Quote:

"Sure the guy beat up a woman, kicked an infant across the room, kidnapped the infant and then beat it up some more and threw it out the car window on the highway to die by the side of the road and he isn't insane and he isn't mentally ill, but I don't believe in the death penalty so he should be taken care of and supported by society for the rest of his life."

the way you were "restating the position" sounded nothing like the way a person who opposes the death penalty would argue it. at least, not a smart person. it sounds, and this is just me, like the way someone who is in favor of the death penalty and has a great interest in making people who are in favor of it sound like idiots who just want to ignore the glaring fact that they are totally wrong might restate it. but i'm a notoriously myopic liberal and my vagina is troubling me tonight, so, either way.



You are correct in stating that I did not sound like somebody who supports the death penalty. I am weird that way. I believe in intellectual honesty. These (as I understood them) were the dispassionate facts. I know nothing more than what was reported (correct or false in it's accuracy), but these were the facts everyone was using to state their position.

According to what I read:

He did hit the mother

He did kick the baby

He did kidnap the baby

He did throw it out the window of his car on the highway

The autopsy showed additional injuries consistent with beating it before throwing it out the window.

Nothing supports the claim of legal insanity.

Nothing supports the suggestion of mental illness.

Charin, himself, suggested "humanely" warehousing the man for the rest of his life; which demands that all of us give a portion of our income in taxes to support him for the rest of his life.

According to what I read, these are the facts that we were presented with. Being for or against the death penalty should not allow you to twist the reality to suit your position in order to make it more palatable for you or to make your argument stronger.

I was intrigued that Charin had the balls to stand up to those facts and state his opinion, and wanted to learn more.


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--Some of us look for The Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.