posted
I didn't say they were always wrong. Note: "...Hitler. Someone I could make an argument for death."
Posts: 382 | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Heh, just gabbed about this for a few minutes with my old man. Deeply frustrating. When I pointed out that we could always just kill Davis later if/when these doubts were laid to rest, he said (a not uncommon response), "Who'd want to rot in prison being raped, poor health, etc.?" I replied that first Davis certainly didn't want to die and then it was, "Well of course *he* didn't want die." Then I pointed out that awful prison conditions aren't a *given*, they're just how we do things here. He scoffed very rudely and said "Where isn't it like that?" and demanded statistics on incarceration rates throughout the 'First World'.
He doesn't see anything wrong with his line of reasoning, that killing this guy should be okay because our prisons make life less appealing than death?
Or that, if it wasn't already profoundly obvious, davis is obviously one who would prefer not to die, answering his own question?
quote:"I'm kind of numb. I can't believe that it's really happened," MacPhail's mother, Anneliese MacPhail, said in a telephone interview from her home in Columbus, Ga. "All the feelings of relief and peace I've been waiting for all these years, they will come later. I certainly do want some peace."
All this relief I've been expecting for all these years!...not here yet, but I'm sure it's coming!...I hope...
quote: She dismissed Davis' claims of innocence.
"He's been telling himself that for 22 years. You know how it is, he can talk himself into anything."
He's not the only one so gifted.
edit: I'm probably going to regret writing the above, I just don't think there is any sense of decorum in talking to the media about something like that. The man's dead, you finally got what you were looking for, but his family has spent just as much time convinced he isn't guilty and trying to save him.
Have the decency to be sensitive to their feelings. Though I suppose this has been such a long time building, it's probably hard to evaluate just how the heck one feels about it.
double edit: Didn't even see this when I posted.
quote:"I will grieve for the Davis family because now they're going to understand our pain and our hurt," she said in a telephone interview from Jackson. "My prayers go out to them. I have been praying for them all these years. And I pray there will be some peace along the way for them."
*throws hands up and walks away*
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posted
What a strange set of prayers for a Christian. "I pray that the family finds some peace once the vengeance I've been praying for is enacted."
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... My prayers go out to them. I have been praying for them all these years. And I pray there will be some peace along the way for them.
Weird
What would the prior prayers have been like? "I pray that Troy Davis' family does well. Just not so well that they actually get him back or anything. Maybe they should just worry less about him or something."
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:edit: I'm probably going to regret writing the above, I just don't think there is any sense of decorum in talking to the media about something like that.
There's nothing to regret; Anneliese MacPhail has been vindictively ghoulish over this whole affair, and needs to shut up.
The fact that she's said that she basically had to have this guy get executed, like a sacrifice on the altar of her vengeance, as a mere prerequisite to even being able to find peace, is just about the most pitiable thing imaginable. Hell, the family of the black guy who got road-hauled to death by the white supremacist executed on the same day — it was a much more twisted act, extremely reveled in, and they knew not to let hate for the accused twist them up into this madness.
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quote:edit: I'm probably going to regret writing the above, I just don't think there is any sense of decorum in talking to the media about something like that.
There's nothing to regret; Anneliese MacPhail has been vindictively ghoulish over this whole affair, and needs to shut up.
The fact that she's said that she basically had to have this guy get executed, like a sacrifice on the altar of her vengeance, as a mere prerequisite to even being able to find peace, is just about the most pitiable thing imaginable. Hell, the family of the black guy who got road-hauled to death by the white supremacist executed on the same day — it was a much more twisted act, extremely reveled in, and they knew not to let hate for the accused twist them up into this madness.
I was actually let down that the media didn't cover the other execution. I know there was more controversy over Troy Davis, but the other execution was for a man who committed a crime a hundred times worse.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That's costing us *hundreds* of dollars a year! Unconscionable!
When will these godless commie bleeding heart atheists realize: we can do *whatever we want* to these awful scumbags. In fact we *should*!
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
That is *a lot* of wasted food. I'm not saying we should do away with it. Buy maybe, since we are already executing them, we should just force feed those who lose their appetites?
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: What a strange set of prayers for a Christian. "I pray that the family finds some peace once the vengeance I've been praying for is enacted."
I don't have a high opinion of Christianity, and people like this are the easy ones to point to as the reason.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: What a strange set of prayers for a Christian. "I pray that the family finds some peace once the vengeance I've been praying for is enacted."
I don't have a high opinion of Christianity, and people like this are the easy ones to point to as the reason.
*nods head* and 9/11 hijackers are the easy reason Islam is just silly, also Mao Ze Dong for atheism, and Dr. Wiley for science!
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I'll take a large stay of execution with a side of escape.
That's kind of like the, "if I had a genie in a bottle, I'd ask for three more wishes." No, excepting the explosive shark-fin soup that blows you out of prison, I'm more interested in the kinds of thoughts that goes through your mind at that point.
Do you order everything you ever wanted? Do you try not to, just in case someone needs to clean up after you die? Do you have an appetite to eat? etc.
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quote:I don't have a high opinion of Christianity, and people like this are the easy ones to point to as the reason.
As a non-Christian, I used to judge Christianity that way. I don't anymore. To me, people like that are just 'Christian in name only'.
I think I'd order chocolate for my last meal. Chocolate cake, ice cream, hot chocolate... I can always somehow eat chocolate, no matter how bad things get.
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quote:To me, people like that are just 'Christian in name only'.
There's enough of them that the I've found the term "Christian" to be meaningless when assessing the character of a person who claims the label for themselves.
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posted
I haven't really been following the case closely, but did Troy Davis deny having shot the man earlier in the day?
If he didn't, then it doesn't seem to matter much to me whether he was the one who killed the cop with the gun. It was pure luck that the person shot earlier in the day didn't die. The morality of the act of shooting someone doesn't change based on whether the person you shot lives or dies.
Of course, I'm against the death penalty entirely, so whether he was guilty or not I'd still be in favor of clemency. Still, it seems odd to spend so much mental effort over someone with "the person he shot earlier in the day lived, but the person that was shot later that day with the same gun died; and he might not have been the one that pulled the trigger that time."
I'm probably just missing something though.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Xavier, the thing is, you don't get the death penalty for shooting someone. It has to be special circumstances, such as a cop, child, multiple people, particularly heinous, etc. Most offenses simple don't qualify for execution. So, executing him for a lesser offense is an issue. That other offense was not deemed worthy of death penalty. If you allow killing someone because they committed another crime, you can get to absurd areas. I heard a quote from Perry regarding the innocent guy Texas executed where Perry said, well, he wasn't innocent. He was convicted of beating his wife once.
We don't execute people for one time domestic abuse charges. Likewise, we don't execute for attempted murder or even most murders. We hold a higher requirement for an execution worthy offense. If you allow guilt on a lesser crime to justify execution based on a later worse crime, where does that end? if I can prove a guy shoplifted and I think he might have come back later and killed the clerk in a horrendous matter, can I dismiss the reasonable doubt on the murder charge since the shoplifting charge is ironclad? Can I feel right in that execution?
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I haven't really been following the case closely, but did Troy Davis deny having shot the man earlier in the day?
If he didn't, then it doesn't seem to matter much to me whether he was the one who killed the cop with the gun. It was pure luck that the person shot earlier in the day didn't die. The morality of the act of shooting someone doesn't change based on whether the person you shot lives or dies.
Of course, I'm against the death penalty entirely, so whether he was guilty or not I'd still be in favor of clemency. Still, it seems odd to spend so much mental effort over someone with "the person he shot earlier in the day lived, but the person that was shot later that day with the same gun died; and he might not have been the one that pulled the trigger that time."
I'm probably just missing something though.
Unfortunately, our justice system must often dispense penalties based on the OUTCOME of crime rather than the ACTION.
Think of the Matthew Shepard murder in Wyoming: officials waited to see whether Matthew would live or die before they made final charges. Upon his death several days after his brutal beating, his assailants, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, were charged with murder rather than some lesser assault charge. Whether Matthew had died or not did not alter the ACTIONS of the attackers.
In recent years, I often pondered deeply about this issue. What should be scrutinized by Justice: our actions/intentions or the outcomes of our actions? It's fuzzy and messy to me.
To personalize the issue for clarity (and this is personal, but I have learned to talk about it), let me share why I pondered this. I very seriously and deliberately attempted suicide [twice ]. I am alive today, honestly, by sheer luck. (Please note, just to be clear I am VERY VERY grateful and happy to be alive.) I felt extreme survivor guilt, and wondered very seriously about my state with God. According to my religious beliefs at that time, I considered suicide akin to murder. My thoughts went something like, "Other people have done exactly the same ACTIONS as I did, but those other people died. So how is it that they are self-murderers, but I am not? We did the same thing with the same intention, so, in God's eyes, how can we not be the same?" I believed for some time that to God I WAS the same and considered myself a self-murderer. That was a very hard time for me. [Note: since then I have changed and learned a lot, and I in no way believe anything remotely like that now.]
After worrying about that question for far too long, I never reached any reasonable conclusion about whether actions/intentions or outcomes matter more in the application of justice. [However, I did learn that dwelling on the question for the reasons I was was very unhealthy.]
quote: All this relief I've been expecting for all these years!...not here yet, but I'm sure it's coming!...I hope...
Have you ever been in any kind of similar situation? She has been living with this day in and day out for years and now the waiting part of her life is over. Can you even imagine what living with this would be like for 22 years? It is completely understandable that she would be numb. I think if you really took a moment and thought about it, you can see how she could feel numb.
quote: "I will grieve for the Davis family because now they're going to understand our pain and our hurt," she said in a telephone interview from Jackson. "My prayers go out to them. I have been praying for them all these years. And I pray there will be some peace along the way for them." *throws hands up and walks away*
I think you might be taking what she said in a different way than she intended. It makes sense for her to grieve for the family because she understands that they lost a son too. That doesn't mean she believes that Davis shouldn't have died but it will cause the family to suffer. Losing a child for any reason must be hard on parents.
Mucus
quote: What would the prior prayers have been like? "I pray that Troy Davis' family does well. Just not so well that they actually get him back or anything. Maybe they should just worry less about him or something."
Really? You don't see why someone would pray for the family? Does that mean she should be heaping scorn upon the entire family for what their son was convicted of doing? This does make absolute sense. The parents had nothing to do with the crime yet they are affected by it too.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:I think you might be taking what she said in a different way than she intended.
"I will grieve for the Davis family because now they're going to understand our pain and our hurt,"
It doesn't matter what she's intending, even if her record doesn't show her being consistently ugly about this whole affair. This is just a breathlessly offensive statement in and of itself.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
DarkKnight, I don't really understand why you're advocating for benefit of the doubt here and best possible interpretation. She advocated, hard, for the death of someone she didn't know was guilty, her claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
No one really gets to 'pray for the family' *after* they've spent a lot of time praying (and working) for the thing the family needs prayers *for*, and be taken as much besides a hypocrite.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: It doesn't matter what she's intending, even if her record doesn't show her being consistently ugly about this whole affair. This is just a breathlessly offensive statement in and of itself.
Of course it matters what she's intending. Her record shows that she stands by the conviction and the sentence. While you may feel differently about the punishment for someone killing your child, she believes that his conviction and sentence was right. The statement says that she is grieving for the family because she knows they lost a son too. That is not an offensive statement.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: DarkKnight, I don't really understand why you're advocating for benefit of the doubt here and best possible interpretation. She advocated, hard, for the death of someone she didn't know was guilty, her claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
No one really gets to 'pray for the family' *after* they've spent a lot of time praying (and working) for the thing the family needs prayers *for*, and be taken as much besides a hypocrite.
I don't understand why you and many others are out to demonize a woman who did nothing wrong. She did not try him in court. She did not convict him. She did not sentence him to death. She did not kill him. She did not cause court after court after court to uphold the conviction and sentence. Why is it her fault that he was sentenced to death? She cannot make the courts do anything no matter how hard she advocates. How is it wrong for someone to pray for the family of a convicted murderer? Is it possible that because you believe an innocent man was murdered that you want to make someone you think is responsible for it into an evil person?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Really? You're suggesting that the advocacy of a victim's family is to be expected to carry *no weight* with, for example, parole boards? Am I understanding you properly?
No, she didn't try him, or convict him, or execute him. As I said, she advocated long and hard for the execution of someone she didn't know to be guilty. I don't think she's responsible for it, but I think she helped in a small political way. I understand why, but that doesn't change the fact of what she did, either, which is stated above. I don't think she's an evil woman, I don't know near enough about her overall to have a thought on that. I do think she lent her support to a profoundly evil action, though.
And it's still more than a little absurd to pray and work hard for someone's death, and *then* when it's done say, "Now I pray for the family." As asked before, what was that prayer *like*? What mental acrobatics needed to take place? "Lord, now that my prayers for Davis's death have been answered, please help the Davis family deal with the death I prayed so hard for. Amen."
I don't suggest she's a hypocrite in her own mind or anything. Few people do, after all. But just because someone doesn't think they're behaving in a contradictory way doesn't mean they aren't.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I don't understand why you and many others are out to demonize a woman who did nothing wrong.
You clearly don't understand why we are 'out to demonize' her (which is a pretty incorrect way to say 'why we are critical of her behavior,' by the way).
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Are you suggesting that she was able to sway a judge, jury, parole board, the Georgia Supreme Court, the 11th Circuit Court, the Supreme Court, and various other courts, including a rehearing of the evidence, because of her advocacy? Her advocacy was that powerful? Is she more profoundly evil than all of the jurors, judges, parole board members, including the United States Supreme Court? Is her 'small political way' in all of this worse than all of the judicial system? It baffles me why you would focus on her when you even admit she could only have done some small political part. Shouldn't you be going after someone like Judge William Moore? Or the Georgia court system? or the prosecutors? Or Cole for not taking the stand? or Davis for not calling to the stand some of the witnesses who recanted? Isn't that profoundly more evil than a mother who lost her son? Why aren't you going after Spencer Lawton who must be the most evil person involved in this. He has made statements like "We have consistently won the case as it has been presented in court. We have consistently lost the case as it has been presented in the public realm, on TV and elsewhere."
It does make sense to pray for the sentence of a convicted murderer to be carried out and pray for peace for the family of the murderer. That is not contradictory at all. What would you do in her shoes? Granted, you believe an innocent man was executed so you would have to believe that a guilty man was set to be executed. Would you pray for the family to be hurt? Would you want them to not find any peace? Most likely you are against the death penalty so it will effect your response.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Is she more profoundly evil than all of the jurors, judges, parole board members, including the United States Supreme Court?
If you're going to vehemently assault a standpoint, make sure it even remotely resembles one we're making.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: You clearly don't understand why we are 'out to demonize' her (which is a pretty incorrect way to say 'why we are critical of her behavior,' by the way).
This statement is pretty much contradicted by:
quote: There's nothing to regret; Anneliese MacPhail has been vindictively ghoulish over this whole affair, and needs to shut up.
The fact that she's said that she basically had to have this guy get executed, like a sacrifice on the altar of her vengeance, as a mere prerequisite to even being able to find peace, is just about the most pitiable thing imaginable. Hell, the family of the black guy who got road-hauled to death by the white supremacist executed on the same day — it was a much more twisted act, extremely reveled in, and they knew not to let hate for the accused twist them up into this madness.
You are using hyperbole (a sacrifice on the altar of her vengeance) to portray her as an ugly hateful woman. Yet nothing like that is said about Spencer Lawton, only the grieving mother.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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DarkKnight: I think you're under some kind of misunderstanding. Two at least.
First, we're not mandated to only discuss those that are most evil. Rather, the conversation has just been flowing along and her statement has jumped out both due to the strangeness of it and the way that she has entered it into the public conversation through live comment on CNN or whatever.
Second, we're not mandated to discuss things in order of either their strangeness or their evilness.
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First of all, nowhere did I suggest that she could have, through her own oratory, swayed the outcome one way or another. Your stance was at first to imply that what she said had *no* impact-and this still seems strange to me-and now to suggest that unless she was *decisive*, her words shouldn't be criticized. I wasn't aware that one should be free from blame or credit for supporting something that was going to happen anyway. It's a strange stance you're making there, even if we grant for the sake of argument she had no impact.
The other thing, as others have said, is that by no means am I blaming her exclusively, nor is there any obligation to *only* speak of other, more powerful actors in this farce.
As a different issue, it's a strange sort of Christian faith indeed which prays for someone to be executed after a crime has been committed. So in order for me to put myself in her place, I'd have to embrace *that* contradiction, too. I can easily understand it-she was convinced the guy killed her boy. Perfectly natural to want him dead. It's when *prayer* comes into it, followed by prayer for the family, that things fall apart.
I understand the reasoning she might well be using. But what it amounts to is her on the one hand saying, "I want him dead," but on the *other* hand praying for the family when it happens. DK, are you still going to insist there's no contradiction here, man? I know it makes sense *to her*. That's not the point.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:She has been living with this day in and day out for years and now the waiting part of her life is over.
I don't understand this at all. What had she been living with that she isn't still living with now that Davis is dead?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: What a strange set of prayers for a Christian. "I pray that the family finds some peace once the vengeance I've been praying for is enacted."
I don't have a high opinion of Christianity, and people like this are the easy ones to point to as the reason.
*nods head* and 9/11 hijackers are the easy reason Islam is just silly, also Mao Ze Dong for atheism, and Dr. Wiley for science!
I said easy, not appropriate.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: [QUOTE]You are using hyperbole (a sacrifice on the altar of her vengeance) to portray her as an ugly hateful woman. Yet nothing like that is said about Spencer Lawton, only the grieving mother.
As mucus said, we're not mandated to discuss things in order of either their strangeness or their evilness.
quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: It completely resembles the point Rakeesh was making.
No. Rakeesh is not saying — nor, not without pointedly poor reading comprehension, should he be read to say — something that makes it a question whether Rakeesh's point relies on 'she is more profoundly evil than all of the jurors, judges, parole board members, including the United States Supreme Court.'
This is not ambiguous.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
More on the last meals in Texas. A former inmate who managed to start a successful restaurant after being released has offered to prepare and pay for the last meals himself. Texas said no. So, not about the money.
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quote:Originally posted by Anthonie: After worrying about that question for far too long, I never reached any reasonable conclusion about whether actions/intentions or outcomes matter more in the application of justice.
First I want to say, thank you for sharing something so personal, and that while I don't know you, I too am happy that you are alive.
As to the question of intent vs outcome, until we have the kind of technology which could go back in time to when a crime was committed and scan the brain of the accused, (which is unlikely, ever) we should really stick with outcome influenced by intent. Of course, there are just so many differences between the concept of heavenly and earthly justice. I personally don't believe in any of the widely accepted visages of God, so my thoughts on the "heavenly" side are...unique?...well, not common.
Regardless when it comes to our imperfect system here in the really real meat space, I think intent should be taken into account, but not the only thing taken into account. As an example, if someone tried to rob a bank with an airsoft gun, but unknowingly a guard in response to the artificial threat shot the robber, but the bullet missed and hit a bystander, killing them, wouldn't the robber still be responsible for that death, despite their intention to not use lethal force?
Intent and outcome should be both taken into consideration I say.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Oh, and as to the victim's mother controversy...you ask, what would her prayer be like? How about this? "Dear God, may my son's killer be brought to legal justice. Amen." Followed by: "Dear God, please let the family of my son's legally executed killer feel your comfort in this, their hour of need."
I'm not saying the guy was guilty or not, nor that he should have been killed or not. Just that some of your criticisms of this women may be inappropriate and judgmental. When it comes to people's pain, and people's faith that kind of judgment and condemnation rarely help improve the situation.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: More on the last meals in Texas. A former inmate who managed to start a successful restaurant after being released has offered to prepare and pay for the last meals himself. Texas said no. So, not about the money.
The pretense of it being about money is laughable anyway. The cost of the one meal isn't likely equal to the cost of imprisoning a death row inmate for a day. Even a really expensive meal.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Yes, Stone_Wolf, as has been repeatedly noted, I (nor anyone else, I think) is claiming she is, in her own mind with regards to herself, a blatant hypocrite. The (unrecognized) contradiction comes first when as a Christian praying that someone be killed, and then praying that the person's family be 'comforted'.
All of that, by the way, is *before* the troubling remark about 'now they know how I feel'. But even without that, it's still a glaring contradiction, which isn't surprising given we're talking about the death penalty in America in general and Christians *praying* for it in particular.
As for being judgmental, well, obviously. Is there some requirement that when one understands how someone could think a certain way, they're free from criticism for It? Does that extend to advocating the execution of someone we don't know is guilty?
----
As for the last meal business, heh, I was pretty convinced (totally convinced, really) that the fiscal justification was a cop out. Didn't expect to be proven right so soon, though. We're much safer from violent crime now than we've been in past generations, but the impulse to savagery and unspoken sadism in our country towards criminals-once we've incarcerated them-is just so strange.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I think I'm with Xav on this on. I haven't followed the case in detail, but from what I can tell, there are several facts that are not in dispute.
Earlier that day, Troy Davis shot someone in the face. Troy was present and directly involved in Mark Allen MacPhail's murder. But there is some doubt if he was the one who actually pulled the trigger.
I'm ambivalent about the death penalty, but this is not striking me as a great one to argue on. Troy Davis was, by no stretch of the imagination, innocent. He may not have been guilty of pulling the trigger and was just instrumental in the killing, not the direct cause of it. He also was guilty of earlier trying to kill someone else.
If justice was technically violated, yes, that's a problem, but I don't find tears in me for Troy Davis. In the best case, he was an attempted murderer and an accessory to murder, who seems to never have accepted responsibility for his crimes.
And, I gotta say, I'm amazed that you think your demonization of the victim's family is appropriate. Have you tried to see it from their point of view at all?
First off, there's what I pointed out above. Combine that with the original trial, where Troy Davis's guilt seemed iron clad. The family's narrative about this event was fixed by this.
With many cases where death penalty was overturned, there are instances where the convicted person was completely innocent and not at all involved with the killing and the family still was absolutely convinced that they did it. And this is not because they are monsters.
But this wasn't even like that. What you are condemning them for is that, many years after the seemingly obvious conviction, some aspects of the situation changed and introduced reasonable doubt that Troy Davis didn't pull the trigger and they still wanted his execution to go through. Let's leave aside the fixation of the narrative. This isn't a case where we know that Davis was innocent, just that there was some doubt that he was the actual murder and not just an accessory. Somehow, to you, the family didn't change their desire for him to be put to death in response to this makes them bad people. I don't see the logic in that.
One final thing. I'm pretty sure if, let's say, a bunch of guys attacked my wife and one of them ended up killing her with all the rest helping but not directly killing her, I would want them all to die. Were I in the McPhail's horrible situation, even if I knew that Troy Davis only helped in the killing and didn't do it himself, I'd want him to die. I don't think that makes me a bad person.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:The (unrecognized) contradiction comes first when as a Christian praying that someone be killed, and then praying that the person's family be 'comforted'.
I don't see the logic that seems so clear to you on this. This doesn't look like an obvious contradiction or hypocrisy to me at all.
They want justice to be done, but they are aware that people unrelated to this justice being carried out are going to suffer because of it and they want that suffering to be a little as possible. From what I can tell, for you to not seem them as hypocrites, they'd need to either forgo justice because it would cause others pain or to not care about the suffering of Troy Davis' family.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Yes, Rakeesh, as has been repeatedly noted by myself and others...bla bla bla...did I say anything about her not being a hypocrite "in her own mind"? Nope. You guys asked, "What would this horrible ghoulish hypocrite's prayer possibly look like?" Asked and answered.
She wasn't praying for him to be shanked in the exercise yard or gang raped in the shower. She wanted legal punishment for the man convicted of her son's murder. Again...not saying -I- think he should have been executed or not.
As much as you would like to declare that this is a "glaring contradiction" and have it be accepted as such, some do not see it that way. Of course I see why you think what you think, but is there some requirement that when one understands how someone could think a certain way, they're free from criticism for it?
Her son was murdered, she wanted justice AND wanted the family of her son's (in her eyes) murderer to have comfort. Evil bitch! Jesh!
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]. I am alive today, honestly, by sheer luck. (Please note, just to be clear I am VERY VERY grateful and happy to be alive.) I felt extreme survivor guilt, and wondered very seriously about my state with God. According to my religious beliefs at that time, I considered suicide akin to murder. My thoughts went something like, "Other people have done exactly the same ACTIONS as I did, but those other people died. So how is it that they are self-murderers, but I am not? We did the same thing with the same intention, so, in God's eyes, how can we not be the same?" I believed for some time that to God I WAS the same and considered myself a self-murderer. That was a very hard time for me. [Note: since then I have changed and learned a lot, and I in no way believe anything remotely like that now.]
