Entertainment For Lively Minds
Hang 'Em High
Posted by jimmyshoes01 on 4 August 2011 - 1:08pm.
Disturbing news from our Sceptr'd Isle, we seem to have turned into Iran:
"The first "e-petitions" - which allow the public to prompt parliamentary debates if they get enough support - have been published by the government.
Some 40 of the first 169 petitions published call for the return of capital punishment"
From the BBC website.
Who are these people? Do any of them lurk here?
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Guido Fawkes (worra twatty twat)
was saying the country was crying out for the return of the rope on Dickhead Campbell on R5 this morning.
I've always thought along these lines before this song was written and still do
Well it's hard to imagine it's the times that have changed
When there's a murder in the kitchen that is brutal and strange
If killing anybody is a terrible crime
Why does this bloodthirsty chorus come round from time to time?
Nice Mr Fawkes has written todays Thunderer column in The Times
About exactly this, quoting some spurious statistics and ignoring the ethics.
Silly season
Those e petitions have been around and said the same thing for several years.
I've always suspected.
that if we had a referendum on it and forced everyone to vote, the death penalty would be immensely popular.
I hope I'm very wrong about that though.
I suspect you're right.
Taken as a mass, the British people do seem to be very hardcore when it comes to crime & punishment.
There was a recent story about a man convicted in Iran (?) of throwing acid in a woman's face and blinding her, the 'eye for an eye' principle meant he faced a judicial blinding. Not sure how that would go down here though.
The rest of that story
was that the woman asked for this not to be done which shows the capacity for forgiveness people have. Mind, he threw the acid after she refused to marry him so there was probably some residual feeling there..
Residual Feeling?
Sorry, I just don't get what you mean there.
Forgiveness doesn't necessarily come into it, incidentally. You don't need to forgive someone to show them some mercy.
Good point.
Calling it forgiveness was quite an assumption. I wanted to add that the woman had asked for the man not to be blinded. And, as the other detail in the story was that the man had thrown acid after she refused his request of marriage, I thought it likely that they had some history together (hence the awkward phrase "residual feeling"). I know nothing about the woman. It may well be that she believed the punishment was cruel and she would show exactly the same mercy to a random stranger.
Also
We'd never use the euro and would leave the EU.
We'd have to
If we want to reintroduce the death penalty. Though I suspect some would not have an issue with that.
http://www.eurunion.org/legislat/deathpenalty/eumemorandum.htm
Not me
The death penalty fails, for me, because taking one life accidentally due to a wrongful conviction is inherently wrong for a legal system. There are other reasons as well but this is the fundamentally compelling one for me.
And am I the only one who thinks that e-petitions are are a bad thing?
Agreed
re the hanging.
I haven't given much thought to the e-petitions and will have to consider the point.
Hanging
I'm quite conservative on crime but I'd consider the return of capital punishment a rather depressing backward step.
It may even have been here on the WB.
I'm sure I remember somebody saying they were all for a vote on the reintroduction of the death penalty, with the caveat that the name of everybody who voted in favour went into a lottery, and each time someone was executed one name was pulled at random out of the hat and forced to join them.
On a similar vein...
The theory I heard was that each time someone was to be executed, the person picked out would have to pull the lever or press the button. It's easy to vote on an e-petition or join the chatter in the pub, and say you'd do it. It's a lot harder to look the person cold bloodedly in the eye knowing you're going to end their life. And have that memory with you for the rest of yours. Especially if that person turned out to be innocent later.
On the other hand
Could you live with yourself knowing that you'd freed an already convicted murderer who then went on to repeat his crime on release?
It's hard to pinpoint exactly how many prisoners reoffend, but the Head of the Parole Board, Peter Latham, has expressed his concerns at the under-reporting in official figures of prisoners who reoffend.
Either life should mean life, without the prospect of parole, or you're providing an increasingly valid reason for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
Or...
...we could try and improve the recidivist figures.
I read that Norway had a re-offending rate of around 20%. That is incredibly lower, much lower than ours, so there must be a way.
Hmm.
"Could you live with yourself knowing that you'd freed an already convicted murderer who then went on to repeat his crime on release?"
How many times has this happened, though?
I can, however, think of plenty of cases where an innocent man or woman would've been hanged. Stefan Kiszko for one. Convicted of the rape and murder of a schoolgirl, he would've swung. And was innocent. And was later released. Would Barry George have been hung? The Birmingham Six? The Guildford Four? Sally Clark?
Aside from this, a civilised country does not kill its own citizens.
But it does happen
I'm not suggesting the death penalty should be brought back.
Just that where a person re-offends there is every possibility they might do so again in the future.
This isn't about recidivism or revenge, it's about public safety. You've got to take violent reoffenders out of society by keeping them locked up with no prospect of parole or you will have people demanding the return of the death penalty.
Where I live a person with a history of violence towards women was convicted of the brutal murder of a woman walking her dogs.
He'd never served any of his previous sentences in full so was free to reoffend.
It's very disturbing to find out you've had a convicted murderer living almost on your doorstep.
There will always be 'odd' people around to point the finger at, how many of the Massive would have happily 'hanged' landlord Chris Jefferies without a trial?
But where persistent offenders are concerned there shouldn't be the worry of having to second guess what their next crime or who their next victim might me.
You said
"It's very disturbing to find out you've had a convicted murderer living almost on your doorstep."
It is. I've got one. This chap.
Sion Jenkins.
Another convicted murderer who was subsequently declared Not Guilty and released.
Hmmm...
...although he was technically found "Not Guilty" he's been refused compensation for his time spent inside because he'd have to prove his absolute innocence.
Also, key evidence from a prosecution witness was withheld from the jury at his last trial on the direction of the judge.
Not expressing a personal opinion there, just stating the reported 'facts'.
Whereas the chap I'm talking about had been positively identified by at least one of his victims.
A much lower-profile case, but then again 'open and shut' cases rarely make the news.
edit: Looks like Barry George was denied compensation, too. Does this mean unless someone else is convicted for the same crime the finger of suspicion always points at you?
Double post?
Me?
A better idea
might be that every "Yes" voter's name still went into that lottery but that the person chosen was obliged to personally carry out the execution. With "Full Publicity" the only option. A few bloodthirsty souls would still vote "Yes", no doubt, but not enough to swing it, I feel.
My own view on capital punishment has changed somewhat, recently.
I used to be vehemently against in all cases. It has been proven to my satisfaction, many times over, that Capital Punishment does not act as a deterrent and I certainly don't believe in revenge as a substitute for justice.
I believe everyday murders for revenge, jealousy, in the course of crimes of violence etc. should remain subject to a sentence of life imprisonment just as they currently are and I don't believe that "Life should mean life" in every case. It does offend me, however, that dangerously evil people of the Anders Breivik/Rosemary West/Roy Whiting ilk must at present be confined to prison for the rest of their natural lives to protect us all from them. What a terrible waste of resources that is, when a simple injection could remove them for next to nothing.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty however, the risk of someone being wrongly executed due to a miscarriage of justice is something I could never ever accept so I remain, though not as firmly as I used to be, against the death penalty.
Apart from the death penalty for
People who drop litter
People with dogs that never stop barking
Tabloid Journalists (Editors and owners)
and of course...Bankers
I'm totally against Capital Punishment.
Don't forget
people who hog the middle lane on the motorway. Hanging's too good for 'em.
Not forgetting
people who don't clear up after their dog.
And inevitably
people in Ugg boots.
Nice
Hey, I've got a pair of Ugg boots - a gift - and I wear them - indoors only, mind you, when it's cold...they're like mega-slippers. And you'd have me hang for that, would you?
You may as well says let's kill 20% of all Australians.
Aussies
wear them for weddings and funerals, though. They see Ugg boots as one step up the sartorial ladder from flip flops.
Which reminds me:
We should also execute people whose sentences go UP AT THE END TO SOUND LIKE QUESTIONS?
It's never going to happen
The Sun ran the same campaign in 2008 and, like Fawkes, were able to trumpet that "most of the Great British public (well, the ones who vote in a Sun poll anyway) wanted capital punishment" but if it wasn't for those meddling politicians/EU dictatorship/whatever... it's just a temporary sales drive.
Guido Fawkes is just doing the same thing. It drives traffic to his website, he charges higher ad rates, gets on a couple of radio shows. But he knows the law isn't going to change because his herd of followers want it to, any more than it changed because Sun-readers wanted it to.
I was in California a couple of years ago and the Rodney Alcala case was all over the local papers.
Alcala, like a lot of death row prisoners, has had several appeals and every few years the families of his victims have to lawyer up and face him across a courtroom. It was heart-breaking to see the family go through this again, while Alcala, clearly a freak, got his kicks out of the attention. Capital punishment, far from providing "emotional closure," often drags out the victim's family's suffering, much more than giving the guilty person a life sentence would.
The main politician backing Fawkes - Roger Helmer - has said he'd get rid of the appeals process, but not surprisingly, as the USA's finest legal minds have tried and failed for decades to find a a way of doing that without running the risk of killing innocent people, Helmer hasn't said how he'd manage that.
Lucas Hare of this parish linked to this on Twitter
http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/2011/08/string-em-up.html?spref=tw
Good it is, too.
Question
Short of dredging through their ranty blogs, do we know if Guido Fawkes and Fleet Street Fox are content to be wrongly convicted and executed ?
The 'feet up in front of the XBox' thing
may stick in the throat but there's a world of difference between asking someone should be deprived of the full priveledges of citizenship and taking delight that they have to s**t in a hole in the ground.
And believing the death penalty is wrong but 'hey if another lag slits him let him bleed to death' is just the old circle of salt around the slug solution - all of the cruelty but without the b***s to stand over the cruelty yourself.
Return of the death penalty and leaving the EU
Just holding up a mirror, really.
And by that you mean
you think everyone in Britain thinks that?
Not at all
and I would never be so presumtuous.
40 petitions calling for the re-introduction of the death penalty (which technically could oblige a parliamentary debate) should give someone with even the most chocolate box view of their country pause for thought.
Holding up a mirror. A rather small mirror
So far the leading petition of these has a mighty 49 signatories. Other petitions are available though folk so seem to want their own petition and not share, thank you very much. 100,000 is the threshold ? They could have a long wait.
I tended to believe this stuff about the silent majority being mad keen on hanging, but I am having my doubts now. It sounds like a very vocal minority by current evidence. Though to be fair the e-petition site is amazingly terrible.
Shite, it is
Maybe we should start an e-petition to have it improved.
For heaven's sake, man
don't you ever let up with your chip-shouldered ranting? I'm sorry, but you really can't help yourself can you?
Goodness gracious, sir
don't you ever let up taking offence at things I say that resemble quite closely things other people say in the same thread only without such an obviously identifiable moniker?
whoops
...sorry...
Pax
Please remind yourself of the posting guidelines. Address the point, not the poster. Thanks.
'Chocolate box view of their country'...
...the only people who have a chocolate box view of our country are our American mates...
Nice sweeping generalisation there
Isn't this precisely the kind of post you like to complain about?
See
above
Oh, the petitions horrify me
I was merely puzzled by your use of "holding up a mirror", as if the petitions reflected the entire nation's thinking, as one would normally expect where such a phrase were used. I'm relieved you meant something else altogether. Thanks for the clarification.
Fraser very kindly told me
I could re-post my original reply if I left out the sarcasm.
Only I can't remember what it was I said. And I wasn't being sarcastic.
Terribly disappointed with this thread...
I thought it was going to be about that Western film with Clint Eastwood (currently £2.99 on Amazon).
Clint
And I thought it was going to be about Booker T and the MGs.
Booker T
and I thought it was going to be Five-Centres wanting Morrissey's execution again.
Morrissey
thought it was about Stewart Lee wanting to kill Michael MacIntyre.
Sky News
They've been carrying the story all day so that will add a few hundred thousand votes and if we are to be lieve the criteria then the subject will be debated.
Its that old devil...
Called double post again...
Silly season innit?
"Blogger starts attention grabbing petition" wouldn't stand a chance if parliament was sitting. Even a skilled attention grabber like Paul Staines would struggle normally.
Paul Staines?
Is he ex-Merchant Navy?
That was Paul Bates
er....wasn't it?...................
e-petitions
I'm not sure why anyone would object to e-petitions, or, for that matter, any kind of petitions. In a true democracy, weight of opinion should count for something. If enough folk want to leave the EU or to re-introduce the death penalty (or even to have a national debate about the possibility of its re-introduction), then it should be taken seriously by politicians.
I'd wager that a referendum on membership of the EU would get rather a bigger turnout than the recent vote on electoral reform. Which is why, of course, we are not going to have a referendum on membership of the EU anytime soon.
The telling use of the phrase 'these people' in the opening post is, I'm afraid, typical of the level of debate on the topic of the death penalty. Those who oppose the return of the death penalty assume all too readily that those who support it have not properly thought it through. Or, if they have thought it through, they're having the wrong kind of thoughts.
Ah, Elvis Costello ... he's the one who wrote that song about how he was looking forward to laughing and 'tramping the dirt down' on the grave of a former prime-minister, isn't he?
re EC
Yes, he is, but he didn't advocate killing the old goat. Quite the opposite: towards the end of the track he sings: "Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep / I think I'll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep".
Quite a few of us won't be sorry when she's gone, but don't actively wish she were dead.
indeed
He didn't advocate killing her, but he did make a very public pronouncement that he would rejoice at the death of another human being, a democratically-elected politician.
That makes it rather difficult, I think, to take him seriously as a political /social commentator.
Ha!
Difficult to take him seriously as a political commentator?
Quite so, which is why I tend to think of him as a pop singer/songwriter.
me too
I also think of him as a pop singer /songwriter.
Perhaps you should have addressed that post to dogfacedboy, who chose to quote Mr C's views in connection with the topic being discussed?
Oi Jo!
You slagging off Mr C? Wait til I see you next, young lady!
I think around the same time as 'Tramp The Dirt Down' he also wished to see the head of the Duke Of Westminster displayed on the top of the gates of Parliament.
See Shipbuilding,
Pills n Soap, National Ransom etc for other examples of Declan's socio-political commentary. For more on Mr Costello consult your local record shop if you still have one.
Weight of opinion counts for everything
and every four or five years, we all get to offer our opinion at the ballot box. Is that not enough?
up to a point
You are correct, of course, to point out that we get the chance to change the government every four or five years.
But, to take the obvious example, what should we do when we are promised a referendum on EU membership by parties who renege on that promise once they are in power? Wait another four or five years?
Are you looking to bring back the death penalty
Or start a revolution?
Are you sure?
I can't recall any of the major parties making a promise to hold a referendum on EU membership.
Labour, at least, promised a referendum on a new EU constitution - however as the constitution fell, the promise became moot.
technically ...
Labour's 2005 manifesto promised a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty. The fact that that treaty was rejected by France and the Netherlands and then tweaked to become the Lisbon 'honest guv, it's not the EU constitution' Treaty is merely a technical point that was used to avoid the issue. Moreover, it's a technical point that manages to show utter contempt for the democratic process along with complete disdain for the intelligence of the electorate.
Labour can claim 'plausible deniability' when accused of breaking their manifesto promise. Cameron's 'cast iron' promise of a referendum was a similar crock of shit.
I'll concede your point that no major party has promised a referendum on EU membership. But major parties did promise to address the issues of the constitution. It's painfully clear that any referendum on the EU constitution /Lisbon Treaty would have been a de facto referendum on EU membership.
So...
True democracy = Mob rule.
You sure that's how it's supposed to work?
I suspect the lynch mobs in the Deep South represented majority opinion in their constituencies at the time...
Paul
... I'm sorry, but that is too daft to reply to (other than to point out that it is daft).
Current score
Paul Staines's "Restore Capital Punishment" petition : 2,335
Opposing "Petition to retain the ban on Capital Punishment " : 4,908
I exaggerate for effect of course
But - serious point - at what point do the wishes of the majority (or the vocal minority) override what might be morally or ethically right?
And I appreciate that 'moral' and 'ethical' are not absolutes...
We don't have a democracy
Or anything like one. We have for better or worse a representative system of government which means every few years electing people to make decisions on our behalf.
I definitely think that this is creaking very badly at the seams not least because although the actions of the elite are putting us all in peril we're plainly not all in this together.
However the alternative of a referendum in a X Factor style on all key decisions by the State has the actual effect of giving those who control the media the whip hand over how a country behaves. This sort of thing is what destroyed Athens 2000 years ago
Nothing wrong with a debate but a disconnect in opinions between the more vocal exponents of an eye for an eye, and the public servants who are expected to make that policy work in practice, is not of itself evidence of a democratic deficit. Suppression of debate would be (and that is a worry for the future and a separate discussion maybe)
Capital punishment was originally abolished by parliament in an overwhelming vote by people who were - overwhelmingly - lawyers, many of whom worked or had worked inside the criminal justice system and knew damn well what the chances were for justice for the majority.
I used to work in a research job at the Home Office and believe me there is no possibility of me ever accepting that the system should ever again be allowed the power of life and death over those who get convicted by it. For every Soham murderer there is a Winston Silcott.
Most people
Most people I have ever debated this issue with truly haven't thought about it in any depth. Responses are often from the gut and confuse justice with retribution; they haven't considered the implications of such a policy on a society's moral compass or it's attitude to the justice system; they believe that it would act as a deterrent to crime and ignore any statistics that disprove this.
I'm not saying this is the case for all people who are pro capital punishment, but it's certainly a trend I have noticed. If you have a reasoned argument for the death penalty I am certainly all ears, as I've not heard one yet.
Excellent post Uncle monty
When this old chestnut ever came up while I was in the Royal Navy, (Where most of my colleagues tended to be devout "Blue meanies", the majority of whom were pro hanging & flogging).
The so called 'trump' card they always played was "How would you feel if it was your child who had been murdered", & on the surface that seemed a valid point.
I asked them how they would feel if a child of any of them had been executed & subsequently found to have been innocent?
The reply was usually "Oh, I had never considered that"
My problem with e-petitions
I think it is another dilution of how we should interact with our MP's and Parliament. What is wrong with MP's having to meet constituents? What is wrong with MP's answering correspondence? Why should there be so many different ways to express an opinion that none of the ways carries sufficient clout or volume on their own? e-petitions will wither and die in a couple of years and will have cost a couple of million quid in order to enable politicians to say look at how hard we are trying to engage with the electorate. Get out and bloody meet them.
That may have been a rant btw.
My use of the words
'these people' relates directly to the fact that I do not know a single person that advocates the return of the death penalty, furthermore I wanted to know if any such person blogs here because it's a fascinating debate and I would love to hear the case for.
And while people are putting up a case for a debate I still don't see anyone come out and say explicitly 'bring it back'. So my question is valid, who are these people?
I believe that the death penalty should be brought back
for certain crimes and certain classes of criminal but it's a personal view and I don't especially want to debate it here, and with the greatest of respect, I wouldn't feel comfortsble discussing it with someone who classes me as "these people" in such a casual, dismissive, way.
Thanks.
Is
'these people' really that offensive? I had no idea. It seems like a perfectly reasonable way to ask such a question.
These people
Pretty innocuous if you ask me. Though I can see why people who hold any sort of right-wing viewpoint might feel a little reluctant to express it in this day & age.
There's this prevailing image of lefties as kind, caring souls and right-wingers as dark-hearted baby eaters. Totally inaccurate too, in my experience.
As I see it, most people on either side want what's best for society, they just have different ideas as to how that might be acheived. In fact, I'd say yer average person holds a mix of right and left-wing views. I certainly do.
I only posted
as I am genuinely intersested in the opposing view and I am kicking myself for scaring away those that hold the opinions I want to hear with my glib tone.
Personally I can't think of a better area of my life to raise such a debate as the replies on the blog are, on the whole, intelligent, thought-provoking and have made me think of subjects in completely different ways on more than many occasions.
I interpreted it as the written equivalent of "you people" or
"people like you" complete with stabbing finger gesture.
If that's not how it was intended then I apologise :-)
Cheers Stimpy
and that too is what makes this place a stand up kinda place.
"You people"..?
"Ah, Elvis Costello ... he's
"Ah, Elvis Costello ... he's the one who wrote that song about how he was looking forward to laughing and 'tramping the dirt down' on the grave of a former prime-minister, isn't he?"
I'd like to join him, maybe even "take a dump" there, but I don't think we'll ever get the opportunity. The evil old witch seems to be everlasting.
Hanging...?
Nah. Force them to listen to this on repeat, it'll soon sort them out.
Cher Lloyd
I'm not one for knocking pop music but I would've though her 'people' would give her a more credible debut track than that.
The song is terrible, the vocal is terrible and the lyrics are equal part egotistical and stupid.
Cher
I rather enjoyed her on X Factor: she seemed to have a bit of vim (although this is compared to the other contestants which is hardly the biggest compliment). I can't understand why they have saddled her with a song that makes one long to hear the Black Eyed Peas, it's that bad.
However, it's number one, so job done, etc.
string up....
Stewart Lee !
I think
I've got a noose somewhere. Possibly in my man drawer.
As I understand it
Parliament cannot even debate the death penalty again due to some legislation or other. I doubt that'll shut the talking heads up though.
Besides, what easier way to appease the populace than by dispatching a few 'enemies of the state'. Certainly got rid of those Christian types back in Nero's* time!
* Historical accuracy not guaranteed.
So, the Death penalty then
It seems to me that there are at least two layers to this:
The first - is it practicable?
The second - regardless of practicability, could it ever be right.
I live in a country where it's living proof that the death penalty can never work in practice. There are just too many errors and issues with the process. The DID with Clive Stafford Smith, the anti death penalty lawyer was quite simply one of the best pieces of radio I've ever heard, and infinitely moving.
Is the death penalty so wrong in principle? There I'm not so clear cut in my thinking. I do think that there are some crimes that are so beyond the societal pale that the offender really removes him or herself from society by the very crime.
I think that retribution IS an acceptable part of the justice system. You commit a crime, you have offended an individual, and you have offended society. Either, or both, should be allowed retribution.
I don't think capital punishment is easy, and I hope I'm not coming across as glib in saying that I'm open to the abstract idea of it. I guess I do believe that evil exists, and extreme evil deserves extreme punishment. And no, I'm so advanced in my thinking as to have determined where I would draw the line.
Surprised no-one
spotted the bard of Salford dealt with this way back!
(Suspended Sentence - John Cooper Clarke)
I just had a look at the e-petitions site
There are over 100 'open' petitions for anyone to sign but only seven with more than 1,000 signatures ... These are, in reverse order (as of Fri morning, 5 Aug):
7. Absolute right to self-defence within ones [sic] home - 1,058
6. Hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU - 1,613
5. Legalise cannabis - 1,768
4. Britain wants referendum to leave EU - 3,084
3. Restore capital punishment - 5,257
2. Keep Formula 1 Free To Air in the UK - 5,859
and the nation's number one...
1. Petition to retain the ban on capital punishment - 9,386
Geekiest however is a petition about Internet Explorer 6 holding back the British economy ... but it only has 94 signatures
Petition to retain the ban on capital punishment
9,387 signatures
Seems that I'm more in line with public opinion than I thought
I must admit I'm surprised, but pleased.
I have a mischievous urge to
... create a differently worded petition to the one above about duplicate petitions.
Clearly it is time for the death penalty to return...
..so long as you get to choose the method
One up arrow?
Well, I liked it...
Apart from the ethical dimensions
there is also the cost. In the USA at least, it actually costs considerably more to execute someone, than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their lives. Purely due to the number of legal challenges and appeals involved.
In China, on the other hand,
I believe the relatives have to pay for the costs of the execution.
Double post
Thats like in the Dr Who
story I was watching last night 'The Sunmakers' - with Tom Baker and the lovely Leela. marvellous. The guy paid for his dad to have the gold level funeral, which is the painless one.