FSTDT Forums
Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: sandman on January 06, 2012, 11:36:16 am
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Saw this mentioned on the Roger Ebert blog. It's from The Guardian.
"Twelve of the last 13 people condemned to death in Harris County, Texas were black. After Texas itself, Harris County is the national leader in its number of executions.
"Over one third of Texas's 305 death row inmates - and half of the state's 121 black death row prisoners - are from Harris County.
"One of those African Americans, Duane Buck, was sentenced based on the testimony of an expert psychologist who maintained that blacks are prone to violence. In 2008, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal resigned after sending an email message titled 'fatal overdose,' featuring a photo of a black man lying on the ground surrounded by watermelons and a bucket of chicken."
This just boggles my mind. If Harris County was an independent nation, these numbers would put it in the top 10 nations of the world in executions. And almost all of them are black. Harris County is only about 18% African American. (Source (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/48201.html))
I'm not really sure what to comment about this. It's pretty clear that we have a hell of a long way to go with civil rights if this is any indicator. It's shameful. Texas is shameful on this issue. The old record holder for executions under a sitting governor was Smilin' George W. Bush, who racked up 152 of them. (Fun Fact: the only condemned prisoner Bush commuted was Henry Lee Lucas...a known and admitted serial killer.) Today that record is held by Rick Perry, who so far has scored 235.... and politically speaking, he's still in the third quarter of the game down there in Texas. Most of the executed being black or Hispanic. And this man wants to be President? The fact that he has no chance in Hell of that ever happening may be the strongest physical evidence that a benevolent god exists that I have ever seen.
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"One of those African Americans, Duane Buck, was sentenced based on the testimony of an expert psychologist who maintained that blacks are prone to violence.
So sentencing in Harris county is based on generalizations rather than the actual merits of the case? Nice. ::)
The fact that he has no chance in Hell of that ever happening may be the strongest physical evidence that a benevolent god exists that I have ever seen.
Benevolent, maybe. But clearly not Omnipotent, then.
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Found this in the comments over at the Roger Ebert site.....the callousness at the end of this fundie's "argument" is appalling. Apparently killing innocent people is just an unfortunate, yet acceptable side effect of "justice." It's also a pretty good example of why basing your politics and government on religious doctrine is never a good idea.
"This was an interesting article. I believe that the state has the right to execute people for severe crimes, usually murder--on biblical grounds. The taking of life in an execution goes right to the heart of our morals and spirituality and beliefs. What is life? Who gave it? Who has the right to end it? For what reasons does the state have the right to take a life?
For many people, the answers are found in the Bible. Life is a gift of God. God, and the earthly authorities He has appointed, have the right to kill people for extremely serious crimes.
People rage against the death penalty because the state could expand it's powers beyond what is right, or that innocent people could be killed. I agree wholeheartedly with these concerns, however, justice does need to be done, and people need to fear and respect the law and authority.
My opinion is that people are against the death penalty as a way of saying that no matter how evil a person's actions, there is nothing worthy of killing them. Underneath it all, it seems to be another way of saying that nothing is really all that seriously wrong with what people do.
God couldn't disagree more. He sees sin as being so serious that an execution was required to redeem sinful humanity. A death was required: Christ on the cross. Justice and grace in one picture.
In my opinion, being imprisoned for life is the greater punishment, especially since most methods of execution are not tortuous.
How we "feel" is not the main issue here. Justice being done and respect for the law is the issue.
One thing is true: if you execute a murderer, he will never murder again.
Roger said. "If the taking of life is wrong, then it is wrong in all cases." I disagree. Taking life is not wrong in the cases of a just war, some self defense situations, and execution for capital crimes.
It is true that some people will be wrongly executed, and that is indeed terrible.
However, should we stop driving cars because some people are killed on the highway?"
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How we "feel" is not the main issue here. Justice being done and respect for the law is the issue.
So, after you kill the guy, does it bring the victim back? No, it doesn't. Execution is vengance, not justice.
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I support the death penalty, but I believe overwhelming standards of evidence should apply. Namely, if there is any sane doubt that the defendant is guilty, then the death penalty should not be applied.
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Intellectually, I can see how the death penalty might be appropriately applied, but the standard of evidence would be astonishing high. Like, as in several police officers physically witnessed the defendant killing in cold blood, the whole thing was caught on video, there was overwhelming physical evidence proving the defendant did it, and the entire process was transparent and open to public scrutiny.
I am reminded of a story line in the "Astro City" comics where a lawyer got a defendant off on a murder charge when that standard of evidence was, for all intents and purposes, met. He argued that with so many shape changers, mind controllers, illusion generators, and mimics running around, eye witness accounts and physical evidence were no longer sufficient to prove guilt. Of course, then the Blue Knight just gunned the asshole down and solved the whole issue.
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One of those African Americans, Duane Buck, was sentenced based on the testimony of an expert psychologist who maintained that blacks are prone to violence.
Wooo, post-racists society! ::)
This is why if we even attempt to reform the criminal justice system (I feel we need to focus on rehabilitation), there is still going major problems because of institutionalize racism. It's hard to tackle it because it's so ingrained and people will try to defend it.
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I support the death penalty, but I believe overwhelming standards of evidence should apply. Namely, if there is any sane doubt that the defendant is guilty, then the death penalty should not be applied.
Even with this it still has problems; like being more expensive than a life sentence, there still being the non-zero chance of being wrong, and the fact that it doesn't actually deter any crime.
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But Vene, you forget the two important factors that it makes some people feel safe and it makes other people hard.
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One part that always makes me see red is the stupid ass quote "Well, if you execute a murderer, he can't kill again", because its easy to just trade out words and still work.
"Well, if you execute a thief, he can't steal again"
"Well, if you execute an abuser, he can't assault again"
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One part that always makes me see red is the stupid ass quote "Well, if you execute a murderer, he can't kill again", because its easy to just trade out words and still work.
"Well, if you execute a thief, he can't steal again"
"Well, if you execute an abuser, he can't assault again"
You get similar results by just keeping him in jail.
(Ok it is not that simple, there is crime happening in jail and there are criminals who have actually led their organisation from inside a jail.)
But seriously how can Texas keep on doing stuff like this. Are the american States really so independent that the rest of USA can't just go there and tell them to get their shit together and join the rest of the world in 2012.
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Are the american States really so independent that the rest of USA can't just go there and tell them to get their shit together and join the rest of the world in 2012.
Pretty much. Only the federal government could affect this, and it'd be a huge, huge fight. The power of the individual states isn't what it used to be, but there's still a lot of legal independence.
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One of those African Americans, Duane Buck, was sentenced based on the testimony of an expert psychologist who maintained that blacks are prone to violence.
Wooo, post-racists society! ::)
This is why if we even attempt to reform the criminal justice system (I feel we need to focus on rehabilitation), there is still going major problems because of institutionalize racism. It's hard to tackle it because it's so ingrained and people will try to defend it.
how can he say that we have a black president
anyways I do think considering Troy Davis among others that the death penalty is too corrupt and such. As for racism, humans inherently are prejudged against people of different races.
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how can he say that we have a black president
anyways I do think considering Troy Davis among others that the death penalty is too corrupt and such. As for racism, humans inherently are prejudged against people of different races.
To be more precise humans tend to be suspicious of anyone who is not part of a group they identify with. "Race" is just a term that represents the artificial division of humans to different groups based on the color of their skin and is given way too much weight. The term should be abandoned altogether since it has the connotation of major biological differences that don't really exist and because of that it's easily misused to justify discrimination with bullshit like "blacks are inherently more violent".
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Oh look, the lynchings are back. How... fucking... swell...
I wish I could articulate how angry I am, but I'd have to buy a new keyboard when I was done.
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Yay, I get to christen the new board with this gif!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/lady_cleo/m_26e54d1b09474f6d80bb1c8587d7db94.gif)
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One of those African Americans, Duane Buck, was sentenced based on the testimony of an expert psychologist who maintained that blacks are prone to violence.
how can he say that we have a black president
You might want to get some punctuation in there.
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One part that always makes me see red is the stupid ass quote "Well, if you execute a murderer, he can't kill again", because its easy to just trade out words and still work.
"Well, if you execute a thief, he can't steal again"
"Well, if you execute an abuser, he can't assault again"
If you execute Rick Santorum, he can't run for President.
Ironbite-there may be an upside there.
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The actions of the state are tantamount to murder. They killed people in the full knowledge they were not guilty of any crime, because they would rather not have any 'lesser' population. In my book, that's murder. In my book, that's genocide.
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As the Onion said in their atlas Our Dumb World, "Everything Sucks Bigger in Texas."
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Yay, I get to christen the new board with this gif!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/lady_cleo/m_26e54d1b09474f6d80bb1c8587d7db94.gif)
Two can play at this game..
(http://i1183.photobucket.com/albums/x466/TailsKitsune/MLP/attachment-61.gif)
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I think a squadron of Sturmoviks might be just the tool for fixing the problem.
None of the messy carpet bombing stuff, just hit the targets we need to hit.
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Gonna have to give the point to Celestia, there. She’s got more style.
Round 2?
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One part that always makes me see red is the stupid ass quote "Well, if you execute a murderer, he can't kill again", because its easy to just trade out words and still work.
"Well, if you execute a thief, he can't steal again"
"Well, if you execute an abuser, he can't assault again"
If you execute Rick Santorum, he can't run for President.
Ironbite-there may be an upside there.
And if you execute Rick Perry, he can't execute more people.
But then again, this is Texas...
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For those who don't watch Spongebob, the .gif above is from the episode mocking Texas.
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I still prefer Celestia. :P
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For those who don't watch Spongebob, the .gif above is from the episode mocking Texas.
"Can we say people from Texas are dumb?"
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Hmmm. Maybe we should just make a Texas-bashing thread!
(http://reformimmigrationfortexas.org/1/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TexasCanDoBetterNew-620x350.jpg)
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i thought this was a Texas bashing thread. We're just focusing on Harris County. Should be plenty of material to work with, I do believe Houston is in that county. (But I honestly can't be bothered to check.) One of you young'uns go do my fact checking for me.
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All right, gramps. But you have to tell us about your time in the War.
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Well, technically the Troubles weren't a war per se.....but try telling that to my Sgt Maj. The poor SOB was shot in the head by an IRA sniper while we were leaning against the truck. Closest I ever came to dying myself. And you know what? The movies are bullshit. You hear the gun and the ricochet after the bullet gets to you. Coombs never had the slightest clue he had been shot. Me? I needed new trousers.
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So is it the British sense of humor or just not thinking it a very big deal that allows you guys (collectively) to refer to it as 'The Troubles?' Honestly, it brings to mind some old English chap saying something along the lines of "we had a spot of trouble on the way in; some silly colonial tried to go the wrong way on a round-about and got hit by a lorry. Traffic was backed up half way to Gloucester so your scones are a little cold." and not a decades long terrorist campaign/insurrection that left 3500 dead.
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The official line was that it wasn't more than a minor disturbance and tried to keep it all hush hush.
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More habit than anything else. And yes, I think it does have a lot to do with the British tendency to understate everything. We're talking about the people who referred to Hitler as a "bit of a rum chap," and WWII as "a spot of bother."
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I love the English. they try to downplay everything.
Ironbite-would love a Fallout game set in London just to hear their description of the Great War.
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The British: even more laconic than the Spartans.
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My grandfather once described the Battle of the Somme (he was there) as "a bit of a dust up."
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My grandfather once described the Battle of the Somme (he was there) as "a bit of a dust up."
Wow. That is the biggest understatement I've ever read. That was the single bloodiest battle of WWI.
Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.
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That's nothing. After the battle, Grandad wrote his wife that she was not to worry, he had been (and this is a direct quote) "nicked a bit by the Kaiser's lads," but was fine.
When he got home he was missing his left eye and his left arm. This is a man who would have described being killed as "inconvenient."
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[the fact that it doesn't actually deter any crime.
Which is what I see: Britain had the death penalty when the most famous serial killer of them all, Jack the Ripper, was killing in the London. Similarly, throughout the US, when Booth shot Lincoln, the death penalty was in force. I seriously doubt that anyone has ever said "I better not kill anyone because I might get hung/the electric chair/whatever", or are death penalty advocates seriously saying this is what happens? If so, what's their evidence for it?
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Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.
The majority of the British did think it was a stupid idea, unfortunately, people such as Winston Churchill were trying to micromanage the war to the extent that the General commanding the British army had to put this in as Chruchill thought it would win. After the Somme, General French was replaced by General Haig who tried, desperately, to modernise the army by getting regiments to use section attacks (instead of whole regiments or even divisions being committed to attacks) and a lot of other ideas such as having troops move towards the enemy using cover and giving covering fire. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Churchill and Lloyd George who decided that, against all evidence to the contrary, they knew better.
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Well, Texas, the most execution-happy state in the USA (and in the top 10 world-wide), still has the 15th highest rate of violent crime (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html) in the country, and the18th highest murder rate. In fact, if you look at the top 20 states in murder-rate (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord), all of them except New Mexico and Michigan endorse the death penalty. (While Illinois is currently under a governor-initiated moratorium on executions, the death penalty is still in effect there.)
If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, you would expect the states without it to be high up in the list.
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Well, Texas, the most execution-happy state in the USA (and in the top 10 world-wide), still has the 15th highest rate of violent crime (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html) in the country, and the18th highest murder rate. In fact, if you look at the top 20 states in murder-rate (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord), all of them except New Mexico and Michigan endorse the death penalty. (While Illinois is currently under a governor-initiated moratorium on executions, the death penalty is still in effect there.)
If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, you would expect the states without it to be high up in the list.
I actually bothered to do some statistics to this. I separated the states into two groups, those with and without the death penalty in 2010. I then found the average of each group, 4.6 in states with the penalty and 2.9 in states without it. I calculated the standard deviation, 2.1 in states with and 1.4 in states without. I used this to find the range of values at the 95% confidence interval in order to perform a rule of thumb t-test. At this confidence level the murder rate with the death penalty is between 4.0 and 5.3 and without is between 2.1 and 3.6. This strongly supports the assertion that the death penalty does not deter crime.
I've attached the spreadsheet I used to do the analysis, I used LibreOffice so it may not behave properly in excel.
ETA: I said 2011 instead of 2010
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Excellent, young Padawan.
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Will bookmark this as soon as I'm on my own browser again.
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When he got home he was missing his left eye and his left arm. This is a man who would have described being killed as "inconvenient."
Sounds like a fun guy. I’d love to meet him. :D
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No, no you wouldn't. He died in 61, so meeting him now would probably entail fighting him off before he gets to your brain. I know my Granpa. He would DEFINITELY come back as a zombie.
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I am working on a time machine, you know. :D
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No, no you wouldn't. He died in 61, so meeting him now would probably entail fighting him off before he gets to your brain. I know my Granpa. He would DEFINITELY come back as a zombie.
Was he in the Gordons or the Camerons?
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I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.
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My grandfather once described the Battle of the Somme (he was there) as "a bit of a dust up."
Wow. That is the biggest understatement I've ever read. That was the single bloodiest battle of WWI.
Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.
No. That's wrong, the Busilov offensive (in Russia) was the bloodiest battle of ww1.
That famous cavalry charge was actually successful, though unnecessary. And, of course, the battle was a victory for the British and an overwhelming win for the French on the right-flank. Interestingly, it was the first major military victory for my country, Australia.
Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.
The majority of the British did think it was a stupid idea, unfortunately, people such as Winston Churchill were trying to micromanage the war to the extent that the General commanding the British army had to put this in as Chruchill thought it would win. After the Somme, General French was replaced by General Haig who tried, desperately, to modernise the army by getting regiments to use section attacks (instead of whole regiments or even divisions being committed to attacks) and a lot of other ideas such as having troops move towards the enemy using cover and giving covering fire. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Churchill and Lloyd George who decided that, against all evidence to the contrary, they knew better.
That's just bullshit. Haig planned the attack at the Somme, and he's been blamed for poorly planning it ever since. The British new armies gradually developed small-unit tactics within the context of the usual corps-level assault, though the large-scale attack remained the norm. The French and Germans, of course, had been using small-unit tactics for the whole war, but the British were regarded as too newbie to do it. The real advances of the war were in the artillery.
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I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.
Whereabouts was he from? If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.
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Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.
The majority of the British did think it was a stupid idea, unfortunately, people such as Winston Churchill were trying to micromanage the war to the extent that the General commanding the British army had to put this in as Chruchill thought it would win. After the Somme, General French was replaced by General Haig who tried, desperately, to modernise the army by getting regiments to use section attacks (instead of whole regiments or even divisions being committed to attacks) and a lot of other ideas such as having troops move towards the enemy using cover and giving covering fire. Unfortunately, he was overruled by Churchill and Lloyd George who decided that, against all evidence to the contrary, they knew better.
That's just bullshit. Haig planned the attack at the Somme, and he's been blamed for poorly planning it ever since. The British new armies gradually developed small-unit tactics within the context of the usual corps-level assault, though the large-scale attack remained the norm. The French and Germans, of course, had been using small-unit tactics for the whole war, but the British were regarded as too newbie to do it. The real advances of the war were in the artillery.
No General French did: Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge. General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them. Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh! What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army. Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.
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No General French did: Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge. General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them. Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh! What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army. Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.
French had been replaced by Haig in December 1915 (French took over the 'home defence', ie putting down Ireland). Haig did all the planning, alongside Rawlinson, and commanded the attack. Of course, it was a success, so there's that.
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I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.
Whereabouts was he from? If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.
We're from Munlochy, north of the Firth near Hill o'Hirdle.
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Sandy, yet again I've had to make several marks on my 'owe' board... right now, you're up to about a week's worth of dinners and a month of good beer, one a day.
You have made my morning.
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Well, Texas, the most execution-happy state in the USA (and in the top 10 world-wide), still has the 15th highest rate of violent crime (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html) in the country, and the18th highest murder rate. In fact, if you look at the top 20 states in murder-rate (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord), all of them except New Mexico and Michigan endorse the death penalty. (While Illinois is currently under a governor-initiated moratorium on executions, the death penalty is still in effect there.)
If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, you would expect the states without it to be high up in the list.
I actually bothered to do some statistics to this. I separated the states into two groups, those with and without the death penalty in 2010. I then found the average of each group, 4.6 in states with the penalty and 2.9 in states without it. I calculated the standard deviation, 2.1 in states with and 1.4 in states without. I used this to find the range of values at the 95% confidence interval in order to perform a rule of thumb t-test. At this confidence level the murder rate with the death penalty is between 4.0 and 5.3 and without is between 2.1 and 3.6. This strongly supports the assertion that the death penalty does not deter crime.
I've attached the spreadsheet I used to do the analysis, I used LibreOffice so it may not behave properly in excel.
ETA: I said 2011 instead of 2010
Not only does it not deter crime, the penalty seems to encourage it. (I know, I know)
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No General French did: Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge. General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them. Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh! What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army. Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.
French had been replaced by Haig in December 1915 (French took over the 'home defence', ie putting down Ireland). Haig did all the planning, alongside Rawlinson, and commanded the attack. Of course, it was a success, so there's that.
And I admit I made a mistake there: However.... Haig was the one that wanted to end full-on division level attacks and change to company and section level, it was Haig who called a halt on Machine Gun companies, getting soldiers to use support weapons during the advance instead. Unfortunately he was up against Winston Churchill who never understood that he wasn't the military genius he thought he was - an example can be seen from his disastrous ideas about how the Dardanelles campaign should be conducted, a campaign he himself drew up the plans for but which were full of more holes than a colander (such as having the Royal Navy prep the beaches by firing on them six months before the invasion or having the British troops dropped off two miles out to sea and have them swim ashore in full kit, or having the ANZACS come ashore without any Naval support). Churchill belonged to a different era and couldn't appreciate how much modern warfare had changed and resolutely believed the war was going to be won with a glorious cavalry charge against the Germans. Which shows that he may have been good at politcs, but was crap at fighting.
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I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.
Whereabouts was he from? If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.
We're from Munlochy, north of the Firth near Hill o'Hirdle.
On the Black Isle? I was there this time last year.
I'd say chances are he was a Cameron - they had about 7 battalions recruited by the end of the war.