on the death penalty is this:
Grant me my point #3 above (if you can't, you've won, so move on, I suppose, or slam me; I don't care). While the concept of ridding society of child-fuckers and mass-murderers seems like a sane proposition, my point is that we aren't really here to judge who deserves life. Ridding society of killers is like denying the fundamental part of you that stems from my point #3 above. We are everything that exists. Some of us are more "socially pure" than others. Some of us are "socially disturbed" and others lie in between. My point is that if we decide who we should kill, we are simply trying to remove the members of society who represent our baser qualities (refer to my point #3 above for clarification). We all share good and bad traits. Since my basis for what is god lies in the reality that we share a collective essence, as it were, removing anything by our own hand is like rejecting the the bad things in our own selves that we don't want to acknowlege as being part of reality.
I'm not trying to equate mass murder with being an arrogant prick or a condescending bitch; no, I'm simply stating that it probably makes said arrogant prick or condescending bitch feel better if we kill a mass murderer rather than dealing with our own fundamental flaws.
OK, off to have a hamburger.
mjp
Founding member
I fail to see the difference between locking someone in a prison forever, never letting them out, and killing them outright. You know, aside from the fact that alive, a creep can still make people's lives miserable (I think we can all agree that prisoners are, indeed, people). Dead, they can't.
I'm not in favor of the death penalty either (or prison as a thing or a concept or whatever you want to call it), but I live in a world that has prisons and death penalties and "life without the possibility of parole." As a pragmatist I have to wonder how society benefits from "life without the possibility of parole." Aside from assuaging people's guilt over execution.
I'm not in favor of the death penalty either (or prison as a thing or a concept or whatever you want to call it), but I live in a world that has prisons and death penalties and "life without the possibility of parole." As a pragmatist I have to wonder how society benefits from "life without the possibility of parole." Aside from assuaging people's guilt over execution.
number6horse
okyoutwopixiesoutyougo
Johannes
Founding member
In the papers around here they say that this man, Ronnie Lee Gardner, asked for being shot instead of the injection. And got his will.
The death penalty is medieval and that Europe waded through medieval blood and gore for centuries (and still does today, depending on where you set the borders of Europe) doesn't change the fact. But it's very easy to turn this one into plump anti-Americanism, as it so promptly happens around here. You know, those stupid bigoted mormon Cowboys, shooting people. Europe has not much space for that arrogance, imho. Always remember, it took the Swiss until 1971 (and in some cantons til 1990) for allowing women to vote. Liechtenstein made it in 1984. You can't and should not equate that with the death penalty. I know. But speaking of medieval.
Also, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced the execution on Twitter, on June 18th (--> http://twitter.com/MarkShurtleff) as I read today. I researched it and he said: "I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims." Then, obviously pissed by some comments on his twittering, he writes: "WARNING! This page informs on real world of crime and punishment. "If u can't stand the TWEET, get out of the TWITCHEN" Harry Truman" (June 19th) and finally: "Astonishing that no retweet whiner express outrage that Gardner shot 2 men in the face, & a cop; nor one word of empathy for their families."
Whatever you may think about the death penalty, handling this shit on TWITTER simply seems wrong in a fundamental way.
The death penalty is medieval and that Europe waded through medieval blood and gore for centuries (and still does today, depending on where you set the borders of Europe) doesn't change the fact. But it's very easy to turn this one into plump anti-Americanism, as it so promptly happens around here. You know, those stupid bigoted mormon Cowboys, shooting people. Europe has not much space for that arrogance, imho. Always remember, it took the Swiss until 1971 (and in some cantons til 1990) for allowing women to vote. Liechtenstein made it in 1984. You can't and should not equate that with the death penalty. I know. But speaking of medieval.
Also, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced the execution on Twitter, on June 18th (--> http://twitter.com/MarkShurtleff) as I read today. I researched it and he said: "I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims." Then, obviously pissed by some comments on his twittering, he writes: "WARNING! This page informs on real world of crime and punishment. "If u can't stand the TWEET, get out of the TWITCHEN" Harry Truman" (June 19th) and finally: "Astonishing that no retweet whiner express outrage that Gardner shot 2 men in the face, & a cop; nor one word of empathy for their families."
Whatever you may think about the death penalty, handling this shit on TWITTER simply seems wrong in a fundamental way.
I'm with you, Johannes. The death penalty is an insane joke without a punchline; if the shock therapy of execution would work, there would have been only one (in every country, maybe) execution.
Nobody's really stopped from murder at the risk of getting executed and two wrongs do not make a right.
Nobody's really stopped from murder at the risk of getting executed and two wrongs do not make a right.
Gerard K H Love
Appreciate your friends
Jeffrey Dahmer got the real death penalty, didn't he.
anais ninja
Fast like a marsupial
Hey, my state made the news!
We loves our guns here in utah. We loves our revenge, too. And when the two meet, we are ecstatic!
Hey Bill...who's that poet you're talking about. I wanna go meet him so we can have a drink. :)
We loves our guns here in utah. We loves our revenge, too. And when the two meet, we are ecstatic!
Hey Bill...who's that poet you're talking about. I wanna go meet him so we can have a drink. :)
bospress.net
www.bospress.net
He lives in South Jordan and is a Chemist.
anais ninja
Fast like a marsupial
Ah yes....I know the guy. Gonna buy him a beer... ;)
Texas executes mentally disabled prisoner using one-drug lethal injection
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/texa-j19.shtml
Next week schedule:
State of Georgia to execute man declared mentally retarded by the court
http://rt.com/usa/news/state-georgia-man-court-852/
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jul2012/texa-j19.shtml
Next week schedule:
State of Georgia to execute man declared mentally retarded by the court
http://rt.com/usa/news/state-georgia-man-court-852/
bospress.net
www.bospress.net
Texas has a history of executing mentally retarded people. This is not the first time.
The Overly-Christian Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has presided over the most executions of people in Texas History and Texas has the most executions in modern history. Hell, they even executed an innocent man...
The Overly-Christian Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, has presided over the most executions of people in Texas History and Texas has the most executions in modern history. Hell, they even executed an innocent man...
I find it strange that the so-called Christian Right allies itself so closely with an act that goes against one of the Ten Commandments. That said, the older I get, the less problem I have with killing people who've killed others. I know there's the wrongful conviction argument, which is a strong one, but there are also certain cases where it's beyond doubt. Keeping someone on Death Row for decades seems completely inhumane to me though. What benefit does that serve anyone?
mjp
Founding member
But apparently not "mentally disabled" enough to murder someone while carjacking them.
The idea that a retarded (hey, the court said it, not me) person can't be evil or bad is an odd one, isn't it. As if all mentally deficient people are happy-go-lucky, smiling angels. Kind of condescending, and I'm sure there's some rights organization somewhere that would call such an idea offensive.
Whether murdering murderers is right or wrong, we do it. Why should anyone be exempt from that? You know, unless you're super rich.