Fried Taters - 09.02.2002
I think that I am in favor of the death penalty. I use the qualifier “think” because I am not entirely sure. I do know that when I hear that someone brutally murdered their family, I hope they get “the chair”. I don’t even think they should mess with all the humane crap. Just take them out back and put a bullet in their head. Then there is the flip side of this, which is the poor bastard who gets gassed by mistake. Being a person who usually has bad luck, I could see me getting falsely accused of something and having to walk the green mile. I’ll bet I would be 100 percent against the death penalty at that moment in my life.
The question I always ask people, who say they believe in the death penalty, is “If your child was convicted of murder, would you agree that they should be put to death?” Most staunch believers will lie and immediately say “yes”, assuming they will never be in that situation. Anyone, who is being honest, will take some time to think about it because it’s a tough question.
Even though I am mostly pro “kill bad guys”(as I like to call it), I have always considered almost any argument against the death penalty put before me. There really are good ones. Some real arguments are racial bias, lawyer incompetence, malicious intent, and the possibility of finding new evidence. Then I heard about the retard issue.
Some States are starting to ban executing retarded murderers because it is cruel and unusual punishment.
And now the Supreme Court is looking at this issue to determine if it’s unconstitutional, again.
In the immortal words of Joe Dirt – Whaaaaatttttt???!!!!
The people behind this, are probably the same people who would fight to the death to make sure that retarded people have all the same rights as regular people. And believe me, I use the term “regular people” loosely. I’m sure there are plenty of people that would say I am anything but regular. I think I’ll change my statement to “the same rights as non-retarded people”. Here’s a list of rights I found in a few places and it sounds pretty good to me.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/m_mental.htm
So let’s get this straight, now. Retarded people should have as many of the same rights as me as is feasibly possible, unless we both kill someone. In that case I get gassed and he gets to spend his days coloring pretty pictures in prison. I say that if you are smart enough to go to work, or drive a car, or stab a young woman to death with a pair of scissors, then you are smart enough to sizzle and fry.
I’m sure the champions of retarded killers everywhere will then say that prison’s a smidgen too harsh for retarded people. They should go to a good hospital, with private doctors, and have a private room, and great arts and crafts classes. Just for fun, we’ll let the victim’s family foot the bill with their taxes.
That sounds fair to me… In the Twilight Zone.
A murderer is a murderer. I really don't care about thier capacity to learn.
If they had fried the Billy Bob guy in Slingblade like his beloved “french fried pataters”, Happy, or whatever his name was, wouldn’t have gotten scalped with a lawnmower blade. Sure, he was an asshole, but did he deserve to have his brain split in half.
Think about this.
Isn’t the knowledge that you are going to be executed crueler punishment to someone who has the mental capacity to understand the finality of what is going to happen to him?
The only people that would suffer would be the families of the retarded killers. And their suffering wouldn’t be any worse than that of the family of a non-retarded killer who is put to death.
I think it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute intellectual atheists.
The murderer in this article asks what will happen when he gets put to sleep. He’s not even scared, he's just curious. Why don’t we just tell him he’ll go to heaven, put a smile on his face, and then tap his vein with the good stuff. At least then, the family of the girl he killed can have a little closure.
Here’s the link to the usatoday.com article I have referenced.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/court/2001-03-25-retardedkiller.htm
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