Saddam probably thought he could brazen his way out of any dilemma, and hence refused the pre-war ultimatum to leave Iraq with an offer of safe passage. If at the time he’d known that he’d be hanged if he were caught, he likely would have followed in the footsteps of, e.g., the Shah, Idi Amin, Aristide & Co. and accepted exile, saving many others’ lives in so doing.

Faced with the Ceauceascu plan, or the Idi Amin plan, the decision would be easy.

(In similar fashion (the prosecutor above can comment on this), on the domestic front, I would expect the possibility of the death penalty would set tongues to wagging pretty quickly, thereby helping to clear cases.)

Negotiating with nasty regimes (e.g., Iran) could be a lot more effective if the leaders realize that they, personally, have skin in the game. The impact of sanctions can be pushed off onto hoi polloi, the impact of a noose cannot.

During the 60s and 70s one of the great divides between Liberals and Conservatives involved the question of criminal rights. Although there was broad agreement, and our system of jurisprudence explicitly supported the idea, that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent man, great battles took place over where to draw an acceptable demarcation. The far left insisted that any, even the most minimal and non-contributory, infraction by the state was enough to invalidate the entire process. One (probably unintentional) effect of this approach, was to create barriers to the community’s ability to defend itself against human predators.

Wittingly, or unwittingly, the effort to extend just such an approach to our conduct of the war on terror is part of a larger attempt to delegitimize the concept of the right to self-defense that is being increasingly incorporated into the thinking of the Western cultural elites; the prime targets of such delegitimization are America and our ally, Israel.

As to fear of executing the innocent: do we fail to imprison thieves because we fear imprisoning the innocent? Al Gore himself said in a presidential debate that the possiblity of executing an innocent is something we have to live with. Don’t give me this “life is sacred” or “different” argument, unless you want to admit that it is religiously based hokum. We all die.

Furman v. Georgia resulted in the commutation of a murder’s sentence in Texas. A judge later ordered release of prisoners by reason of prison overcrowding and put Kenneth Allen McDuff on the street, where he became once again a serial murderer and torturer. All of you who say the penalty is no deterrent should cut the mendacity. Unlike claims that the innocent MIGHT be executed, McDuff did kill multiple times because his life was spared.

See this.

As we do not have that luxury of constant success catching criminals, we are driven to the less-effective solution of harsher punishment.
Assistant Village Idiot | Homepage | 02.03.07 – 9:49 pm | #

We do catch them. It is just that it is catch and release. Death and taxes are perhaps the only things of certainty in this existence.

I’m not sure what Neo means by arbitrary. But certainly prosecutors have to work within the confines of the rules and the system. So they know that unless their case is pretty good (and this is subjective), it will be much harder to go for a death penalty. More resources, again. Since states require a unanimous vote by the jury for death. Is that arbitrary? It is just the system. Bad or good. Does twelve jurors arbitrarily decide someone should go to death? No. They might be wrong, but they don’t do it arbitrarily. Not often in today’s world anyways.

And then there is the rather weird incidence of the Double Jeopardy. Where folks like OJ can never be tried again. But those who get death get endless appeals… Does that seem like justice to you. Where not only do prosecutors have the burden of proof, but they also have the burden of the appeal system. There are no appeals for those who were declared innocent, but there are appeals for those declared guilty, more if DP. We know the system is skewed. And that it directly contradicts the spiritual principle of the advocacy system, where says that if both sides have equal representation, power, and resources, the truth between the two sides will come out in the fight. More likely to come out that is than arbitrary decisions.

Certainly the appeals system does its job as it was designed to. Which is not to protect the community from criminals, but to curtail government power.

As we see with the Knifon prosecutor, lawyers are inherently a tricky proposition, and one who abuses the power of their rank and position, can do much harm.

Does the appeal system reduce the incidence of bad cases? Most probably yes. But as we all know (S Border). Judges and lawyers have found many loopholes in how to skew results their way. Their way being the way of releasing criminals that is.

If judges were executed for allowing murderers and child rapists loose to kill and hurt again… then that would be a kind of justice. Small, but at least it will be there. But right now, with the system we have? We must kill the criminals, otherwise they will kill again and justice will not only be delayed, but will be mocked and degraded.

Those are the two models, in my view, to justify why the DP, as viewed by folks like Promethea and I, is justice.

They did finally give him his wish.
Ariel | 02.02.07 – 8:39 pm | #

An interesting alternative argument for the DP. So many died because the criminal obviously wasn’t just going to sit around in life without causing his displeasure to be known.

Go back and actually read it.
neo-neocon | Homepage | 02.02.07 – 9:01 pm | #

I said this here before, Neo. Which was that semi-literacy and illiteracy are indeed the bane of the existence of humanity.

You’re right, Michael, maybe we got the wrong “Saddam.” There might be a million of them in Iraq.
holmes | 02.03.07 – 12:31 am | #

I don’t think that was the point MIke was making, but I might be wrong.

Sure, there are cases like Fritz and Williamson, but they weren’t executed, were they?

With technology these days, certainty, while never 100%, is certainly getting near that point. If there weren’t a load of “I Love Tookie” gang groupies around, we could be more lenient. But we know that any show of weakness, will be used to undermine the case against the guilty. We Know This.

Basically, I think that it takes up too much of our resources.

You are damn straight it takes up too much of our resources. That is what the “I Love Tookie” folks wanted and it is what they fought for. We are not just fighting to put the guilty to Death, we are fighting the “I Love Tookie” groupies at the same time. If only if it was as simple as figuring out the question of DP or no DP.

an inordinate amount of court time that could be devoted to trying cases to begin with.

We all know the time that the ACLU devotes to certain cases, and we all know the reasons. Even if some of us won’t admit it, or will say they are good reasons.

The system of advocacy will only work if the resources are equal on both sides. If one side or the other gets “tired”, we have a miscarriage of justice, just by defin

So the Elite believes that when they are in power as civilians, that civilians should not decide what to do with the military?

Of course they wish for military control, like Al Sadr. But only the most loyal the and most patriotic of folks actually understand how to defend in a military or civilian sense. The aristocrats can only understand how to kill and exploit.

The deterence argument is again an example of why the Left seeks to engineer the Pavlovian response system out of humanity, and replace it with a Socialist system or some other system that they and they alone will control. It doesn’t work, Neo. They do not have the genetic engineering technology to pull it off. And even if they did… well that would be even worse now wouldn’t it.

The Pavlovian system of doing what you are rewarded to do and avoiding what you are punished for doing, has always been with humans. The Left cannot change that, and even if they could, they should not.

Xrlq | Homepage | 02.02.07 – 6:44 pm | #

Interesting logic, X. Something for Neo to ponder. Because certainly many folks on the Left, former or active, seem to have this belief that life imprisonment is a worst punishment while at the same time supporting life. But the punishment should fit the crime, that is the principle I go by.

No, I can’t prove this, but it’s common sense.
Promethea | 02.02.07 – 7:24 pm | #

Many folks like Promethea feel that it is justice, the DP, but cannot explain why. There are two models to explain why the DP is justice.

The first model is the Meta-Golden Rule. In which justice is decided not by us, not by the victims, or the courts, or even the jury. The Meta-Golden Rule makes it so that the criminals themselves decide what punishment they deserve, by the actions that they have committed. If they have held many people under their power, and have shown in mercy to those, then the criminal has decided that this is how superior people should treat those who are inferior in power. We did not decide. They did. We are just carrying out their wishes. We did not make them kill or rape. We are just following the rule of law.

However, if a criminal has shown mercy to his victims, in some way or another (they call it extenuating circumstances) then certainly mercy should be shown by the state, which is now more powerful than the criminal because the criminal is now caught. Hostage situations in which the assailant lets the hostage go freely.. certainly that is a good thing.

The second model is one of pragmatism. Meaning, you must kill these sadists and murderers because if they get out and kill again… who is to blame. Who will be execute and who will take responsibility for such? The lawyers? No. The judges? No. The jury? No. The prison wardens? Not reall

Europe, excepting France, sucked off the American nipple during the entire Cold War. If we had told them to pay for it themselves, they would have rolled over on their backs and shown their bellies to the Soviets like a submissive dog.

Yes, I have much respect for Europe.