US censured over executions

[MIKE BURN]

Quote:

---

US censured over executions



BBC/London, Friday, 18 July, 2003, 02:38 GMT 03:38 UK



Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned the US for continuing to execute people for crimes committed when they were children.



In a new report, the organisation says the US was responsible for 13 of the 20 known executions worldwide in the last decade for crimes committed before the offender's 18th birthday.



Five of the US executions took place in the last 18 months.



The death penalty is a matter for individual US states, some of which permit the execution of people for crimes committed when they were teenagers.



According to the report, the US "is the only country in the world to openly carry out child offender executions within the framework of its ordinary criminal justice system".



"The execution of child offenders has rightly become abhorrent in virtually every corner of the world, yet the USA is shamefully ignoring the effective ban on executing child offenders," Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said in a statement.



"The USA has recently claimed to be 'the global leader in child protection', but by imposing death sentences on under-age offenders it undermines international law and its own credibility."



Amnesty called for a ban on such executions to be recognised as a "peremptory norm" of international law, which would make them illegal everywhere, regardless of whether a country had signed up to treaties banning the practice.



Washington sniper



The issue of execution of juveniles in the US will be brought back into the spotlight later this year with the trial of Washington sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo.



He was 17 when he was arrested and charged with murder for his alleged killing partnership with the other accused man, John Allen Muhammad.



But he will be tried in adult court in Virginia - a state which not only implements the death penalty, but allows it for juveniles tried as adults.



Carrie Cantrell, a spokeswoman for Virginia's attorney general, said allowing courts to decide to try juveniles as adults and face adult sentences including the death penalty was part of a package of reforms brought in with popular support to tackle violent crime.



She told BBC News Online that suspects such as Mr Malvo were considered the same as adults.



"These individuals were aware they were committing these crimes, and were aware they are tried as adults," she said.



"In Virginia, we stand on the side of the victim," she said, adding that the reforms made to the state's juvenile justice system in the 1990s were working and had brought about dramatic decrease in violent crime.

---

[Rev9Volts]

amnisty international is considered a joke by pretty much everyone i know. they gripe more about the usa than castro/cuba. where were they when saddam gasses 5000 kurds.



i live in the washington area. in verginia in fact. these 2 guys killed 10 people 3 more were shot. people were scared to stop and buy gas. people would not go to outdoor events.



here are some excerpts from stories...



The car has an opening in its trunk that would permit someone to lie inside and fire the rifle while remaining hidden, two federal law enforcement sources told The Associated Press. That could explain the lack of spent shell casings in most of the shootings, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.





Thousands of children stayed home from school, and motorists avoided filling their tanks at gas stations where they might be vulnerable to a shot.





if they are convicted they deserve to be executed. i do not care if the kid was 6.

[MIKE BURN]

Quote:

---

i do not care if the kid was 6.

---

What a sentence... it can only be conquered with U.S. hypocricy itself, a "civilized" country full of "culture",

killing people in the name of God:



"And God spoke all these words, saying: 'I am the LORD your God…



...'You shall have no other gods before Me.'



...'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'



...'You shall not murder.'





----------------------------------------------------





A review of death penalty judgments over a 23-year period found a error rate of 68 % (USA). In a matter of life and death, you are getting it wrong more than 2 out of every 3 times. No matter... adults or children.





Congratulations.

[Rev9Volts]

too funny mike. man you twist things around.



Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i do not care if the kid was 6.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------









What a sentence...



yes mike it is, but i dare say there is no 6 year old kid who can lay in a car trunk and shoot a high powered rifle through a small hole in the bumber/fender and kill several people at several hundred yards.









it can only be conquered with U.S. hypocricy itself, a "civilized" country full of "culture",

killing people in the name of God:



not killing executing there is a difference malvo and mohammad killed rather murdered innocent people.





"And God spoke all these words, saying: 'I am the LORD your God…



...'You shall have no other gods before Me.' so what is your point of this?



...'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'



still another unknown point...





...'You shall not murder.'



you take the bible out of context and you know it. read the rest of the old testament instead of pulling a couple of verses... in god's eyes there is a difference between killing (murdering) and executing. the old testament is full of examples and you know it.

----------------------------------------------------





A review of death penalty judgments over a 23-year period found a error rate of 68 % (USA). In a matter of life and death, you are getting it wrong more than 2 out of every 3 times. No matter... adults or children.





sorry mike you are wrong again...





i can copy and paste also...





Vol. 18, No. 11

June 3, 2002

Table of Contents Printer Friendly Version

More on Capital Punishment

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Ten Anti-Death Penalty Fallacies

by Thomas R. Eddlem



The case against capital punishment relies on myth, misinformation, and misplaced emotionalism.



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Renewed attacks on the death penalty are likely as the trial of accused Twin Tower bombing accomplice Zacharias Moussaoui proceeds. Federal officials have charged Moussaoui with six crimes, four of which carry a potential death sentence. Amnesty International has already issued an "urgent action alert" to call on the world to condemn this "outdated punishment" in the United States. Therefore, there is no time like the present to review some of the misinformation and faulty reasoning of capital punishment opponents.



Fallacy #1: Racism



"The death penalty is racist.... [T]he federal death penalty is used disproportionately against minorities, especially African Americans.... According to [Justice Department] figures, nearly 80 percent of inmates on federal death row are Black, Hispanic, or from another minority group." (Campaign to End the Death Penalty)



"The imposition of the death penalty is racially biased: Nearly 90% of persons executed were convicted of killing whites, although people of color make up over half of all homicide victims in the United States." (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)



"Death row in the U.S. has always held a disproportionately large population of people of color relative to the general population." (ACLU Briefing Paper on the Death Penalty)



Correction: The claim that the death penalty unfairly impacts blacks and minorities is a deliberate fraud. The majority of those executed since 1976 have been white, even though black criminals commit a slim majority of murders. If the death penalty is racist, it is biased against white murderers and not blacks.



According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%. Yet even though blacks committed a majority of murders, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports: "Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up the majority of those under sentence of death." (Emphasis added.) Whites continued to comprise the majority on death row in the year 2000 (1,990 whites to 1,535 blacks and 68 others). In the year 2000, 49 of the 85 people actually put to death were whites.



So how can abolitionists claim that the death penalty unfairly punishes black people and other minorities? The statistics they cite are often technically accurate (though not always), but they don’t mean what most people assume they mean. Abolitionists often start by analyzing the race of the victims rather than the murderers. Because most murders are intra-racial (white murderers mostly kill other whites and most black murderers kill other blacks), imposing the death penalty more frequently on white murderers means that killers of white people will more likely be executed. In essence, abolitionists playing the race card argue that black murder victims are not receiving justice because only the murderers of white people are punished with the death penalty. Death penalty proponents may consider this denying justice to black people.



New "hate crimes" laws are likely to worsen the hypocrisy. A "hate crimes" mentality translates into tougher sentences for interracial "hate crimes." Because white people are killed by black people 2.6 times more frequently than black people are killed by white people, more killers of white people will be susceptible to receiving the death penalty than killers of black people.



Fallacy #2: Cost



"It costs more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 1993 California study argues that each death penalty case costs at least $1.25 million more than a regular murder case and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole." (deathpenalty.org)



Correction: While these figures are dubious at best, this argument deserves no response. Justice isn’t up for sale to the lowest bidder.



Fallacy #3: Innocence



"A review of death penalty judgments over a 23-year period found a national error rate of 68%." (ACLU Death Penalty Campaign statement)



"[S]erious error -- error substantially undermining the reliability of capital verdicts -- has reached epidemic proportions throughout our death penalty system. More than two out of every three capital judgments reviewed by the courts during the 23-year study period were found to be seriously flawed." ("Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995" by James Liebman et al.)



Correction: The major media reported this highly publicized Columbia University study uncritically when it was first released in 2000. But Reg Brown from the Florida governor’s office exploded it: "The ‘study’ defines ‘error’ to include any issue requiring further review by a lower court.... Using the authors’ misleading definition, the ‘study’ does, however, conclude that 64 Florida post-conviction cases were rife with ‘error’ -- even though none of these Florida cases was ultimately resolved by a ‘not guilty’ verdict, a pardon or a dismissal of murder charges."



Brown noted that even political overturning of death penalty cases added to the figure. "[T]he nearly 40 death penalty convictions that were reversed by the California Supreme Court during the tenure of liberal activist Rose Bird are treated as ‘error cases’ when in fact ideological bias was arguably at work." Paul G. Cassell of the Wall Street Journal explained how the 68 percent figure is deceptive: "After reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, the study’s authors (like other researchers) were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed. Thus, the most important error rate -- the rate of mistaken executions -- is zero."











Congratulations.

[Rev9Volts]

and to nip the rest of your falacies on capital punishment- executions here are some more for your perusment.





www.thenewamerican.com/tn...lacies.htm



Ten Anti-Death Penalty Fallacies

by Thomas R. Eddlem



The case against capital punishment relies on myth, misinformation, and misplaced emotionalism.



Recommend this article to a friend.

Friend's Name:



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Your Name:



Your E-Mail:





Comments:











Names and email addresses are not harvested from this feature. We respect your privacy and as such you will not be added to an email list.







Renewed attacks on the death penalty are likely as the trial of accused Twin Tower bombing accomplice Zacharias Moussaoui proceeds. Federal officials have charged Moussaoui with six crimes, four of which carry a potential death sentence. Amnesty International has already issued an "urgent action alert" to call on the world to condemn this "outdated punishment" in the United States. Therefore, there is no time like the present to review some of the misinformation and faulty reasoning of capital punishment opponents.



Fallacy #1: Racism



"The death penalty is racist.... [T]he federal death penalty is used disproportionately against minorities, especially African Americans.... According to [Justice Department] figures, nearly 80 percent of inmates on federal death row are Black, Hispanic, or from another minority group." (Campaign to End the Death Penalty)



"The imposition of the death penalty is racially biased: Nearly 90% of persons executed were convicted of killing whites, although people of color make up over half of all homicide victims in the United States." (National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty)



"Death row in the U.S. has always held a disproportionately large population of people of color relative to the general population." (ACLU Briefing Paper on the Death Penalty)



Correction: The claim that the death penalty unfairly impacts blacks and minorities is a deliberate fraud. The majority of those executed since 1976 have been white, even though black criminals commit a slim majority of murders. If the death penalty is racist, it is biased against white murderers and not blacks.



According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks committed 51.5% of murders between 1976 and 1999, while whites committed 46.5%. Yet even though blacks committed a majority of murders, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports: "Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, white inmates have made up the majority of those under sentence of death." (Emphasis added.) Whites continued to comprise the majority on death row in the year 2000 (1,990 whites to 1,535 blacks and 68 others). In the year 2000, 49 of the 85 people actually put to death were whites.



So how can abolitionists claim that the death penalty unfairly punishes black people and other minorities? The statistics they cite are often technically accurate (though not always), but they don’t mean what most people assume they mean. Abolitionists often start by analyzing the race of the victims rather than the murderers. Because most murders are intra-racial (white murderers mostly kill other whites and most black murderers kill other blacks), imposing the death penalty more frequently on white murderers means that killers of white people will more likely be executed. In essence, abolitionists playing the race card argue that black murder victims are not receiving justice because only the murderers of white people are punished with the death penalty. Death penalty proponents may consider this denying justice to black people.



New "hate crimes" laws are likely to worsen the hypocrisy. A "hate crimes" mentality translates into tougher sentences for interracial "hate crimes." Because white people are killed by black people 2.6 times more frequently than black people are killed by white people, more killers of white people will be susceptible to receiving the death penalty than killers of black people.



Fallacy #2: Cost



"It costs more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 1993 California study argues that each death penalty case costs at least $1.25 million more than a regular murder case and a sentence of life without the possibility of parole." (deathpenalty.org)



Correction: While these figures are dubious at best, this argument deserves no response. Justice isn’t up for sale to the lowest bidder.



Fallacy #3: Innocence



"A review of death penalty judgments over a 23-year period found a national error rate of 68%." (ACLU Death Penalty Campaign statement)



"[S]erious error -- error substantially undermining the reliability of capital verdicts -- has reached epidemic proportions throughout our death penalty system. More than two out of every three capital judgments reviewed by the courts during the 23-year study period were found to be seriously flawed." ("Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995" by James Liebman et al.)



Correction: The major media reported this highly publicized Columbia University study uncritically when it was first released in 2000. But Reg Brown from the Florida governor’s office exploded it: "The ‘study’ defines ‘error’ to include any issue requiring further review by a lower court.... Using the authors’ misleading definition, the ‘study’ does, however, conclude that 64 Florida post-conviction cases were rife with ‘error’ -- even though none of these Florida cases was ultimately resolved by a ‘not guilty’ verdict, a pardon or a dismissal of murder charges."



Brown noted that even political overturning of death penalty cases added to the figure. "[T]he nearly 40 death penalty convictions that were reversed by the California Supreme Court during the tenure of liberal activist Rose Bird are treated as ‘error cases’ when in fact ideological bias was arguably at work." Paul G. Cassell of the Wall Street Journal explained how the 68 percent figure is deceptive: "After reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, the study’s authors (like other researchers) were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed. Thus, the most important error rate -- the rate of mistaken executions -- is zero."



Fallacy #4: DNA Evidence



"Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that capital punishment is not ‘cruel and unusual,’ 618 prisoners have been executed across the nation and about 80 have been exonerated.... Those disturbing odds beg the question: If the chances of executing an innocent person are so high, should we have capital punishment?" (ABCNews.com, March 6, 2000)



Correction: While most of those released from death row have been released for political purposes or for technical reasons unrelated to guilt, it is true that a small number have been released because DNA evidence has proven innocence.



But even though ABC may not agree, its news story reinforces why the release of those on death row argues for, not against, the death penalty: "Widespread use of DNA testing and established standards for defense lawyers will virtually eliminate the argument that the death penalty cannot be fairly applied." If DNA evidence can really prove innocence, it can prove guilt as well, and society can be all the more certain that criminals sentenced to death will be guilty. The system as a whole is already working well. Since reinstituting the death penalty in 1976, not one person executed in the United States has been later proven innocent as a result of DNA evidence.



Fallacy #5: "Cruel and Unusual"



"The death penalty: Always cruel, always inhuman, always degrading … there can be no masking the inherent cruelty of the death penalty." (Amnesty International)



"Capital punishment, the ultimate denial of civil liberties, is a costly, irreversible and barbaric practice, the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment." (ACLU Briefing Paper on the Death Penalty)



Correction: The death penalty is not unusual. All of the nations of the world have had the death penalty on the lawbooks throughout most of their recorded history, and the death penalty remains on the statute books of about half of the nations of the world. The death penalty was on the statute books of all the states of the U.S. when the Constitution was adopted. It is far more unusual to have no death penalty than to have a death penalty.



More importantly, the Founding Fathers who adopted the Bill of Rights banning "cruel and unusual punishment" had no problem with implementing the death penalty.



Fallacy #6: Pro-Life Consistency



"We see the death penalty as perpetuating a cycle of violence and promoting a sense of vengeance in our culture. As we said in Confronting a Culture of Violence: ‘We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing.’" (U.S. Catholic Conference)



Correction: If capital punishment teaches that it’s permissible to kill, do prison sentences teach that it’s permissible to hold someone against his will, and do fines teach that it’s permissible to steal? In actuality, this fallacy confuses killing the innocent with punishing the guilty. To punish the guilty via the death penalty is not to condone the shedding of innocent blood. Just the opposite, in fact, since capital punishment sends a strong message that murder and other capital crimes will not be tolerated.



A related fallacy is that the pro-lifer who defends the right to life of an unborn baby in the mother’s womb, but who does not defend the right to life of a convicted murderer on death row, is being morally inconsistent. But there is no inconsistency here: The unborn baby is innocent; the convicted murderer is not. It is the pro-abortion/anti-death penalty liberal who is morally inconsistent, since he supports putting to death only the innocent.



Pro-lifers deceive themselves if they imagine abolishing the death penalty will lead to abolishing abortion or a greater respect for life. To the contrary, nations with the death penalty generally restrict abortion more than nations who have abolished the death penalty. Islamic nations and African nations have the death penalty and also have the most prohibitive abortion laws. By contrast, European nations have abolished the death penalty and have liberal abortion laws. Do pro-lifers really want to follow the example of Europe?



Fallacy #7: The Company We Keep



"The USA is keeping company with notorious human rights abusers. The vast majority of countries in Western Europe, North America and South America -- more than 105 nations worldwide -- have abandoned capital punishment. The United States remains in the same company as Iraq, Iran, and China as one of the major advocates and users of capital punishment." (deathpenalty.org)



Correction: The arbitrary use of capital punishment in totalitarian societies argues for ensuring that government never abuses this power; it does not argue against the principle of capital punishment, which, in a free society, is applied justly under the rule of law.



The reference to Europe is misleading. Capital punishment advocates are the ones keeping company with common Europeans, while abolitionists are merely keeping company with their elitist governments. Public opinion remains in favor of the death penalty for the most severe murderers throughout much of Europe, but elitist European governments have eliminated using capital punishment.



Fallacy #8: No Deterrence



"Capital Punishment does not deter crime. Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime." (Death Penalty Focus)



Correction: Death penalty opponents love to assume that the principal purpose for capital punishment is deterrence, possibly realizing it is a perfect straw argument. Tangible proof of deterrence alone is not a valid reason for capital punishment (or any other form of punishment, for that matter), nor is it the main rationale employed by astute death penalty advocates. As Christian writer C.S. Lewis observes, "[deterrence] in itself, would be a very wicked thing to do. On the classical theory of punishment it was of course justified on the ground that the man deserved it. Why, in Heaven’s name, am I to be sacrificed to the good of society in this way? -- unless, of course, I deserve it." Inflicting a penalty merely to deter -- rather than to punish for deeds done -- is the very definition of cruelty. A purely deterrent penalty is one where a man is punished -- not for something that he did -- but for something someone else might do. Lewis explained the logical end of this argument: "If deterrence is all that matters, the execution of an innocent man, provided the public think him guilty, would be fully justified."



Men should be punished for their own crimes and not merely to deter others. That said, the death penalty undoubtedly does deter in some cases. For starters, those executed will no longer be around to commit any more crimes.



Fallacy #9: Christian Forgiveness and Vengeance



"The death penalty appears to oppose the spirit of the Gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus urges us to replace the old law of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ with an attitude of charity, even toward those who would commit evil against us (Mw 5:38-4 . When asked for his opinion in the case of the woman convicted of adultery, a crime that carried the penalty of death, he immediately pardoned the offender, while deploring the action, the sin (Jn . It is difficult for us to accommodate Jesus’ injunction to forgive and love, to reconcile and heal, with the practices of executing criminals." (Statement on Capital Punishment by the Christian Council of Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore)



"In Leviticus, the Lord Commanded ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people.’ Here the Old Testament anticipated Jesus’ teaching: ‘You have heard it said, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other one also.’ Paul likewise proclaimed that vengeance is reserved for God and that Christians should feed their enemies, overcoming evil with good (Rom 12:19-21)." (Christianity Today 4-6-9



Correction: Punishment -- sometimes called retribution -- is the main reason for imposing the death penalty. The so-called "Christian" case against the death penalty can be summed up in one sentence: We cannot punish wrongdoers because punishment is always a form of vengeance.



A careful reading of the Bible does not back up the idea that punishment is synonymous with vengeance. The proportionate retribution required by the Old Testament generally replaced disproportionate vengeance. The same Old Testament that ordered "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" also prohibited vengeance. Evidently, the Hebrew scriptures view retribution and vengeance as two separate things.



In the New Testament, Jesus denied trying to overturn the Old Testament law. "Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to complete them." (Matthew 5:17) The apostle Paul told the Romans that revenge and retribution are different things entirely. "Never try to get revenge: leave that, my dear friends, to the retribution. As Scripture says, vengeance is mine -- I will pay them back, the Lord promises." But then just a few verses later, Paul notes that "if you do wrong, then you may well be afraid; because it is not for nothing that the symbol of authority is the sword: it is there to serve God, too, as his avenger, to bring retribution to wrongdoers." (Romans 13:4) "Authority" refers to the state, which is empowered to put evildoers to the "sword." Paul asserts that the state’s retribution of capital punishment is the retribution of God.



Clearly, the Christian Testament regards retribution by the state as not only different from vengeance, but rather as opposites. Vengeance is always personal and it is only rarely proportional to the offense. The Hebrew standard of justice for "an eye for an eye" replaced the hateful and very personal "head for an eye" standard of vengeance. Retribution is impersonal punishment by the state. And impersonal punishment is far more likely to be proportionate to the crime, meaning that it comes closer to the standard of "eye for an eye."



By forgiving the adulterous woman, Jesus was not making a statement against the death penalty. Jesus’ enemies thought they had put Christ into a no-win situation by presenting the adulterous woman to him. If Christ ordered the woman’s release, they could discredit Him for opposing the Law of Moses. But if He ordered her put to death, then Christ could be handed over to the Roman authorities for the crime of orchestrating a murder. Either way, His opponents figured, they had Him. Christ, of course, knew the hypocritical aims of His enemies had nothing to do with justice. The absence of the man who had committed adultery with the woman "caught in the very act" must have been glaring. His rebuke to "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" was the perfect reply; it highlighted the hypocrisy. Christ’s response was in no way a commentary about the death penalty.



Fallacy #10: No Mercy



"Capital punishment is society’s final assertion that it will not forgive." (Martin Luther King)



"It is a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have." (Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Unforgiven)



Correction: The person opposing the death penalty on these principles opposes it from worldly reasoning rather than spiritual reasoning. The above statement by Clint Eastwood’s character in the movie Unforgiven typifies this surprisingly common "religious" objection to capital punishment. The underlying assumption is that this world and this life is all that exists. It suggests that only a hateful and vengeful person would seek to take everything from anyone.



But it is not true that most supporters of capital punishment seek to take everything from the murderers. Thomas Aquinas noted in his Summa Theologica that "if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good." The death penalty for murderers, the Catholic Church’s most famous theologian argued, was a form of retributive punishment. He explained that this "punishment may be considered as a medicine, not only healing the past sin, but also preserving from future sin." Though life may be taken from a murderer, he will be better off with the punishment because "spiritual goods are of the greatest consequence, while temporal goods are least important."



Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to dawn on proponents employing this faulty reasoning that perhaps a just punishment in this world would best prepare a criminal for the next.



Order This Issue



.

[MIKE BURN]

Quote:

---

"After reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, the study’s authors (like other researchers) were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed. Thus, the most important error rate -- the rate of mistaken executions -- is zero."

---

You better should answer with your own words, instead of quoting a pro-death-penalty article.



You don't believe the quote above yourself. Do you?



And even if it would be true (it is not anyway), the fact

remains, that only the USA consider themselves "civilized", while executing children, persons not having reached the 18th. year of living when committing a crime.



White or black. The fact remains: The USA do execute non-adult persons.



That's not only appalling. It's a crime. That's why ALL western countries continue to remind the USA, that this is wrong or "uncivilized".



ANY child is innocent by definition. The victim and the criminal child.



If somebody is responsible of the evildoing of a child, than it is the society and the persons surrounding and educating this child.



Even in Saudi-Arabia, children would not be beheaded if convicted for murder..............



As far as the bible goes....... only one fact remains:



There are many prophets and prophecies, many chapters and many contradictions.



Only the 10 commandments, received by Moses do contain strict advisory from the Lord itself, clear and without any

possibility for modification or interpretation:



'You shall not murder.'



Jesus also did point this out:



"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:36-40).

[Rev9Volts]

mike i learned cutting and pasting from you. i can not dispute the above statistics.



you still take it out of context. moses executed something like 3000 in one day, although i may be off on the number. it was when he cam down from the mountain with the first 10 commandments and the isrealites had made the golden calf.







That's not only appalling. It's a crime. That's why ALL western countries continue to remind the USA, that this is wrong or "uncivilized".





crime? where is it written. obviiously it is not a crime in america. besides these are all teenagers the few there have been who committed heinious crimes and most had long arrest records. call me barbaric i do not care. if malvo is convicted i have no problem with him being executed.



go get a hebrew coopy of the old testament and take a hebrew course and you will see in the origional hebrew there are different words for different situations such as malvo murdering people, armies slaying enemy and moses executing men who worshipped an idol made of gold.



as far as the last 4 verses. well they have nothing to do with this discussion.



the bible i think in leviticus or deuteronomy says to kill witches also.



the bible you espouse was canonized not by jesus or even one of the original 12 deciples, but by the catholic church hundreds of years later i am assuming to suit their agenda.



speaking of the bible and the catholic church it is so paganized and plagerized ffrom other religions... well not to change this thread i will leave it as a "great compilation"

[MIKE BURN]

Put your bible argumentation aside...

...nobody reads the hebrew bible here anyway.



All European countries are secularized and condemn

any form of death penalty as barbaric and blood thirsty.



That's also my personal opinion.



www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/06/11/mcveigh.reax/index.html

Europeans condemned the U.S. execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as barbaric and blood-thirsty.





Turkey abolishes death penalty

The European Union's executive Commission said it welcomed the reforms "as an important signal of the determination of the majority of Turkey's political leaders towards further alignment to the values and standards of the European Union."





Ukraine abolishes death penalty





U.S. accuses Germany of undermining death penalty

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- U.S. lawyers have accused Germany of distorting international law in a deceptive attempt to undermine America's right to enforce the death penalty.

[MIKE BURN]

Quote:

---

"...either things are secularized or christianized, but not both..."





"...as an american i do not care what the european union thinks..."

---

We're coming closer to the real "argumentation" now...



We are already over it...

[Rev9Volts]

hmm mike america never did that except to about a dozen "witches" in salem, mass. lethal injection is hardly anything like you pictures.

[MIKE BURN]

Quote:

---

lethal injection is hardly anything like you pictures

---

The USA do have fantasy:



Shooting (Firing Squad)

Electrocution (Electric Chair)

Gas Chamber

Hanging

Poisoning...



Today!

[Rev9Volts]

perhaps people here should as well as the greek new testament. by the way did you know the number of a coven is 13. sounds like jesus had a coven or the catholic church was trying to convert the pagans by making them think christianity is "like" paganism.



barbaric and blood thirsty. sounds more like mosaic law of eye for eye and tooth for tooth. you can not have it both ways mike either things are secularized or christianized, but not both.



sounds like turkey did not drop it because they "saw the light and decided to end their barbaric ways". they want in the european union so they give up their soverenty. the usa is a soverign nation and has the right to execute.



i have no problem with executing tim mcvie or the german who stabbed the person over and over.



as an american i do not care what the european union thinks. that is what national soverenty is all about.



with all due respect mike, a german calling an american barberic for executions after germany starting a couple of world wars as well as the exterminating 6 million jews is like "the pot calling the kettle black".

Edited by: Rev9Volts at: 7/18/03 6:03 pm

[Rev9Volts]

as you said mike mosaic law an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth.



like it or lump it i support the death penalty. think of me as barbaric and/or bloodthirsty i do not care.

[MIKE BURN]

You are building up a wrong defense line



I posted absolutely harmless pictures of executions...

...we Europeans, we tested out nearly everything.



But we Europeans realized that it is barbaric and blood-thirsty

to execute people, whatever they may have done.



Furthermore, nearly all countries in the world have condemned

the death penalty.



There are only a few countries sticking to this uncivilized

game of live and let die.



Besides China, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Nigeria...

...the USA play a important role in the overall

world execution statistics... furthermore they play

the questionable world leader in the execution of

humans, which were below 18 years old when they committed

a crime they were sentenced to death for by U.S. courts

(In the name of the bible I might add on a sidenote).

Edited by: MIKE BURN  at: 7/18/03 6:31 pm

[memphis mike]

here's where Mike Burn starts putting up pictures of dead bodies.........