Murder one

Melinda Henneberger writes in Slate:

On today's episode of "Hey, a Girl Can Dream", my man Benedict decides that as long as he's in the neighborhood, he should stroll on over to the Supreme Court and spend a couple of minutes protesting the death penalty, by lethal injection or otherwise. The high court is a short walk from the White House, where the president told the pope that Americans "need your message that all of life is sacred.'' And what better way to get that message out?

Maybe Il Papa didn't say anything because he knew the court was discussing capital punishment and child rape, the latter a sore point for the Catholic church. I have to believe ole JP2 would've spoken out, irrespective of the fallout. In a related article, "The Supreme Court jump-starts the machinery of death", Dahlia Lithwick writes:

Fisher says that if you look at the pair of recent cases that banned capital punishment for mentally retarded offenders (in 2002) and juvenile offenders (in 2005), it's clear the social consensus is trending away from the death penalty. Then, Roberts jumps in to argue that the "evolving standards of decency" test should not be a one-way ratchet. Does this trend "only work one way?" he asks. "How are you ever supposed to get consensus moving in the opposite direction? … Do 20 states have to get together and do it at the same time?"
[...]
Roberts says the clear trend that matters is not the one Fisher points to but rather that "more and more states are passing statutes imposing the death penalty in situations that do not result in death."
[...]
Roberts continues in this vein: The cases declining to allow capital punishment for minors or the mentally retarded, he says, are "qualitatively different" from the distinction here between child rape and murder, because they focus on the "culpability of the offender" as opposed to the nature of the offense. And Kennedy adds that "even the countries of Europe which have joined the European Convention on human rights" permit the death penalty for treason. He says that on the continent, "You can slaughter your fellow citizens, but if you offend the state, you can be put to death." Then, Scalia asks Fisher if he thinks "treason is worse than child rape." Fisher replies that all the professional sex-assault groups and social workers have lined up against making child rape a capital crime.

Why Kennedy and Scalia decided go down the nonsensical side road of comparing treason with child rape is beyond me. It makes me wonder if it's a gesture of contempt for the plaintiff(and the defense), suggesting their minds were made up. Lithwick's article is 1695 words, and not once does she mention anybody discussing the question of whether or not a mandatory death sentence for child rape makes rapists more likely to kill their victims. My sense is this is in fact the case, and it's a much more important than Scalia's asinine question about child rape and treason.

The court upheld the law regarding lethal injection, and although they discussed allowing child rape to be a capital crime that's not what this past week's decision(Baze v. Rees) was about, at least not principally.

I don't know if the death penalty is wrong in the abstract. Certainly most of the people sentenced to death are probably terrible characters, and there is some evidence it can have a deterrence effect. But I note the series of overturned convictions for capital crimes, and I believe that the death penalty as it's practiced certainly is wrong, and part of that is us. People lie, or hide rather than testify, or forget or conflate or confuse events. Zealous cops and prosecutors make mistakes, evidence gets lost, or even worse, "lost", juries decide based on prejudices, etc. There's no reason to believe that putting together some blue-ribbon panel of experts to "fix" the death penalty will fix human nature. The Dallas Morning News says that there have been 16 overturned cases in Dallas county alone :

The disturbing spate of DNA exonerations of Texas inmates is the most powerful argument for freezing Texas' machinery of death. Dallas County has the distinction of having more discredited cases than any county nationwide. Just this week, a 16th wrongful conviction was announced here. Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. spent 23 years imprisoned by the state stemming from a rape in Richardson that he didn't commit.

How many people have been wrongly executed without getting that review of evidence after 6 or 10 or 17 years? We'll never know, but we can be pretty sure the number isn't zero.



The same problems exist with child rape convictions, although possibly to a lesser degree. But for a different practical reason, executing child rapists is a terrible idea. I'm flabbergasted that so many people think of it in terms of vengeance and don't seem to be concerned that a child rapist, having raped his victim and knowing he's liable to be executed if he's caught even if he lets her live, now has the perverse incentive to kill his victim and dispose of her to make sure she never talks. When the law encourages this, the law acts to protect the righteousness of the uninvolved.

Why don't people think about this? Do they see it as an irrelevant question?


see also Reuters: "The death penalty in the United States" and

Wall St. Journal Lawblog:"should the death penalty extend to non-homicides?"
[893-482]

God and country on the Real News

Listening to these people in this story talk about how they really believe the Iraq war has helped keep them safe is singularly depressing to me. Earlier today I spoke to Arvin Hill, not about this video but in general terms about people's capacity for willful gullibility and denial, and he compared it to drug addiction.

the end of the world: then and now, and maybe later

images:wikipedia, calendars of the world

Exhibit One, from our wiki friends:

1844 – Millerites and members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church* were greatly disappointed that Jesus did not return as predicted by American preacher William Miller (pictured).



The Great Disappointment was a major event in the history of the Millerites, a Christian denomination, in the United States. Around 50,000 people joined the movement that was to receive Jesus on October 22nd ,1844. Based on an interpretation of the event portrayed in Daniel 8:14, they waited to see the Second Coming as the event that was to be fulfilled on the appointed day. The specific passage reads, in the (King James Bible), as: And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. (Daniel 8:14)


The Great Disappointment is viewed as an example of how the psychological phenomenon of cognitive dissonance manifests itself through failed prophecies which often arise in a religious context. The theory was proposed by Leon Festinger to describe the formation of new beliefs and increased proselytizing in order to reduce the tension, or dissonance, that results from failed prophecies. According to the theory, believers experienced tension following the failure of Jesus' reappearance in 1844 which led to a variety of new explanations. The various solutions form a part of the teachings of the different groups that outlived the disappointment.

Initially I wanted to post this on Monday, i.e. October 22nd, but Rob had a really nice post up and I figured I didn't want to steal his thunder by announcing the end of the world, especially since, if you're 163 years late-- what's one more day? (sometimes, I like to put things off. Other times I just find I have to. One way or another it seems like the story of my life...)

Anyway: I really wish people would make more of a fuss about (the history of)the end of the world, because I think we're living in another day and age when millenarian looniness seems to be screwing with people's thinking, and a reminder of past foolishness in this area strikes me as pretty useful.

About 10 years ago I was working at such-and-such a place, and many of my co-workers were preoccupied with some dubious best-seller about hidden numerical codes in the bible, and they would invite me to their home-study sessions-cum-get-togethers in which (I guess) they discussed this, or prayed, or who knows what. (I never went.)

While I don't know particularly much about the history of religions, my impression is that the afore mentioned William Miller was the trouble maker who started the modern craze over end-times eschatology, whereas Christianity pre-Bill Miller tended to de-emphasize the rubbing of our hands together with messed-up glee and the hoping for the end of creation and the fiery deaths of people who weren't us.

(Long before I'd heard of Leon Festinger and cognitive dissonance I had a hard to define sense of unease about people who grooved on the end times-- how can it possibly be psychologically healthy to aspire all the usual things people aspire to, to make a life for themselves and maybe get married and have kids and plan aspire for the kids to have happy futures while you are simultaneously taught to long for the destruction of civilization?)


Exhibit 2, from Calendars of the World:

When will the Islamic calendar overtake the Gregorian calendar?

As the year in the Islamic calendar is about 11 days shorter than the year in the Christian calendar, the Islamic years are slowly gaining in on the Christian years. But it will be many years before the two coincide. The 1st day of the 5th month of C.E. 20874 in the Gregorian calendar will also be (approximately) the 1st day of the 5th month[Jumada al-awwal] of AH 20874 of the Islamic calendar.

.

May 1st, 20874.


About 2 years ago I came across this interesting nugget o' knowledge. It occurred to me that maybe for the religious numbers crunchers who appear so eager for Armageddon the convergence of the Christian and Islamic calendars, due in a mere 18,867 years, might be the signal from God they were looking for. And, instead of getting hyped-up to wreck the world and all that rot, they're supposed to make sure the world lasts at least another 18,800 plus years, with naturally occurring fresh water and air, trees and flowers, animals still roaming free, and maybe some peace on earth and a convergence of religions and men.

Now, I am not a religious sort per se, and I'm definitely not trying to suggest some sort of half-baked spiritual movement. We have those in abundance, and they don't strike me as being terribly useful. Call it a wistful thought experiment, designed to provoke or soothe or both. It would be nice if we could stick around and manage to civilize ourselves-- but could we do it in a mere 18,800 odd years?


*10.24 addendum: Herbert Ford notes in the comments that the Seventh Day Adventists were not formally established until 1863. (Actually the Wikipedia entry on the 7th Day Adventists notes this as well, although it describes them as having evolved from the Millerites.)

Elmer Gantry 2.0

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.

Actually, my title isn't fair, because Elmer didn't want to kill anybody, just take their money and booze and women.

I came across this incredible short film above by Max Blumenthal via Helena Cobban. For the record, I don't believe most Christians are bloodthirsty, psychotic nutballs. Nevertheless, the political power the nutball faction seems to yield is alarming.

more soon.

signs

graphic courtesy Ravenmn



from Democracy Now: "Howard Zinn on The Uses of History and the War on Terrorism"

via Rob, from Realitique, who says "what's sad is that everyone doesn't already know this."

Joe Bageant: "Redneck Liberation Theology:Why are leftists so damn afraid of God?"

Robert Shetterly, in Common Dreams: "The Moral Obligation to Lose The War"

regarding Jerry Falwell

Misfit Slacker:

I began the day with a friend calling me that Jerry Falwell had died. Apparently it's heart failure. Who knew he had a heart?

Avedon Carol:

I'm not going to pretend I share anyone's feelings of loss. He was a hateful man who did evil things.

Alan Wolfe, in Salon,"The stone is cast":

Jerry Falwell spent a career demonizing others. Upon his death, what else could he expect in return?

Xymphora discusses Falwell's role in fostering the odd relationship between right-wing Christian evangelicals and right wing Israelis in "On a Learjet to Hell".

And finally, from Atrios:

Obviously sympathies to those who cared for him. Many undeserving people have good people around them. It's hard to have sympathies for those who fault other victims for their tragedies.

E.G.:"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

He lived a decent-length, if not long, life. One hopes he finds that his God is a more forgiving being than he believed.