Jun 19, 2010

 Let me be clear about something here.  I don't hate fat people as one commenter alleged in reply to my rant about scooters and some of the heavyweights who ride them.  This is not about being fat, it is about using fatness as an excuse to label yourself disabled.

I would resent equally, skinny people riding scooters just because they are too drunk to walk.

Perhaps you have noticed that many users of handicapped parking spaces appear to be in good health or at least capable of walking the few steps the rest of us manage. 

In America every good idea gets abused by people who think that they are entitled. The fact that you can get a handicapped placard, or scooter, doesn't mean you have to, or even ought to.

Places of public accommodation struggle to provide for the needs of the genuinely disabled, without being burdened by people who are merely taking advantage. 

On a more general note, our health care system is being weighted down by people who demand costly services to perpetuate their poor choices in life.

Seem harsh?  Oh, well.




 Perhaps you saw in the news that this man, Ronnie Lee Gardner, was executed by firing squad in Utah the other day.  I guess the guillotine was out of order.

There was no doubt of Ronnie Lee Gardner's guilt in the murder that got him executed.  Lots of people saw him shoot up a court room and kill an attorney.  He freely admitted that he was guilty and professed his belief in the system that killed him.

In opposing the death penalty, none of that matters.  Our criterion cannot be that we know the prisoner is guilty of the crime.   The agents of the State always assure us that the convicted are guilty, they are positive of that.

The authorities were positive that they had the correct person in all of the 254 cases where innocent people have been freed after being wrongly convicted at trial through the use of DNA testing.  Including 17 who were under a death sentence.

The existence of the  death penalty insures that an innocent man or woman will go to their death sometime, somewhere.  Abolition removes that possibility.

"I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty." -Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

 











Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

4 comments:

Steve Reed said...

As you said, guilt is immaterial when considering the ethics of the death penalty. The question is, do we as a civilized society want to perpetuate a barbaric method of punishment?

Even the issue of unfair application and poor representation is something of a red herring. I don't want to kill anybody. I don't care how guilty they are. It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Bug said...

My dad taught me well - he was excused from many a jury because he didn't believe in the death penalty. It just seems incredibly barbaric to me.

Bella Rum said...

Don't believe in state execution.

Barbara said...

I believe everything Ruth Bader Ginsburg says. "Well represented" usually means "has money."

Most every other civilized country does NOT allow capital punishment these days. Why don't we take a lesson?