This guy seems confused about who exactly Gandhi was:
In an ironic use of Mohandas Gandhi, certainly no advocate of war, Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) argued that because Iraqis have shown they want democracy we should continue our occupation of Iraq, saying: "Mohandas Gandhi said, 'The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within.' The people have democracy in their hearts. They can feel it within their grasp. They can look up and see it shining near them. We just have to stand and give them a hand to reach it."
The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. Imposed from without. Imposed...from...without......
Idiots run out of excuses, invoke history's most famous peace activist
The ebb and tide of my posting makes for poor debate, and a poor blog for that matter. Nonetheless, here are some responses to comments regarding the execution of Donald Jones.
Cam – Let me get the Teresa Schiavo case out of the way just by saying I don’t see any strong parallels to the execution of Donald Jones and that I think the courts and Ms. Schiavo's husband did the right thing. Yes, that blog you link too is truly tasteless. And in regards to who is family and who makes decision, clearly the rights of one’s spouse trump those of one’s parents. This is an easy call. Trying to craft specific exceptions, such as the “yeah, well he wasn’t really married to her anymore” is a bad idea. As far as the state of Florida was concerned, they were married. As an aside, this whole fiasco only highlights the legal ambiguities gay people face by being prohibited from marrying. A second–class recognition, like civil unions, is not good enough. But I digress.
As for your assertion that “there were no plugs to pull, as she was not on life-support other than having a feeding tube,” I fail to see your point. No, a feeding tube is not the same thing as a ventilator, other than in the way that they both keep someone alive. But that’s the whole point here, isn’t it? I might not call Ms. Schiavo’s case euthanasia, but not because of any qualitative differences in ventilators, etc. v. feeding tubes.
As to Donald Jones, your money argument is really poor. Do you really think it’s even worth bringing up? You correctly deduce that, in my opinion, this was not justice. (“Aside from the example of justice rationale, which you don’t appear to like…”) George Bush himself was adamant during the 2000 debates that the rationale behind state executions should be deterrence. I am of the belief that unless the state were to dramatically escalate the number of executions it performed, somewhere decidedly north of the number of executions performed by, say, the Chinese government, the death-penalty is very unlikely to deter would-be criminals. However, executing a crack addict for a crack-related crime ALMOST CERTAINLY has no deterrent value. What we’re left with is a punishment based on an eye-for-an-eye value system, supplemented by the state’s sense of vengeance, which is seldom the same thing as justice.
Speaking of vengeance, I strongly disagree that the opinions of victim’s families should come into consideration regarding criminal sentences. Family members of the victims almost never have enough distance to distinguish justice from vengeance. Remember, the whole point of jury selection is impartiality.
Lori – I agree with you except the part expressing dismay that Ms. Schiavo’s parents were willing to drag their case through the courts and media. Their attempts to manipulate the media, or more specifically, the attempts of people acting on their behalf to manipulate the media, were at times cruel, disgusting, and quite possibly illegal (the videotape, for example, violated a court injunction.) But, we have courts for a reason, and this was complicated enough to warrant court involvement.
Matt – You cite the evidence that de-bunks the argument that the death penalty is cost-effective. More importantly, you point out what an asinine line of thought the cost-effective argument really is (“Why not just crush all prisoners with larger stones once convicted…”) The death-penalty is certainly racist in its application, as well as weighted against poor people. I wasn’t really making either argument in my original post, but you're right to point it out.
Max – Yes, I’m aware that Missouri executed Vernon Brown. I take it from your smart-alec comment that you’re not concerned. I read somewhere that Missouri performed more executions during the 1990s than any other state except Texas and Virginia. Maybe you, Governor Blunt, Jay Nixon, and others don’t care, but I feel disgraced by that. It must take a lot of courage to execute prisoners.