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AlterNet / By Liliana Segura
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 266

Obama's Draconian New Death Penalty Stance

In a reactionary political calculation, Barack Obama comes out in support of the death penalty for child rape.
June 27, 2008  |  
 
 
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What a difference a general election makes.

Hours after the Supreme Court handed down a ruling banning the death penalty for the rape of a child, Democratic candidate Barack Obama found his inner Scalia and declared it a miscarriage of justice.

"I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," he told reporters at a press conference in Chicago. This is true. Despite the assumptions of some of his admirers, for at least as long as he has held political ambitions, Barack Obama has positioned himself as a supporter of state-sanctioned murder.

There's no question the sexual assault of a child is a monstrous thing, the kind of utterly indefensible crime that can test the resolve of anyone who opposes the death penalty on moral grounds. Indeed, it is the sort of offense death penalty supporters reach for in arguing for the "ultimate sanction." For a political candidate, it's a particularly easy position to take. What kind of a person would attack you for saying a child rapist deserves to die?

In fact, in the recent history of the death penalty, calling for the execution of a person who commits a crime other than murder is a radical stance. Nobody has been executed for such an offense in the United States in over 40 years. Until yesterday, only two people out of more than 3,200 prisoners on death row faced execution for a crime in which the victim did not die. Affirming the death penalty for child rape would not only have potentially placed thousands more people on death row -- as Justice Anthony Kennedy noted yesterday, there were 5,792 rapes of children under 12 in 2005 alone -- it would have vastly broadened the net for capital crimes, a trend that would quickly become a slippery slope. Nevertheless, "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime," Obama said yesterday, "and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution." Never mind cruel and unusual punishment. (And yes, that is Obama embracing the conservative mantle of states' rights.)

Obama's defenders may argue, as they do about his other recent shifts to the right, that he had to take this position in order to strengthen his candidacy. No, he didn't. The Democrats may continue to operate in a world in which opposition to the death penalty equals political death, a world shaped by that famous 1988 Dukakis moment, in which the Democratic presidential candidate was hapless when challenged to state that he would support the killing of a man who raped and murdered his wife. But times have changed. While the Democrats have embraced the death penalty, public support for it has dwindled -- especially in recent years. The regular exonerations of innocent prisoners in this country (218 and counting), persistent evidence of rampant racial and economic bias, and botched executions nationwide have led people -- and juries -- more and more, to reject the death penalty. Chalk it up, as the Supreme Court likes to, to our "evolving standards of decency."

Unfortunately, presidential candidates have their own evolving standards of decency and, too often, they are a race to the bottom. Obama, who spoke eloquently in favor of the court's decision granting habeas corpus to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, has now aligned himself with the same aggressively conservative justices who would have had them remain in legal limbo. Worse, he aligns himself with the belligerent Antonin Scalia, whose enthusiasm for the death penalty is so irrepressible, one would expect he'd administer the lethal chemicals himself if he could.

Informed voters will see Obama's move for what it is: an opportunistic embrace of a sharply right-wing stance to shed the (dubious) stigma of being "the most liberal senator" in the Congress. In a week that saw him backpedal on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and on free trade, his supporters may see this as just another move rightward in his path toward the White House. But this is more than that. This is a reactionary stance that betrays those who would be his natural base of support, not to mention those communities that are actually affected by the death penalty. The fact that Obama was speaking at a press conference in Chicago is especially painful. It is a city that, as we speak, is handing subpoenas to police officers who tortured African American men on the South Side into giving confessions for crimes that they didn't commit -- men who ended up on death row. Obama, famously, was an organizer on the South Side of Chicago in this era. He knows how the death penalty system really works. He's just choosing to ignore it for the sake of cheap political points. How much he will actually gain from his pro-death penalty proclamation is unclear. Is it more than he stands to lose?

It is a sad day when a candidate who so many genuinely saw as bringing "change we can believe in" takes a politically motivated and intellectually dishonest stance in a matter of life and death. Obama risks alienating those who gave him his rise to the top, by betraying the very ideals that attracted them to him in the first place.

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Liliana Segura is an AlterNet staff writer.
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I am anti-Death Penalty and I liked his choice
[Report this comment]
Posted by: masterofbadenglish on Jun 27, 2008 12:32 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Let's look at the reality of this situation. The Supreme Court ruled in our favor. The President is the furthest away from defining what the death penalty should be, so Obama does not have to make or hold promises on the topic. His greatest power is to appoint judges which we know are going to be liberal. I think it would be incredibly stupid of him to lose this election Dukakis style and have McCain make the choices of Justices, so they could overwrite the decision. It may not be what we want to hear but it is by far the wisest choice for keeping this decision in place and having Justices that can take it further. It may not be a win for the idea that the death penalty is wrong but it is a win for keeping this and better death penalty decisions in place.

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» here's a test of logic Posted by: orionsan
» RE: here's a test of logic Posted by: BigElectricCat
» Why not say that then? Posted by: synx
» Cruel and unusual Posted by: foreverhope
» RE: What Barack actually SAID: Posted by: Longdream
» RE: What Barack actually SAID: Posted by: SemiDiscerning
» RE: I agree Posted by: camanokat

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Maybe Barack Obama wasn't being dishonest?!?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: aouie01 on Jun 27, 2008 2:32 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I do understand that the communication of the beliefs may have been a calculated one as the article mentions. Why the jump to conclude that Barack is being dishonest?
Sincerely,
Aouie

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» Orwellian Double-Speak! Posted by: pdxstudent
» Do Tell Posted by: pdxstudent

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Indeed problematic
[Report this comment]
Posted by: talkville on Jun 27, 2008 3:12 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In taking this position, Mr Obama has pointed to his position of identification of the concept of Justice and the response of Retribution -- that is, Revenge, Punishment, Vindictiveness... . Not Justice, in many (too many!) people's eyes, but "AMERICAN Justice".

In reality then, Mr Obama seems to believe that events like these, reprehensible indeed, should be met not so much by Reasoning as by Rationalization of Will, of Power shall we say? In effect, it's more a matter of the non-rational, the irrational responses of rage, disgust, and many other visceral responses that ought to determine the fate of the individual(s) who acted in this way. "Kill him!" they say in their very hearts, their Wills, their Power.

And yet, when one learns about activities with regard to young children occurring in more refined, more 'fortunate' and privileged classes which take advantage and make use of these children for gratification of their own more refined, more 'fortunate, and privileged tastes and predilections, such as "cute" and "sexy" outfits and costumes for their precious ones and other activities occurring in more private and enclosed situations (such as incest, invasions and explorations of parents or siblings or relatives) up to and including what would be considered 'rape' of the child, the judgements and responses seem to take a more well, benevolent and indulgent turn toward those found out.

But Kill the ignorant, un-educated, crass, 'useless' and 'expendable' proletarian for this heinous and disgusting Crime!.

I wonder what conditions make possible human beings such as this? What 'values' are emphasized? For whom?

Mr Obama, in my opinion, has taken up with the side of Will and Power, the side of the Hypocrites. Indeed, problematic. To suppose that killing an individual for acting in these ways (always contingent on his or her position in the social structure) will in some way advance the conditions which made these actions take place from the outset is, to say the least, ludicrous. It leaves these conditions in place and sustains the very society we actually have at present-- each can make their own 'judgment' on these. Ultimately, Mr Obama seems to be very Comfortable with the Status Quo. After all it has been quite beneficent and bountiful for those in his circles. Not so much for more and more of us. The more things are changing, the more SOME would like them to remain the Same. Not the kind of 'Change' I can believe in; more importantly, not the kind of 'Change' I can support or solidarize with. The death-penalty, in our existing social organization cannot be said to be just; at best, it is a Tool, an Instrument, a Means, a Technology of Power.

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OBAMA AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Tom Degan on Jun 27, 2008 3:28 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Don't take any controversial stance he takes on any issue seriously. Remember, he has to be elected in November. There are a lot of idiots out there who have to be appeased. Count on him to come out in favor of making it mandatory that pre-teens carry a concealed weapon. Again, it's all politics. The most important thing to remember is that he has to be elected in the autumn. If that means taking all kinds of goofy positions on all sorets of goofy issues, so be it.

Count on it; Barack Obama is going to be a different kind of president. He needs to say what he needs to say. Don't panic.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
George Carlin 1937-2008

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» Richard.... Posted by: Tom Degan
» Lying your way to the house Posted by: orionsan
» RE: Lying your way to the house Posted by: carbon-based
» When You Put It That Way Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: Nope. Posted by: Longdream
» none of the above Posted by: orionsan

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Bye bye Barack
[Report this comment]
Posted by: esteph on Jun 27, 2008 3:34 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OK - I'm not a US citizen and I have a European perspective on the death penalty but I find this shift tragic. In one move Obama as converted me from a supporter into an opponent. Since the idea of a McCain presidency is almost as scary as Bush has been, where does that leave me? Maybe the US no longer cares what the world thinks.

I just don't understand what it is about America that leaves you so addicted to a punishment that has been abandoned by every other Western Democracy. But to advocate it for an increased range of crimes way beyond the pale. Of course the rape of a child is a terrible thing but many terrible things happen in this world. If we took a life for every terrible act then the pile of corpses would overwhelm us.

If Obama has made a calculated move that he does not believe in, it is sickening. If he believes in this then I despair for your democracy.

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» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: synx
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: phatkhat
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: kimbari
» Obama Lost My Vote.... Posted by: woodford54
» Yes, defend those child rapists Posted by: foreverhope
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: esteph

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Showing his true colors
[Report this comment]
Posted by: leland61 on Jun 27, 2008 3:55 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is just showing his true colors. He is not a black liberal, he is a white reactionary in black face.

Along with his stance on 'free trade' and other issues, he is little more than McCain light.

So far we have candidates Tweedledum Tweedledee - thank you powers behind the curtain. The wizard has spoken, now you may choose your poison.

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» RE: Showing his true colors Posted by: hquain
» RE: Showing YOUR true colors Posted by: jimidee
» RE: jimidee Posted by: Longdream

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Astonishing
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Hans B on Jun 27, 2008 4:40 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama's stance is astonishing and disappointing. At issue here should be the protection of children, not the satisfaction of gut emotion. Child abuse is usually an ongoing thing - unlike murder. It can only be interrupted if the child comes forward. And the child will not come forward if that means that Uncle Joe or Neighbor Tom will die because of his/her testimony.

You can't put that load on a child's shoulders, especially not on the shoulders of an already abused child.

My ex-girlfriend was abused as a child. The jailing of her abuser was a relief to her, because it made her feel safe. But would she have spoken out if that would have meant the death of her abuser? I'd have to ask her, but I suspect the answer is no. And the answer will certainly be no in the case of family members.

A mature person - and Obama is one - surely must recognize that in rape cases (whether of adults or of children), the first most important thing is to protect the victim and to ensure that she/he comes forward with as little pain or fear as possible. Capital punishment is the opposite road: it will give abusers an additional weapon with which to extort silence.

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» RE: Good point, but... Posted by: jimidee
» RE: Good point, but... Posted by: Hans B
» RE: Astonishing ignorance. Posted by: Longdream

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An eye for an eye
[Report this comment]
Posted by: HBoyer on Jun 27, 2008 4:51 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The supreme court is right.
We should go back to the basics of law.
If a man rapes a child. They he should be raped.
and this criminal will go to prison and be raped repeatedly for many years by other prisoners.
He deserves no less.

Obama is pandering to votes no different than McCain. They are nothing more than prostitutes to a decaying political system in America that will eventually lead America to become a Corporate Fascist State.

SEIG HAIL

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» RE: SIEG HEIL! Posted by: Longdream
» RE: SIEG HEIL! Posted by: Dboy
» RE: An eye for an eye Posted by: Bibsisis

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Obama was the stealth candidate of the neoliberal elite
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Ydotheyhateus on Jun 27, 2008 5:04 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
with primaries on the way, the wolf is out of the sheep's clothing:

1. On FISA
"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."
-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007

Obama's flip:
"Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program,"
- Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129

2. Death penalty - Obama sounds like he is channeling his hero Reagan the Retard

3. Obama's flip on public financing on elections

well the list goes on...

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It's a mans world!
[Report this comment]
Posted by: carbon-based on Jun 27, 2008 5:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I applaud Obama for taking a tough stance that goes against his base. Very "McCain" like.

I do not see how anyone could even consider NOT applying the death penalty to someone who rapes a child - although I go further - it should be applied to all rapists.. why isnt it..IT's a Mans world!

The SC needs more women, not more liberals!

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» RE: It's a WO-mans world! Posted by: jimidee
» RE: Post of the year! Posted by: Longdream

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This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
» Disturbing comment Posted by: truthlover

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Obamarama
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Col. Jackleg on Jun 27, 2008 5:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm not nuts about this guy but I do recognize that he is the best of bad alternatives. For once, I'd like to see him assert something definitively and stick to it. If he is simply going to ride the winds of the polls and look for middle-ground votes he is nothing more than a huckster. Unfortunately, there are no liberals or progressives in positions of governance these days, other than Kucinich, but he is off the table as well as Bush and we are left with Obamarama. God save us....or somebody.

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» RE: Obamarama Posted by: StillStanding

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Hard Left Positions Don't Win Elections
[Report this comment]
Posted by: desidid on Jun 27, 2008 6:13 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
and the sooner progressives realize this the better. Lamenting about Kucinich isn't going to move us forward. The reality is there is no perfect candidate. Single issue voters have to take the good with the bad. Look at the body of a candidates' work, is your general sense this person will reverse the direction we're headed or will they accelerate the pace toward a fascist theocracy. If you feel the latter is the case then by all means vote for anyone who you think will do the former. But submarining the best chance we have to change course isn't going to do any of us any good. I applaud the divergent opinions and encourage all to hold Obama to a higher purpose. I also encourage all to voice your concerns in a forum that really matters, Obama's website.

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» Except in Bolivia... Posted by: orionsan
» RE: xcept in Bolivia... Posted by: StillStanding

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You can have him
[Report this comment]
Posted by: StillStanding on Jun 27, 2008 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If this were Obama's only capitulation to the right, I might give him a pass. However, it is but one of many. His new stance on NAFTA, his support of the heinous FISA bill, his dim-witted support of continuing the Cuba blockade and now this show me that he's just another spineless, hypocritical DLC collaborator.

He has betrayed his base and, while it may bhe the smart "political" thing to do, it shows he is a man of no principles and little character.

You can have him. He ain't getting my vote. My vote is too precious to squander on someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth. He has lost my trust completely and I can't imagine any way he could get it back.

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» Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: Scientz
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Veritas? Posted by: Longdream
» My principles . . .? Posted by: Scientz
» The most liberal record? Posted by: Hans B
» RE: You can have him Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: That thinking got us Bush in 2000 Posted by: StillStanding
» "what got us Bush" Posted by: Hans B
» RE: That thinking got us Bush in 2000 Posted by: animalleaderisgreat
» RE: You can have him Posted by: miriamjewett

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ONE MORE TIME
[Report this comment]
Posted by: thebeerdoctor on Jun 27, 2008 6:34 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The late playwright Arthur Miller said: "our main reason for cloaking our leadership with a certain magical, extra human, theatrical aura is to help disguise one of the basic conditions of their employment, namely, their readiness to kill for us."

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Death Penalty
[Report this comment]
Posted by: jmndodge on Jun 27, 2008 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I has been said that until we know what we are willing to die for, we don't really understand what we are willing to life for. While this has often been expressed in regard to defense, and many passionate peacemakers are not pacifists in the extreme (we need more of them) I'm not sure that in civil society when we are not at war, and when taking a life is not self-defense in the heat of passion and danger, that we can modify the expression to read, until we know what we are willing to kill for, we don't really understand what we are willing to live for. I admire Obama's candor and honesty, I long for a workable solution to child rape, (a solution which administers justice to the rapist, finds support and healing for the victum, and isolates and makes this rare to unknown within civil society) but, I see little evidence of the effectiveness of the death penality in producing the results desired. Indeed, rather than deterance, I often hear supporters speaking in tones of revenge. The best news is that Obama's mixed signals, lead me to expect the unlikely, a change in the dialogue to and from the white house.

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» RE: Death Penalty Posted by: orionsan

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Executing rapists endangers victims' lives
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Julian on Jun 27, 2008 6:58 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Some of you folk don't seem to get it, and nor does Obama. Sure the threat of death is a disincentive to raping children (for the human garbage that need a disincentive). Hell I don't think many folk would even PARK illegally if doing so could mean execution. But anyone motivated by concern for the children and not macho posturing wouldn't want to see a strong disincentive to leaving the victim alive to tell the tale.

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» You really believe Posted by: wmm
» If You Think Of It That Way Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: Sweet Jesus. Posted by: Longdream
» RE: The Death Penalty Posted by: Longdream

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What is Rape
[Report this comment]
Posted by: curiousdwk on Jun 27, 2008 7:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I sat on a jury for an older man accused of raping a young girl. I was astonished to find out that "rape" did not need to have any penetration at all. Merely touching her vagina was enough to warrant the charge of rape.

Does this require the death sentence?

I think we need to take a look at how the rest of the world views the death sentence. We are barbarians when it comes to gun control and the death sentence. As a Humanist, I believe that we are all better than the worst we have ever been. We need to try to determine what can solve the problems, and how to make the offenders better people, rather than killing them for one act committed one time.

And shame on Obama for alienating so many of his followers. I feel, no, I know that he has alienated many more than he persuaded that he is "their guy for President". I know he has alienated me. Not that I'm going to vote for McCain, but I won't actively support Obama with either finances or time.

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» I couldn't agree more Posted by: purplewarrior
» RE: What is Rape Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: What is Rape Posted by: goldenta

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The child
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Karina on Jun 27, 2008 7:27 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... was an 8 year old girl, savagely raped in her bed by her stepfather, someone she should be able to trust.
She was raped so viciously that her uterus, cervical cavity, bowel and lower intestines had to be reconstructed.
She will never be able to bear her own children. She will never even have a "normal" bowel movement.
The difference in child rape is that she, at 65 pounds, cannot fight off a 270 pound man. I, as an adult, at least have a shot at defending myself.
She never had any chance at all. Her future has been devastated.

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» RE: The child Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: The child Posted by: synx
» RE: The child Posted by: Joni50
» Bless you for this Posted by: foreverhope

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Obama & Energy
[Report this comment]
Posted by: sunlakedude on Jun 27, 2008 7:29 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I don't agree with Obama on this death penalty for child rape issue I, too, think that he's using a calculated move that his advisors came up with. He also beat McCain to the punch by making his statement several hours before McCain made his. I find his stance on offshore drilling to be much more problematic. As a resident of an "oil state" I am aware of the environmental damage that drilling can cause. But with oil prices going higher each day, the quesion is "Should the Federal Government ban drilling nationwide? Or should we leave it up to the individual states?"
If Florida doesn't want drilling off their beautiful beaches, so be it. But if another state decides to go with it, why should the Feds have anything to say about it? While it is true that drilling now isn't going to affect the price of oil immediately it may in the future when the oil comes online. Every little bit helps and we're going to need as much domestically produced oil as we can get to smooth the transition to renewable alternative energy.I'm afraid Obama's stance on drilling is going to be viewed as "non-action" by people who are looking for a way out of high energy prices.

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» RE: Obama & Energy Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Obama & Energy Posted by: mrmystery

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Why are you not talking about the victims of the crime?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: maggie.henry@gmail.com on Jun 27, 2008 7:52 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All this rhetoric about Obama and the death penality...what about the child, the victim of this perversion? Why are you all so focused on the rights of the criminals and not the rights of the victim? What is the percentage of repeat offenses? How many lives do they get to ruin before you say enough? Give me a break!

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Child-Rape Isn't The Only Issue Here
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Posted by: QQOblivion on Jun 27, 2008 8:01 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I posted this elsewhere, but I feel I should post it here too.

You know what it would have meant, had the Supreme Court ruled the other way? If the US can execute people for crimes not involving murder, then the list of "heinous" crimes which are punishable by death would have inevitably been expanded.
Soon we would be executing people for their "third-strike" felonies, no matter how mild the third felony was. We would be executing people for "terrorism", when the "terrorism" is having a simple disagreement with the government or is "eco-terrorism" vandalism not involving anyone's death.
"Drug king-pins" guilty only of selling marijuana would be put to death. This list goes on.

Also, I may be wrong, but in regards to those "war on terror" detainees that the US wants to execute, aren't many not accused of killing anyone?

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Well, it's still ok for Treason...
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Posted by: truthteller on Jun 27, 2008 8:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...So that means that Bush, Cheney and all the other senior scum in the administration are eligible to hang for what they have done to this Country!

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Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
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Posted by: Outspokengrandmother on Jun 27, 2008 8:10 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Which candidate was it that was damned because he wouldn't execute a hypothetical rapist or murderer who hypothetically killed or raped his wife? I kind of think we have to get a life. There is absolutely, positively no way Barak Obama is going to come down on the right side of everything. I'm personally in favor of life in prison in a small cell with Bubba giving the child rapist a sample of what he did to the child without vasoline, but I think I'm far nastier than Barak Obama.

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Death penalty and health care -- both a set of lies?
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Posted by: SinglePayerActivist on Jun 27, 2008 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Holy cow, are these quite the set of comments, especially by those who are saying (in different words than mine) that it's fine for Obama to lie now and tell the truth later.

So what about health care? Obama was an avid supporter of non-profit single-payer national health insurance in 2003. Now he's all for an alternative. All of the alternatives (that do not get rid of the profit) expand the for-profit bureaucracy and also expand the government bureaucracy, whereas single-payer eliminates the former and dramatically reduces the latter. In other words, as millions of Americans are learning the facts, he is proposing that we continue to lose twice financially regarding health care. The result is not only more financial stress, but also more suffering and more unnecessary deaths. This is nuts!

Obama supporters are so overjoyed with everything he says, such as his advisors coming up with a guestimate of savings up to $2500 per year for a family IF the cost-saving projects work. Looking at costs and savings, single-payer makes economic sense ... saving up to $9,400 per yr ... which is the savings AFTER paying for the supposedly huge increase in taxes that will be far overwhelmed by no one paying health care premiums to the for-profit health insurance companies. By the way, the $9,400 per year is based on SOLID numbers, not guesses. The elimination of excessive administrative costs with single-payer will allow us to confidently get the major cost reductions and then have a system where we can best tackle the other ideas.

Obama is going to lose so many votes to Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney it'll make his head spin.

"it's all politics" and "Barack Obama is going to be a different kind of president" and "He needs to say what he needs to say." Really? If Obama wants to be a truthful, up-front, "different kind" of U.S. President, then he'd better start now.

I know for a fact that Nader will suck votes away from Obama. There is no doubt about that regarding health care.

You Obama supporters can go to www.99oh9.org and select the link to "President" and then select "Obama's Requirement and Promise" because Obama put this in your lap in April 2007 and you may not have ever known it.

Bob Haiducek
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

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EXACTLY!!
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Posted by: Scientz on Jun 27, 2008 8:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
. . . someone else gets it.

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Tom . . . you have vision.
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Posted by: Scientz on Jun 27, 2008 8:25 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I always count on you to bring understanding. You rarely disappoint. You certainly didn't here.

This thread seems to populated by McCain trolls in progressive clothing. Any real progressive would understand why he's taking the "positions" he is now. To win.

Either that, or people rarely pay attention to elections.

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quite honestly....
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Posted by: mrmystery on Jun 27, 2008 9:17 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think I'm a hypocrite :) I'm against the death penalty. But, when I think of what I would do if some dick raped my 9 yr old daughter..... I would most likely try my best to kill the guy, no doubt about it. So, I don't really fault barack for having this opinion. I'd like to look at a poll that asks parents of raped children what they think about all of this.

Now, Baracks stance on FISA is a completely different story. He should not be supporting that piece of shit bill. However, he's really just letting telecom companies off the hook for obeying the president's requests. George Bush is really the true criminal behind wiretapping. Let's not forget that.

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Before everyone blows a gasket
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Posted by: Kym525 on Jun 27, 2008 9:23 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It would really help to strengthen the disourse by RESEARCHING Obama's stances on protecting victims of sexual assault, INCLUDING CHILDREN. His support of the death penalty for those convicted of child rape is not that far out of line:

1 - He passed the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Database Act of 2005

2 - He also passed a bill that would protect children from known sex offenders

3 - He passed a law expanding the rights of alleged sexual assualt victims

4 - He passed a law to make giving a date rape drug aggravated battery as well as an aggravating offense to criminal sexual assualt

5 - Another law he passed expanded the definitions of "Sex Offender" and "Sex Offense" as well as mandating official disclosure

The fact that Barack Obama has taken these strong views in his past record--a record that it is MORE than clear that no one in the alternet world seems to have taken into account, proves beyond any doubt that some progressives want a McCain presidency, that way they can continue to blog and complain about how bad things are. Yes, we all know the death penalty is unfair and skewered towards minorities and the poor as it always has been, but we must also look to doing all we can to protect our kids who cannot say no or have the means to do so. There's too much emotional and physical damage at stake and yesterday's victims may grow up to become tomorrow's perpetrators. Frankly, I'd be more than willing to put a needle in the arms of those dirty old men in Texas who think marrying underage girls is their religious privilege, but that's just me.

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How many angels can dance on the head of pin?
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Posted by: drmflorida on Jun 27, 2008 9:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I admit, I haven't read the ruling, only the analysis and commentary, but as I understand it the SCOTUS ruled that the death penalty can only be applied in cases of murder......

except for in cases of treason......

except for in cases of espionage....

except for in cases of desertion....

So now they are going to say that execution for child rape is cruel and unusual, and can be counter-productive for the cause of justice? But its ok in all of these other crimes?

As an opponent to the death penalty, I found the ruling to be counter-productive because it legitimizes the tortured logic that permits execution in the other cases. If the distinction is that it is an "individual crime" (as opposed to a crime against the state, which is a toubling argument in itself) and it resulted in death, would it be ok to execute for more severe forms of manslaughter? Why or why not?

If they were really worried about the potential that the perpetrator would kill his or her victim to avoid prosecution, doesn't that same potential encourage murderers to kill witnesses?

While I was slightly dismayed by Obama's statement, another part of me was glad that I wouldn't have to defend child rapists for the next six months and explain the nuances of the ruling, because I reject these nuances altogether. The court passed up on yet another opportunity to overturn the death penalty altogether because it IS counterproductive to the cause of justice, because it IS cruel and not unusual enough, because it IS applied disproportionately to minorities, because it HAS been demonstrated that innocent people have been sentenced to die, and because it DOES make us look like barbarians.

The distinction between child murder and child rape is a smokescreen. If the abhorance of the crime is the justification for capital punishment, than one can make a convincing argument that child rapists should be executed before murderers, traitors, deserters or spies.

If you want to have a healthy society with less crime though, you should be putting people in prison for any of those crimes, and rehabilitating them when and where it is appropriate. Anything less keeps our country in league with barbarians. So who cares if Obama came out against this ruling, whether it was for political purposes or not?

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Naivete
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Posted by: beautifulady2003 on Jun 27, 2008 9:32 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am always amazed at the naivete of the Barack Obama supporters, and their endless faith in their candidate in spite of all the evidence pouring in showing that he's swinging to the right, into Bushian neo-fascist territory. No, sweeties, your beloved Obama is not a god, he's just another corporate-groomed politician hungry for power, and he's merely masquerading as a progressive and spouting meaningless rhetoric about "change," when in fact there will be no change. McCain is just another George Bush; god only knows what Obama really is.

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» RE: Naivete Posted by: StillStanding
» I've said a million times. Posted by: Scientz
» RE: I've said a million times. Posted by: StillStanding

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You missed the point
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Posted by: nomomorons on Jun 27, 2008 10:00 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No, he did not come out in favor of the death penalty for child rape. If you will read with an open mind, rather than an eye for drama, what he said was that he disagreed with the decision and that he thought the court was too broad in that decision. As a constitutional scholar, he is being instructive and not political.

People ought not be critiquing that about which they are, essentially, ignorant.

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» For Constitutional Scholar Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: You missed the point Posted by: Longdream

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Obama not reactionary, showed compassion & common sense
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Posted by: Joni50 on Jun 27, 2008 10:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So the death penalty for the rape of a child is cruel and unusual punishment because the victim didn't die? Excuse me?
Have any of these people who support this view ever seen or talked with a child who has been raped, or an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse? If so, they would know that such a child in many ways -has- been killed. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse have severe problems through out life, some even express the feeling that they would have been better off dead than going through the living h@ll that they live with every day. I support Obama 100% for saying that child rapists should die. The argument in this article is full of flaws, it would be an entire additional post to point them out and someone else will probably do this. For my part, I am outraged at the argument that a child rapist shouldn't die because their victim didn't die. Anyone who would make this arguement doesn't know what it's like to be raped.

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» RE: Check your facts. Posted by: Longdream

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Anti-death penalty doesn't mean don't kill people
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Posted by: orionsan on Jun 27, 2008 10:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm anti-death penalty, to the point I would never vote for a candidate who is for it and he's why:

Killing another human being is the most serious and responsible decision you may ever have to make in your lifetime. It is not to be done lightly, or in a fit of blind anger - nor should this responsibilty be relinquished to others to commit on your behalf.

You want to kill someone? Fine, do it yourself, accept the consequences. If you want the state to do it for you, you are asking me as a citizen to be a party to the death.

Innocents have been murdered by the death penalty, it is a fact. Innocents will be murdered by the death penalty in the future - it's inevitable. Do you really think its worth it to take an innocent life just so you can have your revenge?

If you must have revenge, take it yourself, and with it all the responsibility for any mistakes. Don't expect me and the rest of society to do your dirty work for you.

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Death is no punishment
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Posted by: orionsan on Jun 27, 2008 11:17 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you believe in a just God, don't you reckon he might have, maybe, all eternity to mete out punishment? Why the need to add an extra few years on to that, especially considering you may be wrong and will see your own eternal punishment.

If maybe you think god isn't paying attention to all this, or maybe already left the building, or was never in the building in the first place - how can you punish that what doesn't exist? Death would be an escape from punishment.

Child rapists don't do too well in prison. In a world where everyone is "bad" in some way, the child rapist is the lowest of the low, just below those who harm the elderly. Everyone knows who they are before they get there because the guards let the inmates know, and everyone wants a crack at him. If they're lucky, they spend the rest of their life in solitary, if they're lucky.

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» I almost agree with this thinking Posted by: robbie.seal

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Child rape
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Posted by: randyf on Jun 27, 2008 12:26 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't see other commenters making what I see as an overpowering point (I think some have come close, but not quite): as abhorrent a crime as child rape is, at least the child is still alive.

If a child rapist was the least bit calculating, he would note that killing his rape victim after the act would mean no harsher a penalty than raping the child, and would make him harder to convict because there would be less evidence and no witness. Wouldn't that mean that child rapists would be more likely, then, to kill their victims?

Disclaimer here: I'm anti-death penalty, but this seems to make the most sense here--a child alive, regardless of the awful circumstances, is better than a child dead. Yes, I know not all child rapists are calculating, or appreciate the consequences of their actions while they're "in the act" (forgive me but I can't think of another way to put it), but at least some are. Government should ALWAYS err on the side of protecting the lives of the victims.

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» Oh Well... Posted by: robbie.seal

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pop
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Posted by: Pop on Jun 27, 2008 12:31 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It appears that Obama is a Bill Clinton clone, he will say anything to get the Whitehouse. It appears at this point, that he will make it. But without this former supporter. He is now a Bilderberger, is devoted to Israel, right or wrong, and has no intention at all to expose who really did 9-11, and intends to let the Bush regime criminals off the hook. And has no intention of undoing the anti-constitution damage of the Bush regime. I will no longer support a lessor of two evils. I won't vote for Obama simply because he is less evil than McCain.

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» RE: pop Posted by: phatkhat
» Getting enough outrage... Posted by: truthteller
» I'm actually going Green Posted by: robbie.seal
» RE: I'm actually going Green Posted by: NicoSuave

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The key reason to oppose and abolish the death penalty...
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Posted by: sekfetenmet on Jun 27, 2008 12:31 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...is because the legal system is not perfect. Innocent people go down. It's a fact.
If you execute someone, it's too late to take it back. Jail is the only way.
If they are proved innocent later, then they get out; if they aren't proved innocent but were innocent nonetheless, then at least they got to live some kind of life.
If they were guilty, then at least it's a life in jail.
AND you don't have to make the State into a killer to do it.

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What's with this hit piece? The story is untrue
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Posted by: sekfetenmet on Jun 27, 2008 12:35 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Enough said.

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Three points
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Posted by: westomoon on Jun 27, 2008 12:39 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First, so long as a President doesn't make the death penalty a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, that job doesn't have much to do with whether the death penalty is imposed for any crime.

Second, trying to reduce any Obama position to a two-word sound bite doesn't work -- his positions are frequently complex. One might even say "lawyerly". Condensing them to bipolar simplicity means misstating them.

Third, the odds of rehabilitating a child molester are infinitesmally small. It does not seem to be a sexual act, but a compulsion. Foreverhope could probably tell us far more about this than I can, but I do know that a lot of our extraordinary child-protection measures -- are there databases of convicted robbers and their addresses? are embezzlers prohibited from living within specified distances of accounting firms? -- are responses to the tenacity of this behavior. If there's no chance of rehabilitation, which is the cruelest choice -- letting the person back into society to repeat their offense, life imprisonment, or ending their unfixable lives? I genuinely don't know.

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WH
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Posted by: aichbe on Jun 27, 2008 12:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This must be some special form of population control for children, because if some person rapes a child, (and this "child" may be 5, or he/she may be 17), and they realize that they will get executed for it, what reason would they have for NOT killing that child? This could conceivably apply to a female teacher who seduces, or gets seduced by, an underage male, who may claim rape for whatever reason, including rejection or grades. This is a VERY slippery slope, and is probably the only good decision made by this "Scalito" court. If Obama thinks that it's more important to profile for the Pro-Death contingency than to try to relate to his more ethical and ethnic base, it will be his election to lose. If that's really how he thinks, then who cares?

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I, too, gave Barack money, but may now vote for Nader
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Posted by: tomkara on Jun 27, 2008 12:58 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I spent an hour a couple days ago on the phone with the Obama campaign office, discussing the growing disenchantment by Obama's core supporters with the Democratic candidate over things like FISA and NAFTA. I advised the person that at their next group meeting, she might want to let her superiors know what's brewing out there. And now this idiotic Obama support of the death penalty for rape. As another poster has noted - "rape" often does not even involve penetration - simply genital touching. I wonder how many people realize that one of the most infamous of the Catholic priests, John Geoghan, who was murdered in prison after being sentenced to 9-10 years for 'child abuse', was convicted on a single charge of reaching under a boy's swimming trunks and squeezing his butt more than a decade earlier. CNN report following Geoghan's murder:
"Geoghan was found guilty in January 2002 of molesting a boy in a swimming pool a decade earlier. More than 130 people have accused him of sexual abuse during his 30-year career in six parishes. Geoghan was defrocked in 1998.
The 2002 verdict pertained only to one case in which he was charged with indecent assault and battery against a 10-year-old boy. The boy was a college student when he testified that Geoghan reached under his swimming suit and grabbed his buttocks while the two were in a pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991."

I was amazed that a charge of 'indecent assault' - squeezing a boy's behind 10 years ago - could even survive the legal test of "reasonable doubt" and presumption of innocence, not to mention the fact that there was only the accusation - certainly no physical evidence or witnesses. As I recall, the judge cited the fact in her sentencing that Geoghan had numerous other accusers. However, he had not been tried for any of those other alleged abuses. (I have no idea what kinds of "abuse" were involved in those accusations, but the point is, the judge should have restricted herself the case that had been proven to a jury's satisfaction).

Those who call for draconian sentences for crimes - and the US puts away people for years for relatively minor offenses, should stop and think about the Geoghan case. Or perhaps the fact that they themselves may one day stand accused. In cases of "sexual abuse", people are being sent to prison for years for things like "exposing themselves to a child" or "inappropriate touching". "Sex crimes" seems to bring out the kind of witch-hunting mentality that raged long ago in Salem, or, more recently, in Wenatchie, WA. Do you remember the fantastic "satanic sex crime" trials in Wenatchie WA, which resulted in many people going to prison for accusations later found to be fabricated and pursued by cops with sick minds? Amerika seems particularly prone to view sex charges as a form of entertainment. When we expand the term "sex crime" to include anything from actual rape to "exposing oneself" (or tapping your toes in a men's room stall) and demand harsh sentences or a lifetime on a sex offender parole registry, we are not serving to create a better society, but are making a mockery of justice and only adding to the cost of locking people up, for which we now lead the world. Obama is dead wrong on this one, and I am truly disappointed.

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...and furthermore,
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Posted by: aichbe on Jun 27, 2008 1:22 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It may be that being in prison for 40 years would be a much worse term for a child rapist than being executed would be. Death penalty convicts are segregated, but usually, life penalty convicts are in general population, where any con who has kids, or ever was a kid, would take a shot at him. Also, if somewhere down the road, it's discovered that the convict in question is actually innocent, he will be likely to be alive. Dead is dead.
Having said that, I'm against the death penalty in general, especially as long as we have government-sanctioned impersonal mass-murder-fests called WARS. To me, there is no difference, and unless one is actually defending one's country from invaders, war is never justified, or just. Considering the injustice of the Haditha case, and the lack of relative value which Americans, and humans in general, put on "other people's" lives, who has the right to punitively execute anyone except for the purpose of personal protection? If some fool came into my house and tried to hurt my family, I would exact my own justice, and deal with the consequences. For the state to do it would be wrong, in 99% of the cases. However, it IS true that some people need killing...

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» You need to check your facts Posted by: robbie.seal

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What about the clergy?
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Posted by: Dorothee on Jun 27, 2008 1:38 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Does Mr Ombama also advocate the death penalty for rapist priests and pastors or would he draw the line?

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» RE: What about the clergy? Posted by: qoppermeg

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A Political Conundrum
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Posted by: VerLiberal on Jun 27, 2008 1:47 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The points Ms. Liliana Segura makes are well-taken. However, we are met with an intractable problem: human progress often waits upon a strain of enlightenment which can come from education (Where is Plato's "Philosopher King?") only theoretically, not in real life. We live in a political environment where the taxpaying citizen isn't about to have some contrary human rights "nonsense" taught to his teenage son in the public schools - not when he's paying the bill, by paying taxes. And if enlightenment does not come in the school system, where can we expect to find it?
I never voted for any slick politician, and I never voted for Bill Clinton, of course, but one wonders if the system can stomach a truly non-slick candidate. Barack may be slick enough to win the White House, but is he also decent enough to (however awkwardly and ill-understood) enlighten after he gets there? How is he going to enlighten when, doubtless, he will be positioning himself for re-election from (Now what is the lovely phrase Ms. Clinton liked to use...?) "day one."
Martin Luther king once said, "Human progress does not roll on wheels of inevitability." Well, as we see, often progress "rolls" rather like a brick...and most Americans are apparently contented to have over 200 percent the murder rate of most European nations without a death penalty and with strict gun laws. It's sad, really!

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Draconian?
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Posted by: foreverhope on Jun 27, 2008 2:00 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Man that pisses me off! Does ANYONE actually KNOW a child that has been raped? Otherwise most of you are full of shit. Cruel and unusual punishment? YEAH, to the CHILD! Think about the victims and stop your pathetic pity of creatures that don't deserve even a tiny bit of pity. Tell me, ISN'T Obama right? is rape of a child NOT heinous enough for you? He said narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, potentially applicable. You call THAT draconian? Imagine a child you know being raped, imagine how painful that is and it will be with that child forever. And that predator will go on to rape more, and more, and more, until he is dead. That is how child rapists are, they don't stop, THEY NEVER STOP with one.

"I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime," Obama said yesterday, "and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution." Never mind cruel and unusual punishment. (And yes, that is Obama embracing the conservative mantle of states' rights.)

Obama is RIGHT ON, and the laws SHOULD be made at the state level. The only reason I would change my mind on that is if a federal law could be passed for indefinate commitment of child rapists in a federal prison using federal funds. Otherwise child rapists need to be put where they can never ever hurt another child again. Not three strikes, not two strikes, one strike and you are OUT. It isn't progressive to remain ignorant or to allow monsters out of prison to torture and rape those most needing and deserving of our UNCONDITIONAL protection, OUR CHILDREN.

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» RE: Draconian? Posted by: qoppermeg
» RE: Draconian? Posted by: miriamjewett

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Killing is killing is killing.
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Posted by: sirios on Jun 27, 2008 2:54 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My opinion of Mr. Obama has just been lowered a bit or alot. No one has the right to terminate another life. The rational that there are exceptions is a slipery slope that shows the lack of awareness of the ever present pull of gravity.

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» You are a utopian pogue Posted by: robbie.seal
» RE: Killing is killing is killing. Posted by: miriamjewett
» RE: All killing is murder. Posted by: luckypuck
» RE: All killing is murder. Posted by: luckypuck

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What's wrong with telling it like it is?
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Posted by: qoppermeg on Jun 27, 2008 3:07 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why should people who commit severly harmful crimes be allowed to live in our community? I think Obama was right in saying that child rapists should be put to death. It is only "civilized" nations that think twice about what to do with rapists and killers. The "uncivilized" peoples in third world countries would have no problem removing these wrong-doers from their community, or from the greater world in general.
Obviously, changes need to be made in the system, but if we can know for certain that an adult raped a child, why continue to let them live in the world, or live in a jail that costs its citizens more money?

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» 8th Amendment Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: 8th Amendment Posted by: rickiey
» What Constitutes It Then? Posted by: pdxstudent
» No, It Is Not. Posted by: pdxstudent

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Obama Was Speaking to the Authoritarian Court
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Posted by: gradioc on Jun 27, 2008 3:59 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The direction of this court has, at every turn either right or left, been steadfastly towards authoritarianism and diminishing the rights of individuals and small groups and even states to order their own lives as they see fit. The two big decisions this week are a perfect example. Both the death penalty decision (applauded by the left) and the DC gun ban decision (applauded by the right) have one thing in common; they strike down decisions made by representatives of the people with the implied consent of the people who elected them.The deth penalty decision is the more troubling to me because the reasons stated in the decision all had to do with it being a bad idea. It is not the place of SCOTUS to second guess the judgement of a legislature made after open debate and Obama was quite right to question the wisdom of the court in this case.The DC gun ban case was less obnoxious because it at least strove to find a Constitutional justification for its reasoning, but I have always questioned why Chicago or Detroit should have the same gun laws as, oh, let's say Culberson County in west Texas with 3400 people on 3812 square miles.Obama displayed an actual thinking mind and not just a knee-jerk. Wish we'd had that the last 8 years.

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Yeah Right!
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Posted by: GreyFoxThree on Jun 27, 2008 4:15 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
LOL, of course he does, its election time! But all the sheeple know that he like any other politician before him in recent history will tell us what we want to hear come election time then conveniently develop sudden memory loss once in office!

JT
Ultimate Anonymity

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Not New, Just New To Us
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Posted by: pomes on Jun 27, 2008 4:36 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This guy reeks of authoritarianism and so do many of his followers. It's a green, eco-fascism, but fascism nonetheless.

Amerika Uber Alles!!

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one less TERRORIST/RAPIST in the world
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Posted by: genderless on Jun 27, 2008 6:28 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good for OBAMA
Who cares about rapists I don't, and the hell with them not to mention a child rapist, THEY ARE THE TERRORISTS OF SOCIETY. For those who are defending rapists maybe they have issues themselves. I think this will clean the Church from pedophiles and rid society from infesting it with their ugliness.

In addition I don't want my tax money to go to waste on these monsters.

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pro life?
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Posted by: genderless on Jun 27, 2008 6:37 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I am at it maybe as an ulternative they can have them chose between death or amputating their organs and castrate them instead which would be a mercifull punishment an idea for those who promote life for rapists.

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» RE: pro life? Posted by: westomoon

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Child rape victim
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Posted by: mountainmama on Jun 27, 2008 6:49 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As a victim of rape as a very young child, I can tell you right now that the death penalty is right and fitting. When a child is raped, his innocence is killed, murdered, just like his spirit. A scar or open wound is left on his cells. It has been proven that rape and abuse causes damage on the cellular level that remains. Hence, anything short of the death penalty is not acceptable!

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» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: rickiey
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: genderless
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: rickiey
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: Noor
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: Noor

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Now who do I vote for?
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Posted by: Romans1 on Jun 27, 2008 8:01 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OK-so Obama is steering to the right on some issues. I'm a Conservative so I have never been sold on McCain. But I like some of McCains poaitions better than Obama's. But ever since Obama has had a lock on the nomination, he has been saying things I like, such as cutting taxes for business.

So who do I believe? The Obama of today or the Obama of six months ago?

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Obama is a big establishment nothing
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Posted by: fifthworld on Jun 27, 2008 8:25 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't have anything sophisticated to say about this, so I'll just shut up, but first I'm going to say, "Obama sucks and I can't wait to see him disappoint all the Democratic "HOPEFUL." Have fun.

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» RE: You chose to shut up Posted by: Longdream

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Whether you are for the death penalty or against it, the SCOTUS is out of hand.
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Posted by: rickiey on Jun 27, 2008 9:23 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Very simply, the Supreme Court needs tried, convicted, and possibly executed, for abuse of power.

Yes, I'm referring to the child rapist death penalty case. The most damning evidence of their abuse of power, comes directly from the majority opinion of the Supreme Court itself.

The very reasons they use to ban the death penalty, are an admission of guilt.

2. A review of the authorities informed by contemporary norms, in-cluding the history of the death penalty for this and other nonhomi-cide crimes, current state statutes and new enactments, and the number of executions since 1964, demonstrates a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.

The Supreme Court, nor any part of the judicial branch, has neither the authority, nor the ability, to determine what the "national consensus" is.

More importantly, the job of the Supreme Court, is to determine whether or not a law violates the Constitution. Whether there is enough consensus to make something law, is the authority of the legislature, not the judiciary.

The Majority Opinion cited several other reasons to not apply the the death penalty to child rapists. Some of them are bad reasons (it would be a pain to institute because it hasn't been done in 40 years), some are good reasons (it will encourage child rapists to kill their victims) and some are just silly (there are no statistics to show that the death penalty is a better deterrent than life in prison to child rapists because the penalty hasn't been applied).

All of those, are reasons that can be, and in fact were, taken into account by the legislature, when creating this law. It is the legislature that has both the authority and the responsibility to take these into account.

THe Supreme Court, on the other hand, is only to take into account the constitutionality of the law, not the wisdom behind it.

By usurping the powers of the legislature, the Supreme Court has committed at the very least, an abuse of power, and possibly treason itself (although I consider that a stretch).

It is therefore, not only legal to do so, but recommended, that they be tried for such crimes, and executed by firing squad.

Will this happen? Not likely. But it should.

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A child rapist cellmate is also cruel and unusual punishment
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Posted by: GPFrank on Jun 28, 2008 1:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There may be some things worse than death.I have to agree with those who say to look from the point of view of the child. I happen to travel near an
institution where they treat victims of child abuse and you should see one of the victims, the expression on the face.
Undoubtedly there are degrees but for sexual penetration of a child under twelve the child will suffer throughout life a changed view of reality
and a memory that can't be erased.
Perhaps the existence of the death penalty in that narrow situation may be a form of education. Perhaps a jury should be given the option of life in solitary confinement but as in the case of Jeffry Dahmer, a lifer will very likely attempt to do the job.
One should also consider welfare of prisoners, inmates in jail and the presence of such a person; having that kind of a cellmate is also "cruel and unusual".

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Absolutely. Let's not kill child-raping pedophiles.
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Posted by: Philip Newton on Jun 28, 2008 8:30 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Because, after all, they are just expressing their love for other, fellow humans. Perhaps they are in a loving, committed relationship with their 5 or 7-year old significant others.

So, let's not execute them. Let's not even jail them. I have a thought: Let's honor them. Let's set a day aside for them. Let's create a new, special, protected class of victim for these good people who just want to love children - a lot.

No, I, personally, believe that the death penalty is not appropriate for these good souls. (Castration via dull cheese grater, maybe, but not death.) We just need to stretch our understanding a wee bit wider, and embrace these fine people in the loving arms of our community.

You first.

Sucker.

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Rev Wright was right
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Posted by: robbie.seal on Jun 28, 2008 8:32 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is just a politician and will say what he has to. There is no change... Just his hope that you will be stupid enough to fall for his BS.

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Death for rapists of children
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Posted by: PressurePoint on Jun 29, 2008 9:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
would be a really good thing for the public's confidence in our criminal justice system, the societies confidence in accountability, and anybody even thinking about committing the crime! Public death by torture for child rapists would be even better from a deterrent point of view. Also, while I'm at it I'd like to statutorily limit the appeals so they were guaranteed death w/in 5 years of conviction barring a successful appeal. And I'm a staunch progressive!

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Re Comments Below
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Posted by: esteph on Jun 29, 2008 11:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
STFU if you're not a US citizen? Not sure what STFU stands for though I can guess the last two initials. Like I said "maybe (some in) the US no longer care what the rest of the world thinks".

But yes, foreverhope, I know plenty of children. I have worked with them for 25 years. I am very aware of the trauma that child rape causes. I am also very clear that killing the rapist will do NOTHING to alleviate that trauma. All it does is to create the illusion that "something is being done" at the expense of whatever little credibility is left in the justice system.

On the whole, countries that retain the death penalty have a higher murder and rape rate than those that have abolished it. Maybe that is at least in part because the death penalty gives the message that killing people is OK - especially if you don't like them.

Where does it stop? In 18th Century my country had over 200 capital offences. A 9 year old girl was once hanged for stealing a couple of pence. Some religious groups advocate death as a penalty for apostasy. Some countries have advocated death as the penalty for being a certain race. Many countries advocate death for thinking the wrong thing. I ask again - where do you stop?

I know that there are many US citizens who DO care what the world thinks of you and who are mortified by the image that the US has as a legacy of your current regime (yes - that's a nice loaded word, isn't it!) and of your uglier conservative tendencies. Your country has given the world much that is valuable. Why cling to so much that is damaging?

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» RE: e Comments Below Posted by: esteph

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How many progressives would agree to indefinate civil commitment
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Posted by: foreverhope on Jun 29, 2008 3:12 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As an alternative to the death penalty? If not what DO we do with child rapists?

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» It's hard though ya know? Posted by: foreverhope

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dont be dismayed at Obama!
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Posted by: Bearzerker on Jun 29, 2008 6:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... be dismayed at yourselves as he is THEE political cog caught in a Political machines headlights!

he is after all the proverbial reflection of the US electorate!

if you really need to hurl your lunch over his stance...
It's to the masses your chundah deserves to be spewed to!

now how about makeing a stand and doing something about the Black market and its funding of CRIME and Political Black-ops!

nope he wont/cant do anything there either till some serious education comes along and enlightens us all to the severity of this problem and the impact that limiting this resource would have on criminal activities!

I sure hope his presidency will enlighten and educate once more...
the masses who [once more] need a little light in there lives

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Good Lord!
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Posted by: Dboy on Jun 29, 2008 11:36 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OH please get real. This move by Obama has nothing to do with child rape. Why do people here insist on pretending that the issue is the issue? This is about POSITIONING, not about a *real* issue. Ya'll are getting all worked up into a tizzy about something that isn't even what you think it is! It's called making yourself a smaller target so you are harder to attack. Politicians don't care about child rape, they care about being elected. I think you guys are forgetting what game these people are playing and what the stakes are. Obama is calling "knight to kings bishop 6" and ya'll are commenting about checkers. Reading the threads here makes it obvious why the media is so effective at it's job..people are suckers.

dboy

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» RE: Good Lord! Posted by: miriamjewett

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What Next?
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Posted by: beautifulady2003 on Jun 30, 2008 6:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The US, which presents itself as a bastion of moral and social justice, is the epitome of hypocrisy. It is a nation that tortures. It is a nation that starts preemptive wars on false pretenses. But prior to that, it has been for many years the only industrialized, "modern" country that still has the death penalty. Despite the number of people on death row discovered to be innocent, we still refuse to abolish it. However, the crimes for which a defendant can be sentenced to death mostly exclude non-homicidal crimes, and rightfully so.

We are a very imperfect society. We have no right to impose such an absolute judgment as death on any human being. Obama is clearly moving backwards in social awareness by believing it is morally or legally correct to execute a defendant for an offense not involving death.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH!!!
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Posted by: Longdream on Jun 30, 2008 7:26 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is most definitely a "don't bother me with the truth" room.

Just keep on dumping that chum into the water, folks. We don't want to make re-claiming the White House too EASY, now, do we?

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obama and child rape death penalty
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Posted by: miriamjewett on Jul 2, 2008 4:12 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For the first time in barack's run for president, I am proud of him.
The death penalty is a just act. What does society need with a human being that would torment and destroy a child's life?
You can argue the validity to the death penalty.
You can argue about it being "draconian"
You can argue against it as much as you want..
The fact is, society can't afford to keep alive those who live to prey on humanity.
Child rapists prey on children. These monsters need not have our sympathy, they need not have our understanding and humanity.
And above all, THEY CAN NOT BE REHABILITATED!
It has been proven over and over again that violent criminals are REPEAT offenders that our courts turn back loose on society.
It is so wrong to subject Americans to these violent criminals in the name of rehabilitation or the criminal’s "rights".
These monsters lost their human rights when they rape, kill, or maim....
And the excuse that innocent people are executed so the death penalty should be repealed just doesn’t wash in this day of modern technology.
I say the death penalty is not just a deterrent, it is a tool for ridding society of those who seek to destroy it.
What if it was YOUR child who was raped? Would you be all right with the fact that your baby’s soul murderer is living where he gets fed every day and has a place to sleep -all-paid expense for life by the American Taxpayers?
I would rather see our tax dollars go towards helping those families who have been harmed by predators or helping others who are homeless, hungry, etc., than go towards the care of a monster.

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Liam
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Posted by: Liam on Jul 2, 2008 10:31 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is an organizer not a social worker. The thought process is different. The media is so ignorant they report on him using the same old "analysis" (They are still "The Boys on the Bus").

Organizer's organize from the bottom up and they reflect the views of the people they organize. Most Americans think child rapists should be executed - why would Obama think any differently? Liberals are not bottom up organizers - they are capitalists who believe in "capitalism with a smile" and Obama is an organizer and organizers believe economics is the problem and the solution.

What we do with child rapists has little to do with the solutions we desperately need to address. Same goes for gun control - organizers know who the power structure shoots down and we don't want to be without our guns when they try it!

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Why?
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Posted by: luckypuck on Jul 2, 2008 11:17 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“The death penalty is barbaric, so is raping a child....so as a civilized society what do we do?”

Raping a child is barbarous. Then barbarity is bad. Executing criminals is barbarous. Again, barbarity is bad. Is it an over-simplification to point out that two bads don’t make a good? Can barbarity be justified as an eye-for-an-eye? If you’re a bible literalist you know that passage (Ex. 21:24)applies to men “striving” or fighting with one another and in the melee they harm a pregnant woman and as a result she miscarries the fetus. An accident occurs, the fetus dies and the two perpetrators are executed. An accident. Barbarous. But then, the people who lived during biblical times most certainly were barbarous, weren’t they? Were those civilized societies? Except for more efficient weaponry, al-Qaeda and other extremists haven’t moved very far, if at all, from that ancient barbarity.

The question to ask is what does executing any criminal accomplish? Humans have been executing “criminals” for eons, so it certainly can’t be considered an effective deterrent. In the US, capital crimes have yo-yoed up and down for centuries. We incarcerate more of our citizens than any other “civilized” country. We execute more innocent, wrongly-convicted prisoners than any other “civilized” country. So again, exactly why do we execute criminals? What precisely does executing criminals accomplish? The only real motivation behind execution seems to be vengeance. Or maybe it’s more like the satisfaction of venting blood-lust which capital punishment advocates apparently have in abundance.

In civilized societies, truly civilized people don’t allow state-sanctioned murder for any reason. Incarceration protects a civilized society from the threat of repeated offense by the perpetrator. It leaves room for possible rehabilitation. It gives wrongly-convicted convicts and opportunity to prove their innocence. Why do we need more than that?

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noor
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Posted by: Noor on Jul 3, 2008 5:07 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am not American but I do have very strong opinions about this statement by Obummer. Although it is a downright crime that the American people have such pathetic options to "lead" their country, this is the FIRST time one has taken a solid stance regarding those who assault our children.

Because pedophilia is so HUGELY popular among the elite, I do not think this stance will go anywhere. Only the blindest can deny the stench of sexual perversion that flourishes in the upper circles of command, most notably the White House, and these people will protect themselves from prosecution by whatever means they deem necessary. Almost all of them are Freemasons and, ultimately, Freemasons protect each other no matter how odious the crime. Look at the Jackson case for example. Yes, Jackson is a Mason.

Look up MK ULTRA Mind control on the net. Read some of the things surviving victims have had to say about their training to prepare themselves to serve men such as Kissinger, Bush Sr, Cheney, both Clintons, Senator Byrd, and a host of others. The trauma necessary to create a basis for mind control begins in infancy, most notably fathers to daughters. Read the sad but true story of Kathy O'Brien to hear of these horrors firsthand; I could not repeat them in polite society.

A major drawback is that this ruling of a death sentence could be used to frighten the traumatize child further. What 5 year old wants to be responsible for the death of their grandfather, uncle or parent? The traumatized child could be manipulated even further.

Personally, rather than the death sentence, I feel just full flat out castration would take care of the problem. The death sentence is another story entirely but complete castration would make any man think twice before harming a child ~ especially once the process has been enacted a few times!

If a man's privates are used as a weapon, then disarm him! This way, no one dies and society has enacted full retribution from these odious creatures.

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The Truth
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Posted by: val311 on Jul 10, 2008 8:11 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For all of you who are losing your mind over this, the truth is, Barack Obama has always supported the death penalty. At least since 2006, when he wrote in "The Audacity of Hope" that "there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment."

And this quote, “I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,” Obama said at a news conference. “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable that that does not violate our Constitution.” is not him saying that it should always happen. It's him saying that it should be up to the states and the individual courts to decide.

Now am I happy with his stance on these two issues? No. However, I do not feel that he has flip-flopped at all. I knew when I voted for him in the primary that I did not agree with him on all of the issues. As President, it is not up to him to make decisions such as these. He will simply be appointing Supreme Court Justices, and I have full confidence that he will make the right choices.

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Death penalty for rape of a chils
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Posted by: gluck7104 on Jul 10, 2008 9:20 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
GO OBAMA!!! So, let me see,. Why is the death sentence for such a horrific crime intolerable? Why is it that I should care about the insensitive supporters of keeping ammoral child rapists alive? I support Obama and his NO nonsense way of dealing with the unconcienable!!!! If one less child has closure for a crime that makes a 'life' after rape one of tormented thoughts and free flowing fear....GREAT let the creeps die!!!!!!!

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Alternet Comments:

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I am anti-Death Penalty and I liked his choice
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Posted by: masterofbadenglish on Jun 27, 2008 12:32 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Let's look at the reality of this situation. The Supreme Court ruled in our favor. The President is the furthest away from defining what the death penalty should be, so Obama does not have to make or hold promises on the topic. His greatest power is to appoint judges which we know are going to be liberal. I think it would be incredibly stupid of him to lose this election Dukakis style and have McCain make the choices of Justices, so they could overwrite the decision. It may not be what we want to hear but it is by far the wisest choice for keeping this decision in place and having Justices that can take it further. It may not be a win for the idea that the death penalty is wrong but it is a win for keeping this and better death penalty decisions in place.

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» here's a test of logic Posted by: orionsan
» RE: here's a test of logic Posted by: BigElectricCat
» Why not say that then? Posted by: synx
» Cruel and unusual Posted by: foreverhope
» RE: What Barack actually SAID: Posted by: Longdream
» RE: What Barack actually SAID: Posted by: SemiDiscerning
» RE: I agree Posted by: camanokat

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Maybe Barack Obama wasn't being dishonest?!?
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Posted by: aouie01 on Jun 27, 2008 2:32 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I do understand that the communication of the beliefs may have been a calculated one as the article mentions. Why the jump to conclude that Barack is being dishonest?
Sincerely,
Aouie

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» Orwellian Double-Speak! Posted by: pdxstudent
» Do Tell Posted by: pdxstudent

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Indeed problematic
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Posted by: talkville on Jun 27, 2008 3:12 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In taking this position, Mr Obama has pointed to his position of identification of the concept of Justice and the response of Retribution -- that is, Revenge, Punishment, Vindictiveness... . Not Justice, in many (too many!) people's eyes, but "AMERICAN Justice".

In reality then, Mr Obama seems to believe that events like these, reprehensible indeed, should be met not so much by Reasoning as by Rationalization of Will, of Power shall we say? In effect, it's more a matter of the non-rational, the irrational responses of rage, disgust, and many other visceral responses that ought to determine the fate of the individual(s) who acted in this way. "Kill him!" they say in their very hearts, their Wills, their Power.

And yet, when one learns about activities with regard to young children occurring in more refined, more 'fortunate' and privileged classes which take advantage and make use of these children for gratification of their own more refined, more 'fortunate, and privileged tastes and predilections, such as "cute" and "sexy" outfits and costumes for their precious ones and other activities occurring in more private and enclosed situations (such as incest, invasions and explorations of parents or siblings or relatives) up to and including what would be considered 'rape' of the child, the judgements and responses seem to take a more well, benevolent and indulgent turn toward those found out.

But Kill the ignorant, un-educated, crass, 'useless' and 'expendable' proletarian for this heinous and disgusting Crime!.

I wonder what conditions make possible human beings such as this? What 'values' are emphasized? For whom?

Mr Obama, in my opinion, has taken up with the side of Will and Power, the side of the Hypocrites. Indeed, problematic. To suppose that killing an individual for acting in these ways (always contingent on his or her position in the social structure) will in some way advance the conditions which made these actions take place from the outset is, to say the least, ludicrous. It leaves these conditions in place and sustains the very society we actually have at present-- each can make their own 'judgment' on these. Ultimately, Mr Obama seems to be very Comfortable with the Status Quo. After all it has been quite beneficent and bountiful for those in his circles. Not so much for more and more of us. The more things are changing, the more SOME would like them to remain the Same. Not the kind of 'Change' I can believe in; more importantly, not the kind of 'Change' I can support or solidarize with. The death-penalty, in our existing social organization cannot be said to be just; at best, it is a Tool, an Instrument, a Means, a Technology of Power.

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OBAMA AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
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Posted by: Tom Degan on Jun 27, 2008 3:28 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Don't take any controversial stance he takes on any issue seriously. Remember, he has to be elected in November. There are a lot of idiots out there who have to be appeased. Count on him to come out in favor of making it mandatory that pre-teens carry a concealed weapon. Again, it's all politics. The most important thing to remember is that he has to be elected in the autumn. If that means taking all kinds of goofy positions on all sorets of goofy issues, so be it.

Count on it; Barack Obama is going to be a different kind of president. He needs to say what he needs to say. Don't panic.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
George Carlin 1937-2008

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» Richard.... Posted by: Tom Degan
» Lying your way to the house Posted by: orionsan
» RE: Lying your way to the house Posted by: carbon-based
» When You Put It That Way Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: Nope. Posted by: Longdream
» none of the above Posted by: orionsan

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Bye bye Barack
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Posted by: esteph on Jun 27, 2008 3:34 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OK - I'm not a US citizen and I have a European perspective on the death penalty but I find this shift tragic. In one move Obama as converted me from a supporter into an opponent. Since the idea of a McCain presidency is almost as scary as Bush has been, where does that leave me? Maybe the US no longer cares what the world thinks.

I just don't understand what it is about America that leaves you so addicted to a punishment that has been abandoned by every other Western Democracy. But to advocate it for an increased range of crimes way beyond the pale. Of course the rape of a child is a terrible thing but many terrible things happen in this world. If we took a life for every terrible act then the pile of corpses would overwhelm us.

If Obama has made a calculated move that he does not believe in, it is sickening. If he believes in this then I despair for your democracy.

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» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: synx
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: phatkhat
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: kimbari
» Obama Lost My Vote.... Posted by: woodford54
» Yes, defend those child rapists Posted by: foreverhope
» RE: Bye bye Barack Posted by: esteph

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Showing his true colors
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Posted by: leland61 on Jun 27, 2008 3:55 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is just showing his true colors. He is not a black liberal, he is a white reactionary in black face.

Along with his stance on 'free trade' and other issues, he is little more than McCain light.

So far we have candidates Tweedledum Tweedledee - thank you powers behind the curtain. The wizard has spoken, now you may choose your poison.

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» RE: Showing his true colors Posted by: hquain
» RE: Showing YOUR true colors Posted by: jimidee
» RE: jimidee Posted by: Longdream

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Astonishing
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Posted by: Hans B on Jun 27, 2008 4:40 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama's stance is astonishing and disappointing. At issue here should be the protection of children, not the satisfaction of gut emotion. Child abuse is usually an ongoing thing - unlike murder. It can only be interrupted if the child comes forward. And the child will not come forward if that means that Uncle Joe or Neighbor Tom will die because of his/her testimony.

You can't put that load on a child's shoulders, especially not on the shoulders of an already abused child.

My ex-girlfriend was abused as a child. The jailing of her abuser was a relief to her, because it made her feel safe. But would she have spoken out if that would have meant the death of her abuser? I'd have to ask her, but I suspect the answer is no. And the answer will certainly be no in the case of family members.

A mature person - and Obama is one - surely must recognize that in rape cases (whether of adults or of children), the first most important thing is to protect the victim and to ensure that she/he comes forward with as little pain or fear as possible. Capital punishment is the opposite road: it will give abusers an additional weapon with which to extort silence.

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» RE: Good point, but... Posted by: jimidee
» RE: Good point, but... Posted by: Hans B
» RE: Astonishing ignorance. Posted by: Longdream

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An eye for an eye
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Posted by: HBoyer on Jun 27, 2008 4:51 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The supreme court is right.
We should go back to the basics of law.
If a man rapes a child. They he should be raped.
and this criminal will go to prison and be raped repeatedly for many years by other prisoners.
He deserves no less.

Obama is pandering to votes no different than McCain. They are nothing more than prostitutes to a decaying political system in America that will eventually lead America to become a Corporate Fascist State.

SEIG HAIL

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» RE: SIEG HEIL! Posted by: Longdream
» RE: SIEG HEIL! Posted by: Dboy
» RE: An eye for an eye Posted by: Bibsisis

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Obama was the stealth candidate of the neoliberal elite
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Ydotheyhateus on Jun 27, 2008 5:04 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
with primaries on the way, the wolf is out of the sheep's clothing:

1. On FISA
"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."
-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007

Obama's flip:
"Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program,"
- Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129

2. Death penalty - Obama sounds like he is channeling his hero Reagan the Retard

3. Obama's flip on public financing on elections

well the list goes on...

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It's a mans world!
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Posted by: carbon-based on Jun 27, 2008 5:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I applaud Obama for taking a tough stance that goes against his base. Very "McCain" like.

I do not see how anyone could even consider NOT applying the death penalty to someone who rapes a child - although I go further - it should be applied to all rapists.. why isnt it..IT's a Mans world!

The SC needs more women, not more liberals!

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» RE: It's a WO-mans world! Posted by: jimidee
» RE: Post of the year! Posted by: Longdream

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This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
» Disturbing comment Posted by: truthlover

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Obamarama
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Posted by: Col. Jackleg on Jun 27, 2008 5:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm not nuts about this guy but I do recognize that he is the best of bad alternatives. For once, I'd like to see him assert something definitively and stick to it. If he is simply going to ride the winds of the polls and look for middle-ground votes he is nothing more than a huckster. Unfortunately, there are no liberals or progressives in positions of governance these days, other than Kucinich, but he is off the table as well as Bush and we are left with Obamarama. God save us....or somebody.

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» RE: Obamarama Posted by: StillStanding

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Hard Left Positions Don't Win Elections
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Posted by: desidid on Jun 27, 2008 6:13 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
and the sooner progressives realize this the better. Lamenting about Kucinich isn't going to move us forward. The reality is there is no perfect candidate. Single issue voters have to take the good with the bad. Look at the body of a candidates' work, is your general sense this person will reverse the direction we're headed or will they accelerate the pace toward a fascist theocracy. If you feel the latter is the case then by all means vote for anyone who you think will do the former. But submarining the best chance we have to change course isn't going to do any of us any good. I applaud the divergent opinions and encourage all to hold Obama to a higher purpose. I also encourage all to voice your concerns in a forum that really matters, Obama's website.

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» Except in Bolivia... Posted by: orionsan
» RE: xcept in Bolivia... Posted by: StillStanding

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You can have him
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Posted by: StillStanding on Jun 27, 2008 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If this were Obama's only capitulation to the right, I might give him a pass. However, it is but one of many. His new stance on NAFTA, his support of the heinous FISA bill, his dim-witted support of continuing the Cuba blockade and now this show me that he's just another spineless, hypocritical DLC collaborator.

He has betrayed his base and, while it may bhe the smart "political" thing to do, it shows he is a man of no principles and little character.

You can have him. He ain't getting my vote. My vote is too precious to squander on someone who talks out of both sides of his mouth. He has lost my trust completely and I can't imagine any way he could get it back.

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» Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: Scientz
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Than you're an idiot . . . Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Veritas? Posted by: Longdream
» My principles . . .? Posted by: Scientz
» The most liberal record? Posted by: Hans B
» RE: You can have him Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: That thinking got us Bush in 2000 Posted by: StillStanding
» "what got us Bush" Posted by: Hans B
» RE: That thinking got us Bush in 2000 Posted by: animalleaderisgreat
» RE: You can have him Posted by: miriamjewett

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ONE MORE TIME
[Report this comment]
Posted by: thebeerdoctor on Jun 27, 2008 6:34 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The late playwright Arthur Miller said: "our main reason for cloaking our leadership with a certain magical, extra human, theatrical aura is to help disguise one of the basic conditions of their employment, namely, their readiness to kill for us."

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Death Penalty
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Posted by: jmndodge on Jun 27, 2008 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I has been said that until we know what we are willing to die for, we don't really understand what we are willing to life for. While this has often been expressed in regard to defense, and many passionate peacemakers are not pacifists in the extreme (we need more of them) I'm not sure that in civil society when we are not at war, and when taking a life is not self-defense in the heat of passion and danger, that we can modify the expression to read, until we know what we are willing to kill for, we don't really understand what we are willing to live for. I admire Obama's candor and honesty, I long for a workable solution to child rape, (a solution which administers justice to the rapist, finds support and healing for the victum, and isolates and makes this rare to unknown within civil society) but, I see little evidence of the effectiveness of the death penality in producing the results desired. Indeed, rather than deterance, I often hear supporters speaking in tones of revenge. The best news is that Obama's mixed signals, lead me to expect the unlikely, a change in the dialogue to and from the white house.

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» RE: Death Penalty Posted by: orionsan

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Executing rapists endangers victims' lives
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Posted by: Julian on Jun 27, 2008 6:58 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Some of you folk don't seem to get it, and nor does Obama. Sure the threat of death is a disincentive to raping children (for the human garbage that need a disincentive). Hell I don't think many folk would even PARK illegally if doing so could mean execution. But anyone motivated by concern for the children and not macho posturing wouldn't want to see a strong disincentive to leaving the victim alive to tell the tale.

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» You really believe Posted by: wmm
» If You Think Of It That Way Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: Sweet Jesus. Posted by: Longdream
» RE: The Death Penalty Posted by: Longdream

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What is Rape
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Posted by: curiousdwk on Jun 27, 2008 7:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I sat on a jury for an older man accused of raping a young girl. I was astonished to find out that "rape" did not need to have any penetration at all. Merely touching her vagina was enough to warrant the charge of rape.

Does this require the death sentence?

I think we need to take a look at how the rest of the world views the death sentence. We are barbarians when it comes to gun control and the death sentence. As a Humanist, I believe that we are all better than the worst we have ever been. We need to try to determine what can solve the problems, and how to make the offenders better people, rather than killing them for one act committed one time.

And shame on Obama for alienating so many of his followers. I feel, no, I know that he has alienated many more than he persuaded that he is "their guy for President". I know he has alienated me. Not that I'm going to vote for McCain, but I won't actively support Obama with either finances or time.

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» I couldn't agree more Posted by: purplewarrior
» RE: What is Rape Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: What is Rape Posted by: goldenta

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The child
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Posted by: Karina on Jun 27, 2008 7:27 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... was an 8 year old girl, savagely raped in her bed by her stepfather, someone she should be able to trust.
She was raped so viciously that her uterus, cervical cavity, bowel and lower intestines had to be reconstructed.
She will never be able to bear her own children. She will never even have a "normal" bowel movement.
The difference in child rape is that she, at 65 pounds, cannot fight off a 270 pound man. I, as an adult, at least have a shot at defending myself.
She never had any chance at all. Her future has been devastated.

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» RE: The child Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: The child Posted by: synx
» RE: The child Posted by: Joni50
» Bless you for this Posted by: foreverhope

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Obama & Energy
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Posted by: sunlakedude on Jun 27, 2008 7:29 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I don't agree with Obama on this death penalty for child rape issue I, too, think that he's using a calculated move that his advisors came up with. He also beat McCain to the punch by making his statement several hours before McCain made his. I find his stance on offshore drilling to be much more problematic. As a resident of an "oil state" I am aware of the environmental damage that drilling can cause. But with oil prices going higher each day, the quesion is "Should the Federal Government ban drilling nationwide? Or should we leave it up to the individual states?"
If Florida doesn't want drilling off their beautiful beaches, so be it. But if another state decides to go with it, why should the Feds have anything to say about it? While it is true that drilling now isn't going to affect the price of oil immediately it may in the future when the oil comes online. Every little bit helps and we're going to need as much domestically produced oil as we can get to smooth the transition to renewable alternative energy.I'm afraid Obama's stance on drilling is going to be viewed as "non-action" by people who are looking for a way out of high energy prices.

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» RE: Obama & Energy Posted by: StillStanding
» RE: Obama & Energy Posted by: mrmystery

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Why are you not talking about the victims of the crime?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: maggie.henry@gmail.com on Jun 27, 2008 7:52 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All this rhetoric about Obama and the death penality...what about the child, the victim of this perversion? Why are you all so focused on the rights of the criminals and not the rights of the victim? What is the percentage of repeat offenses? How many lives do they get to ruin before you say enough? Give me a break!

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Child-Rape Isn't The Only Issue Here
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Posted by: QQOblivion on Jun 27, 2008 8:01 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I posted this elsewhere, but I feel I should post it here too.

You know what it would have meant, had the Supreme Court ruled the other way? If the US can execute people for crimes not involving murder, then the list of "heinous" crimes which are punishable by death would have inevitably been expanded.
Soon we would be executing people for their "third-strike" felonies, no matter how mild the third felony was. We would be executing people for "terrorism", when the "terrorism" is having a simple disagreement with the government or is "eco-terrorism" vandalism not involving anyone's death.
"Drug king-pins" guilty only of selling marijuana would be put to death. This list goes on.

Also, I may be wrong, but in regards to those "war on terror" detainees that the US wants to execute, aren't many not accused of killing anyone?

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Well, it's still ok for Treason...
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Posted by: truthteller on Jun 27, 2008 8:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...So that means that Bush, Cheney and all the other senior scum in the administration are eligible to hang for what they have done to this Country!

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Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't
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Posted by: Outspokengrandmother on Jun 27, 2008 8:10 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Which candidate was it that was damned because he wouldn't execute a hypothetical rapist or murderer who hypothetically killed or raped his wife? I kind of think we have to get a life. There is absolutely, positively no way Barak Obama is going to come down on the right side of everything. I'm personally in favor of life in prison in a small cell with Bubba giving the child rapist a sample of what he did to the child without vasoline, but I think I'm far nastier than Barak Obama.

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Death penalty and health care -- both a set of lies?
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Posted by: SinglePayerActivist on Jun 27, 2008 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Holy cow, are these quite the set of comments, especially by those who are saying (in different words than mine) that it's fine for Obama to lie now and tell the truth later.

So what about health care? Obama was an avid supporter of non-profit single-payer national health insurance in 2003. Now he's all for an alternative. All of the alternatives (that do not get rid of the profit) expand the for-profit bureaucracy and also expand the government bureaucracy, whereas single-payer eliminates the former and dramatically reduces the latter. In other words, as millions of Americans are learning the facts, he is proposing that we continue to lose twice financially regarding health care. The result is not only more financial stress, but also more suffering and more unnecessary deaths. This is nuts!

Obama supporters are so overjoyed with everything he says, such as his advisors coming up with a guestimate of savings up to $2500 per year for a family IF the cost-saving projects work. Looking at costs and savings, single-payer makes economic sense ... saving up to $9,400 per yr ... which is the savings AFTER paying for the supposedly huge increase in taxes that will be far overwhelmed by no one paying health care premiums to the for-profit health insurance companies. By the way, the $9,400 per year is based on SOLID numbers, not guesses. The elimination of excessive administrative costs with single-payer will allow us to confidently get the major cost reductions and then have a system where we can best tackle the other ideas.

Obama is going to lose so many votes to Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney it'll make his head spin.

"it's all politics" and "Barack Obama is going to be a different kind of president" and "He needs to say what he needs to say." Really? If Obama wants to be a truthful, up-front, "different kind" of U.S. President, then he'd better start now.

I know for a fact that Nader will suck votes away from Obama. There is no doubt about that regarding health care.

You Obama supporters can go to www.99oh9.org and select the link to "President" and then select "Obama's Requirement and Promise" because Obama put this in your lap in April 2007 and you may not have ever known it.

Bob Haiducek
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate

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EXACTLY!!
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Posted by: Scientz on Jun 27, 2008 8:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
. . . someone else gets it.

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Tom . . . you have vision.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Scientz on Jun 27, 2008 8:25 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I always count on you to bring understanding. You rarely disappoint. You certainly didn't here.

This thread seems to populated by McCain trolls in progressive clothing. Any real progressive would understand why he's taking the "positions" he is now. To win.

Either that, or people rarely pay attention to elections.

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quite honestly....
[Report this comment]
Posted by: mrmystery on Jun 27, 2008 9:17 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I think I'm a hypocrite :) I'm against the death penalty. But, when I think of what I would do if some dick raped my 9 yr old daughter..... I would most likely try my best to kill the guy, no doubt about it. So, I don't really fault barack for having this opinion. I'd like to look at a poll that asks parents of raped children what they think about all of this.

Now, Baracks stance on FISA is a completely different story. He should not be supporting that piece of shit bill. However, he's really just letting telecom companies off the hook for obeying the president's requests. George Bush is really the true criminal behind wiretapping. Let's not forget that.

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Before everyone blows a gasket
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Kym525 on Jun 27, 2008 9:23 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It would really help to strengthen the disourse by RESEARCHING Obama's stances on protecting victims of sexual assault, INCLUDING CHILDREN. His support of the death penalty for those convicted of child rape is not that far out of line:

1 - He passed the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Database Act of 2005

2 - He also passed a bill that would protect children from known sex offenders

3 - He passed a law expanding the rights of alleged sexual assualt victims

4 - He passed a law to make giving a date rape drug aggravated battery as well as an aggravating offense to criminal sexual assualt

5 - Another law he passed expanded the definitions of "Sex Offender" and "Sex Offense" as well as mandating official disclosure

The fact that Barack Obama has taken these strong views in his past record--a record that it is MORE than clear that no one in the alternet world seems to have taken into account, proves beyond any doubt that some progressives want a McCain presidency, that way they can continue to blog and complain about how bad things are. Yes, we all know the death penalty is unfair and skewered towards minorities and the poor as it always has been, but we must also look to doing all we can to protect our kids who cannot say no or have the means to do so. There's too much emotional and physical damage at stake and yesterday's victims may grow up to become tomorrow's perpetrators. Frankly, I'd be more than willing to put a needle in the arms of those dirty old men in Texas who think marrying underage girls is their religious privilege, but that's just me.

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How many angels can dance on the head of pin?
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Posted by: drmflorida on Jun 27, 2008 9:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I admit, I haven't read the ruling, only the analysis and commentary, but as I understand it the SCOTUS ruled that the death penalty can only be applied in cases of murder......

except for in cases of treason......

except for in cases of espionage....

except for in cases of desertion....

So now they are going to say that execution for child rape is cruel and unusual, and can be counter-productive for the cause of justice? But its ok in all of these other crimes?

As an opponent to the death penalty, I found the ruling to be counter-productive because it legitimizes the tortured logic that permits execution in the other cases. If the distinction is that it is an "individual crime" (as opposed to a crime against the state, which is a toubling argument in itself) and it resulted in death, would it be ok to execute for more severe forms of manslaughter? Why or why not?

If they were really worried about the potential that the perpetrator would kill his or her victim to avoid prosecution, doesn't that same potential encourage murderers to kill witnesses?

While I was slightly dismayed by Obama's statement, another part of me was glad that I wouldn't have to defend child rapists for the next six months and explain the nuances of the ruling, because I reject these nuances altogether. The court passed up on yet another opportunity to overturn the death penalty altogether because it IS counterproductive to the cause of justice, because it IS cruel and not unusual enough, because it IS applied disproportionately to minorities, because it HAS been demonstrated that innocent people have been sentenced to die, and because it DOES make us look like barbarians.

The distinction between child murder and child rape is a smokescreen. If the abhorance of the crime is the justification for capital punishment, than one can make a convincing argument that child rapists should be executed before murderers, traitors, deserters or spies.

If you want to have a healthy society with less crime though, you should be putting people in prison for any of those crimes, and rehabilitating them when and where it is appropriate. Anything less keeps our country in league with barbarians. So who cares if Obama came out against this ruling, whether it was for political purposes or not?

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Naivete
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Posted by: beautifulady2003 on Jun 27, 2008 9:32 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am always amazed at the naivete of the Barack Obama supporters, and their endless faith in their candidate in spite of all the evidence pouring in showing that he's swinging to the right, into Bushian neo-fascist territory. No, sweeties, your beloved Obama is not a god, he's just another corporate-groomed politician hungry for power, and he's merely masquerading as a progressive and spouting meaningless rhetoric about "change," when in fact there will be no change. McCain is just another George Bush; god only knows what Obama really is.

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» RE: Naivete Posted by: StillStanding
» I've said a million times. Posted by: Scientz
» RE: I've said a million times. Posted by: StillStanding

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You missed the point
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Posted by: nomomorons on Jun 27, 2008 10:00 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No, he did not come out in favor of the death penalty for child rape. If you will read with an open mind, rather than an eye for drama, what he said was that he disagreed with the decision and that he thought the court was too broad in that decision. As a constitutional scholar, he is being instructive and not political.

People ought not be critiquing that about which they are, essentially, ignorant.

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» For Constitutional Scholar Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: You missed the point Posted by: Longdream

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Obama not reactionary, showed compassion & common sense
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Posted by: Joni50 on Jun 27, 2008 10:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So the death penalty for the rape of a child is cruel and unusual punishment because the victim didn't die? Excuse me?
Have any of these people who support this view ever seen or talked with a child who has been raped, or an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse? If so, they would know that such a child in many ways -has- been killed. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse have severe problems through out life, some even express the feeling that they would have been better off dead than going through the living h@ll that they live with every day. I support Obama 100% for saying that child rapists should die. The argument in this article is full of flaws, it would be an entire additional post to point them out and someone else will probably do this. For my part, I am outraged at the argument that a child rapist shouldn't die because their victim didn't die. Anyone who would make this arguement doesn't know what it's like to be raped.

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» RE: Check your facts. Posted by: Longdream

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Anti-death penalty doesn't mean don't kill people
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Posted by: orionsan on Jun 27, 2008 10:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm anti-death penalty, to the point I would never vote for a candidate who is for it and he's why:

Killing another human being is the most serious and responsible decision you may ever have to make in your lifetime. It is not to be done lightly, or in a fit of blind anger - nor should this responsibilty be relinquished to others to commit on your behalf.

You want to kill someone? Fine, do it yourself, accept the consequences. If you want the state to do it for you, you are asking me as a citizen to be a party to the death.

Innocents have been murdered by the death penalty, it is a fact. Innocents will be murdered by the death penalty in the future - it's inevitable. Do you really think its worth it to take an innocent life just so you can have your revenge?

If you must have revenge, take it yourself, and with it all the responsibility for any mistakes. Don't expect me and the rest of society to do your dirty work for you.

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Death is no punishment
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Posted by: orionsan on Jun 27, 2008 11:17 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you believe in a just God, don't you reckon he might have, maybe, all eternity to mete out punishment? Why the need to add an extra few years on to that, especially considering you may be wrong and will see your own eternal punishment.

If maybe you think god isn't paying attention to all this, or maybe already left the building, or was never in the building in the first place - how can you punish that what doesn't exist? Death would be an escape from punishment.

Child rapists don't do too well in prison. In a world where everyone is "bad" in some way, the child rapist is the lowest of the low, just below those who harm the elderly. Everyone knows who they are before they get there because the guards let the inmates know, and everyone wants a crack at him. If they're lucky, they spend the rest of their life in solitary, if they're lucky.

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» I almost agree with this thinking Posted by: robbie.seal

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Child rape
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Posted by: randyf on Jun 27, 2008 12:26 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't see other commenters making what I see as an overpowering point (I think some have come close, but not quite): as abhorrent a crime as child rape is, at least the child is still alive.

If a child rapist was the least bit calculating, he would note that killing his rape victim after the act would mean no harsher a penalty than raping the child, and would make him harder to convict because there would be less evidence and no witness. Wouldn't that mean that child rapists would be more likely, then, to kill their victims?

Disclaimer here: I'm anti-death penalty, but this seems to make the most sense here--a child alive, regardless of the awful circumstances, is better than a child dead. Yes, I know not all child rapists are calculating, or appreciate the consequences of their actions while they're "in the act" (forgive me but I can't think of another way to put it), but at least some are. Government should ALWAYS err on the side of protecting the lives of the victims.

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» Oh Well... Posted by: robbie.seal

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pop
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Posted by: Pop on Jun 27, 2008 12:31 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It appears that Obama is a Bill Clinton clone, he will say anything to get the Whitehouse. It appears at this point, that he will make it. But without this former supporter. He is now a Bilderberger, is devoted to Israel, right or wrong, and has no intention at all to expose who really did 9-11, and intends to let the Bush regime criminals off the hook. And has no intention of undoing the anti-constitution damage of the Bush regime. I will no longer support a lessor of two evils. I won't vote for Obama simply because he is less evil than McCain.

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» RE: pop Posted by: phatkhat
» Getting enough outrage... Posted by: truthteller
» I'm actually going Green Posted by: robbie.seal
» RE: I'm actually going Green Posted by: NicoSuave

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The key reason to oppose and abolish the death penalty...
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Posted by: sekfetenmet on Jun 27, 2008 12:31 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...is because the legal system is not perfect. Innocent people go down. It's a fact.
If you execute someone, it's too late to take it back. Jail is the only way.
If they are proved innocent later, then they get out; if they aren't proved innocent but were innocent nonetheless, then at least they got to live some kind of life.
If they were guilty, then at least it's a life in jail.
AND you don't have to make the State into a killer to do it.

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What's with this hit piece? The story is untrue
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Posted by: sekfetenmet on Jun 27, 2008 12:35 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Enough said.

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Three points
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Posted by: westomoon on Jun 27, 2008 12:39 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First, so long as a President doesn't make the death penalty a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees, that job doesn't have much to do with whether the death penalty is imposed for any crime.

Second, trying to reduce any Obama position to a two-word sound bite doesn't work -- his positions are frequently complex. One might even say "lawyerly". Condensing them to bipolar simplicity means misstating them.

Third, the odds of rehabilitating a child molester are infinitesmally small. It does not seem to be a sexual act, but a compulsion. Foreverhope could probably tell us far more about this than I can, but I do know that a lot of our extraordinary child-protection measures -- are there databases of convicted robbers and their addresses? are embezzlers prohibited from living within specified distances of accounting firms? -- are responses to the tenacity of this behavior. If there's no chance of rehabilitation, which is the cruelest choice -- letting the person back into society to repeat their offense, life imprisonment, or ending their unfixable lives? I genuinely don't know.

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WH
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Posted by: aichbe on Jun 27, 2008 12:50 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This must be some special form of population control for children, because if some person rapes a child, (and this "child" may be 5, or he/she may be 17), and they realize that they will get executed for it, what reason would they have for NOT killing that child? This could conceivably apply to a female teacher who seduces, or gets seduced by, an underage male, who may claim rape for whatever reason, including rejection or grades. This is a VERY slippery slope, and is probably the only good decision made by this "Scalito" court. If Obama thinks that it's more important to profile for the Pro-Death contingency than to try to relate to his more ethical and ethnic base, it will be his election to lose. If that's really how he thinks, then who cares?

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I, too, gave Barack money, but may now vote for Nader
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Posted by: tomkara on Jun 27, 2008 12:58 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I spent an hour a couple days ago on the phone with the Obama campaign office, discussing the growing disenchantment by Obama's core supporters with the Democratic candidate over things like FISA and NAFTA. I advised the person that at their next group meeting, she might want to let her superiors know what's brewing out there. And now this idiotic Obama support of the death penalty for rape. As another poster has noted - "rape" often does not even involve penetration - simply genital touching. I wonder how many people realize that one of the most infamous of the Catholic priests, John Geoghan, who was murdered in prison after being sentenced to 9-10 years for 'child abuse', was convicted on a single charge of reaching under a boy's swimming trunks and squeezing his butt more than a decade earlier. CNN report following Geoghan's murder:
"Geoghan was found guilty in January 2002 of molesting a boy in a swimming pool a decade earlier. More than 130 people have accused him of sexual abuse during his 30-year career in six parishes. Geoghan was defrocked in 1998.
The 2002 verdict pertained only to one case in which he was charged with indecent assault and battery against a 10-year-old boy. The boy was a college student when he testified that Geoghan reached under his swimming suit and grabbed his buttocks while the two were in a pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991."

I was amazed that a charge of 'indecent assault' - squeezing a boy's behind 10 years ago - could even survive the legal test of "reasonable doubt" and presumption of innocence, not to mention the fact that there was only the accusation - certainly no physical evidence or witnesses. As I recall, the judge cited the fact in her sentencing that Geoghan had numerous other accusers. However, he had not been tried for any of those other alleged abuses. (I have no idea what kinds of "abuse" were involved in those accusations, but the point is, the judge should have restricted herself the case that had been proven to a jury's satisfaction).

Those who call for draconian sentences for crimes - and the US puts away people for years for relatively minor offenses, should stop and think about the Geoghan case. Or perhaps the fact that they themselves may one day stand accused. In cases of "sexual abuse", people are being sent to prison for years for things like "exposing themselves to a child" or "inappropriate touching". "Sex crimes" seems to bring out the kind of witch-hunting mentality that raged long ago in Salem, or, more recently, in Wenatchie, WA. Do you remember the fantastic "satanic sex crime" trials in Wenatchie WA, which resulted in many people going to prison for accusations later found to be fabricated and pursued by cops with sick minds? Amerika seems particularly prone to view sex charges as a form of entertainment. When we expand the term "sex crime" to include anything from actual rape to "exposing oneself" (or tapping your toes in a men's room stall) and demand harsh sentences or a lifetime on a sex offender parole registry, we are not serving to create a better society, but are making a mockery of justice and only adding to the cost of locking people up, for which we now lead the world. Obama is dead wrong on this one, and I am truly disappointed.

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...and furthermore,
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Posted by: aichbe on Jun 27, 2008 1:22 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It may be that being in prison for 40 years would be a much worse term for a child rapist than being executed would be. Death penalty convicts are segregated, but usually, life penalty convicts are in general population, where any con who has kids, or ever was a kid, would take a shot at him. Also, if somewhere down the road, it's discovered that the convict in question is actually innocent, he will be likely to be alive. Dead is dead.
Having said that, I'm against the death penalty in general, especially as long as we have government-sanctioned impersonal mass-murder-fests called WARS. To me, there is no difference, and unless one is actually defending one's country from invaders, war is never justified, or just. Considering the injustice of the Haditha case, and the lack of relative value which Americans, and humans in general, put on "other people's" lives, who has the right to punitively execute anyone except for the purpose of personal protection? If some fool came into my house and tried to hurt my family, I would exact my own justice, and deal with the consequences. For the state to do it would be wrong, in 99% of the cases. However, it IS true that some people need killing...

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» You need to check your facts Posted by: robbie.seal

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What about the clergy?
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Posted by: Dorothee on Jun 27, 2008 1:38 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Does Mr Ombama also advocate the death penalty for rapist priests and pastors or would he draw the line?

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» RE: What about the clergy? Posted by: qoppermeg

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A Political Conundrum
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Posted by: VerLiberal on Jun 27, 2008 1:47 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The points Ms. Liliana Segura makes are well-taken. However, we are met with an intractable problem: human progress often waits upon a strain of enlightenment which can come from education (Where is Plato's "Philosopher King?") only theoretically, not in real life. We live in a political environment where the taxpaying citizen isn't about to have some contrary human rights "nonsense" taught to his teenage son in the public schools - not when he's paying the bill, by paying taxes. And if enlightenment does not come in the school system, where can we expect to find it?
I never voted for any slick politician, and I never voted for Bill Clinton, of course, but one wonders if the system can stomach a truly non-slick candidate. Barack may be slick enough to win the White House, but is he also decent enough to (however awkwardly and ill-understood) enlighten after he gets there? How is he going to enlighten when, doubtless, he will be positioning himself for re-election from (Now what is the lovely phrase Ms. Clinton liked to use...?) "day one."
Martin Luther king once said, "Human progress does not roll on wheels of inevitability." Well, as we see, often progress "rolls" rather like a brick...and most Americans are apparently contented to have over 200 percent the murder rate of most European nations without a death penalty and with strict gun laws. It's sad, really!

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Draconian?
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Posted by: foreverhope on Jun 27, 2008 2:00 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Man that pisses me off! Does ANYONE actually KNOW a child that has been raped? Otherwise most of you are full of shit. Cruel and unusual punishment? YEAH, to the CHILD! Think about the victims and stop your pathetic pity of creatures that don't deserve even a tiny bit of pity. Tell me, ISN'T Obama right? is rape of a child NOT heinous enough for you? He said narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, potentially applicable. You call THAT draconian? Imagine a child you know being raped, imagine how painful that is and it will be with that child forever. And that predator will go on to rape more, and more, and more, until he is dead. That is how child rapists are, they don't stop, THEY NEVER STOP with one.

"I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime," Obama said yesterday, "and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution." Never mind cruel and unusual punishment. (And yes, that is Obama embracing the conservative mantle of states' rights.)

Obama is RIGHT ON, and the laws SHOULD be made at the state level. The only reason I would change my mind on that is if a federal law could be passed for indefinate commitment of child rapists in a federal prison using federal funds. Otherwise child rapists need to be put where they can never ever hurt another child again. Not three strikes, not two strikes, one strike and you are OUT. It isn't progressive to remain ignorant or to allow monsters out of prison to torture and rape those most needing and deserving of our UNCONDITIONAL protection, OUR CHILDREN.

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» RE: Draconian? Posted by: qoppermeg
» RE: Draconian? Posted by: miriamjewett

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Killing is killing is killing.
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Posted by: sirios on Jun 27, 2008 2:54 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My opinion of Mr. Obama has just been lowered a bit or alot. No one has the right to terminate another life. The rational that there are exceptions is a slipery slope that shows the lack of awareness of the ever present pull of gravity.

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» You are a utopian pogue Posted by: robbie.seal
» RE: Killing is killing is killing. Posted by: miriamjewett
» RE: All killing is murder. Posted by: luckypuck
» RE: All killing is murder. Posted by: luckypuck

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What's wrong with telling it like it is?
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Posted by: qoppermeg on Jun 27, 2008 3:07 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why should people who commit severly harmful crimes be allowed to live in our community? I think Obama was right in saying that child rapists should be put to death. It is only "civilized" nations that think twice about what to do with rapists and killers. The "uncivilized" peoples in third world countries would have no problem removing these wrong-doers from their community, or from the greater world in general.
Obviously, changes need to be made in the system, but if we can know for certain that an adult raped a child, why continue to let them live in the world, or live in a jail that costs its citizens more money?

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» 8th Amendment Posted by: pdxstudent
» RE: 8th Amendment Posted by: rickiey
» What Constitutes It Then? Posted by: pdxstudent
» No, It Is Not. Posted by: pdxstudent

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Obama Was Speaking to the Authoritarian Court
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Posted by: gradioc on Jun 27, 2008 3:59 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The direction of this court has, at every turn either right or left, been steadfastly towards authoritarianism and diminishing the rights of individuals and small groups and even states to order their own lives as they see fit. The two big decisions this week are a perfect example. Both the death penalty decision (applauded by the left) and the DC gun ban decision (applauded by the right) have one thing in common; they strike down decisions made by representatives of the people with the implied consent of the people who elected them.The deth penalty decision is the more troubling to me because the reasons stated in the decision all had to do with it being a bad idea. It is not the place of SCOTUS to second guess the judgement of a legislature made after open debate and Obama was quite right to question the wisdom of the court in this case.The DC gun ban case was less obnoxious because it at least strove to find a Constitutional justification for its reasoning, but I have always questioned why Chicago or Detroit should have the same gun laws as, oh, let's say Culberson County in west Texas with 3400 people on 3812 square miles.Obama displayed an actual thinking mind and not just a knee-jerk. Wish we'd had that the last 8 years.

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Yeah Right!
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Posted by: GreyFoxThree on Jun 27, 2008 4:15 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
LOL, of course he does, its election time! But all the sheeple know that he like any other politician before him in recent history will tell us what we want to hear come election time then conveniently develop sudden memory loss once in office!

JT
Ultimate Anonymity

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Not New, Just New To Us
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Posted by: pomes on Jun 27, 2008 4:36 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This guy reeks of authoritarianism and so do many of his followers. It's a green, eco-fascism, but fascism nonetheless.

Amerika Uber Alles!!

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one less TERRORIST/RAPIST in the world
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Posted by: genderless on Jun 27, 2008 6:28 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good for OBAMA
Who cares about rapists I don't, and the hell with them not to mention a child rapist, THEY ARE THE TERRORISTS OF SOCIETY. For those who are defending rapists maybe they have issues themselves. I think this will clean the Church from pedophiles and rid society from infesting it with their ugliness.

In addition I don't want my tax money to go to waste on these monsters.

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pro life?
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Posted by: genderless on Jun 27, 2008 6:37 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I am at it maybe as an ulternative they can have them chose between death or amputating their organs and castrate them instead which would be a mercifull punishment an idea for those who promote life for rapists.

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» RE: pro life? Posted by: westomoon

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Child rape victim
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Posted by: mountainmama on Jun 27, 2008 6:49 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As a victim of rape as a very young child, I can tell you right now that the death penalty is right and fitting. When a child is raped, his innocence is killed, murdered, just like his spirit. A scar or open wound is left on his cells. It has been proven that rape and abuse causes damage on the cellular level that remains. Hence, anything short of the death penalty is not acceptable!

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» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: rickiey
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: genderless
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: rickiey
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: Noor
» RE: Child rape victim Posted by: Noor

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Now who do I vote for?
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Posted by: Romans1 on Jun 27, 2008 8:01 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OK-so Obama is steering to the right on some issues. I'm a Conservative so I have never been sold on McCain. But I like some of McCains poaitions better than Obama's. But ever since Obama has had a lock on the nomination, he has been saying things I like, such as cutting taxes for business.

So who do I believe? The Obama of today or the Obama of six months ago?

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Obama is a big establishment nothing
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Posted by: fifthworld on Jun 27, 2008 8:25 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't have anything sophisticated to say about this, so I'll just shut up, but first I'm going to say, "Obama sucks and I can't wait to see him disappoint all the Democratic "HOPEFUL." Have fun.

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» RE: You chose to shut up Posted by: Longdream

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Whether you are for the death penalty or against it, the SCOTUS is out of hand.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: rickiey on Jun 27, 2008 9:23 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Very simply, the Supreme Court needs tried, convicted, and possibly executed, for abuse of power.

Yes, I'm referring to the child rapist death penalty case. The most damning evidence of their abuse of power, comes directly from the majority opinion of the Supreme Court itself.

The very reasons they use to ban the death penalty, are an admission of guilt.

2. A review of the authorities informed by contemporary norms, in-cluding the history of the death penalty for this and other nonhomi-cide crimes, current state statutes and new enactments, and the number of executions since 1964, demonstrates a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.

The Supreme Court, nor any part of the judicial branch, has neither the authority, nor the ability, to determine what the "national consensus" is.

More importantly, the job of the Supreme Court, is to determine whether or not a law violates the Constitution. Whether there is enough consensus to make something law, is the authority of the legislature, not the judiciary.

The Majority Opinion cited several other reasons to not apply the the death penalty to child rapists. Some of them are bad reasons (it would be a pain to institute because it hasn't been done in 40 years), some are good reasons (it will encourage child rapists to kill their victims) and some are just silly (there are no statistics to show that the death penalty is a better deterrent than life in prison to child rapists because the penalty hasn't been applied).

All of those, are reasons that can be, and in fact were, taken into account by the legislature, when creating this law. It is the legislature that has both the authority and the responsibility to take these into account.

THe Supreme Court, on the other hand, is only to take into account the constitutionality of the law, not the wisdom behind it.

By usurping the powers of the legislature, the Supreme Court has committed at the very least, an abuse of power, and possibly treason itself (although I consider that a stretch).

It is therefore, not only legal to do so, but recommended, that they be tried for such crimes, and executed by firing squad.

Will this happen? Not likely. But it should.

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A child rapist cellmate is also cruel and unusual punishment
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Posted by: GPFrank on Jun 28, 2008 1:49 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There may be some things worse than death.I have to agree with those who say to look from the point of view of the child. I happen to travel near an
institution where they treat victims of child abuse and you should see one of the victims, the expression on the face.
Undoubtedly there are degrees but for sexual penetration of a child under twelve the child will suffer throughout life a changed view of reality
and a memory that can't be erased.
Perhaps the existence of the death penalty in that narrow situation may be a form of education. Perhaps a jury should be given the option of life in solitary confinement but as in the case of Jeffry Dahmer, a lifer will very likely attempt to do the job.
One should also consider welfare of prisoners, inmates in jail and the presence of such a person; having that kind of a cellmate is also "cruel and unusual".

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Absolutely. Let's not kill child-raping pedophiles.
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Posted by: Philip Newton on Jun 28, 2008 8:30 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Because, after all, they are just expressing their love for other, fellow humans. Perhaps they are in a loving, committed relationship with their 5 or 7-year old significant others.

So, let's not execute them. Let's not even jail them. I have a thought: Let's honor them. Let's set a day aside for them. Let's create a new, special, protected class of victim for these good people who just want to love children - a lot.

No, I, personally, believe that the death penalty is not appropriate for these good souls. (Castration via dull cheese grater, maybe, but not death.) We just need to stretch our understanding a wee bit wider, and embrace these fine people in the loving arms of our community.

You first.

Sucker.

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Rev Wright was right
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Posted by: robbie.seal on Jun 28, 2008 8:32 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is just a politician and will say what he has to. There is no change... Just his hope that you will be stupid enough to fall for his BS.

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Death for rapists of children
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Posted by: PressurePoint on Jun 29, 2008 9:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
would be a really good thing for the public's confidence in our criminal justice system, the societies confidence in accountability, and anybody even thinking about committing the crime! Public death by torture for child rapists would be even better from a deterrent point of view. Also, while I'm at it I'd like to statutorily limit the appeals so they were guaranteed death w/in 5 years of conviction barring a successful appeal. And I'm a staunch progressive!

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Re Comments Below
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Posted by: esteph on Jun 29, 2008 11:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
STFU if you're not a US citizen? Not sure what STFU stands for though I can guess the last two initials. Like I said "maybe (some in) the US no longer care what the rest of the world thinks".

But yes, foreverhope, I know plenty of children. I have worked with them for 25 years. I am very aware of the trauma that child rape causes. I am also very clear that killing the rapist will do NOTHING to alleviate that trauma. All it does is to create the illusion that "something is being done" at the expense of whatever little credibility is left in the justice system.

On the whole, countries that retain the death penalty have a higher murder and rape rate than those that have abolished it. Maybe that is at least in part because the death penalty gives the message that killing people is OK - especially if you don't like them.

Where does it stop? In 18th Century my country had over 200 capital offences. A 9 year old girl was once hanged for stealing a couple of pence. Some religious groups advocate death as a penalty for apostasy. Some countries have advocated death as the penalty for being a certain race. Many countries advocate death for thinking the wrong thing. I ask again - where do you stop?

I know that there are many US citizens who DO care what the world thinks of you and who are mortified by the image that the US has as a legacy of your current regime (yes - that's a nice loaded word, isn't it!) and of your uglier conservative tendencies. Your country has given the world much that is valuable. Why cling to so much that is damaging?

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» RE: e Comments Below Posted by: esteph

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How many progressives would agree to indefinate civil commitment
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Posted by: foreverhope on Jun 29, 2008 3:12 PM   
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As an alternative to the death penalty? If not what DO we do with child rapists?

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» It's hard though ya know? Posted by: foreverhope

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dont be dismayed at Obama!
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Posted by: Bearzerker on Jun 29, 2008 6:13 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... be dismayed at yourselves as he is THEE political cog caught in a Political machines headlights!

he is after all the proverbial reflection of the US electorate!

if you really need to hurl your lunch over his stance...
It's to the masses your chundah deserves to be spewed to!

now how about makeing a stand and doing something about the Black market and its funding of CRIME and Political Black-ops!

nope he wont/cant do anything there either till some serious education comes along and enlightens us all to the severity of this problem and the impact that limiting this resource would have on criminal activities!

I sure hope his presidency will enlighten and educate once more...
the masses who [once more] need a little light in there lives

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Good Lord!
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Posted by: Dboy on Jun 29, 2008 11:36 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OH please get real. This move by Obama has nothing to do with child rape. Why do people here insist on pretending that the issue is the issue? This is about POSITIONING, not about a *real* issue. Ya'll are getting all worked up into a tizzy about something that isn't even what you think it is! It's called making yourself a smaller target so you are harder to attack. Politicians don't care about child rape, they care about being elected. I think you guys are forgetting what game these people are playing and what the stakes are. Obama is calling "knight to kings bishop 6" and ya'll are commenting about checkers. Reading the threads here makes it obvious why the media is so effective at it's job..people are suckers.

dboy

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» RE: Good Lord! Posted by: miriamjewett

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What Next?
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Posted by: beautifulady2003 on Jun 30, 2008 6:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The US, which presents itself as a bastion of moral and social justice, is the epitome of hypocrisy. It is a nation that tortures. It is a nation that starts preemptive wars on false pretenses. But prior to that, it has been for many years the only industrialized, "modern" country that still has the death penalty. Despite the number of people on death row discovered to be innocent, we still refuse to abolish it. However, the crimes for which a defendant can be sentenced to death mostly exclude non-homicidal crimes, and rightfully so.

We are a very imperfect society. We have no right to impose such an absolute judgment as death on any human being. Obama is clearly moving backwards in social awareness by believing it is morally or legally correct to execute a defendant for an offense not involving death.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH!!!
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Posted by: Longdream on Jun 30, 2008 7:26 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is most definitely a "don't bother me with the truth" room.

Just keep on dumping that chum into the water, folks. We don't want to make re-claiming the White House too EASY, now, do we?

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obama and child rape death penalty
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Posted by: miriamjewett on Jul 2, 2008 4:12 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For the first time in barack's run for president, I am proud of him.
The death penalty is a just act. What does society need with a human being that would torment and destroy a child's life?
You can argue the validity to the death penalty.
You can argue about it being "draconian"
You can argue against it as much as you want..
The fact is, society can't afford to keep alive those who live to prey on humanity.
Child rapists prey on children. These monsters need not have our sympathy, they need not have our understanding and humanity.
And above all, THEY CAN NOT BE REHABILITATED!
It has been proven over and over again that violent criminals are REPEAT offenders that our courts turn back loose on society.
It is so wrong to subject Americans to these violent criminals in the name of rehabilitation or the criminal’s "rights".
These monsters lost their human rights when they rape, kill, or maim....
And the excuse that innocent people are executed so the death penalty should be repealed just doesn’t wash in this day of modern technology.
I say the death penalty is not just a deterrent, it is a tool for ridding society of those who seek to destroy it.
What if it was YOUR child who was raped? Would you be all right with the fact that your baby’s soul murderer is living where he gets fed every day and has a place to sleep -all-paid expense for life by the American Taxpayers?
I would rather see our tax dollars go towards helping those families who have been harmed by predators or helping others who are homeless, hungry, etc., than go towards the care of a monster.

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Liam
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Posted by: Liam on Jul 2, 2008 10:31 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Obama is an organizer not a social worker. The thought process is different. The media is so ignorant they report on him using the same old "analysis" (They are still "The Boys on the Bus").

Organizer's organize from the bottom up and they reflect the views of the people they organize. Most Americans think child rapists should be executed - why would Obama think any differently? Liberals are not bottom up organizers - they are capitalists who believe in "capitalism with a smile" and Obama is an organizer and organizers believe economics is the problem and the solution.

What we do with child rapists has little to do with the solutions we desperately need to address. Same goes for gun control - organizers know who the power structure shoots down and we don't want to be without our guns when they try it!

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Why?
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Posted by: luckypuck on Jul 2, 2008 11:17 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“The death penalty is barbaric, so is raping a child....so as a civilized society what do we do?”

Raping a child is barbarous. Then barbarity is bad. Executing criminals is barbarous. Again, barbarity is bad. Is it an over-simplification to point out that two bads don’t make a good? Can barbarity be justified as an eye-for-an-eye? If you’re a bible literalist you know that passage (Ex. 21:24)applies to men “striving” or fighting with one another and in the melee they harm a pregnant woman and as a result she miscarries the fetus. An accident occurs, the fetus dies and the two perpetrators are executed. An accident. Barbarous. But then, the people who lived during biblical times most certainly were barbarous, weren’t they? Were those civilized societies? Except for more efficient weaponry, al-Qaeda and other extremists haven’t moved very far, if at all, from that ancient barbarity.

The question to ask is what does executing any criminal accomplish? Humans have been executing “criminals” for eons, so it certainly can’t be considered an effective deterrent. In the US, capital crimes have yo-yoed up and down for centuries. We incarcerate more of our citizens than any other “civilized” country. We execute more innocent, wrongly-convicted prisoners than any other “civilized” country. So again, exactly why do we execute criminals? What precisely does executing criminals accomplish? The only real motivation behind execution seems to be vengeance. Or maybe it’s more like the satisfaction of venting blood-lust which capital punishment advocates apparently have in abundance.

In civilized societies, truly civilized people don’t allow state-sanctioned murder for any reason. Incarceration protects a civilized society from the threat of repeated offense by the perpetrator. It leaves room for possible rehabilitation. It gives wrongly-convicted convicts and opportunity to prove their innocence. Why do we need more than that?

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noor
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Posted by: Noor on Jul 3, 2008 5:07 PM   
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I am not American but I do have very strong opinions about this statement by Obummer. Although it is a downright crime that the American people have such pathetic options to "lead" their country, this is the FIRST time one has taken a solid stance regarding those who assault our children.

Because pedophilia is so HUGELY popular among the elite, I do not think this stance will go anywhere. Only the blindest can deny the stench of sexual perversion that flourishes in the upper circles of command, most notably the White House, and these people will protect themselves from prosecution by whatever means they deem necessary. Almost all of them are Freemasons and, ultimately, Freemasons protect each other no matter how odious the crime. Look at the Jackson case for example. Yes, Jackson is a Mason.

Look up MK ULTRA Mind control on the net. Read some of the things surviving victims have had to say about their training to prepare themselves to serve men such as Kissinger, Bush Sr, Cheney, both Clintons, Senator Byrd, and a host of others. The trauma necessary to create a basis for mind control begins in infancy, most notably fathers to daughters. Read the sad but true story of Kathy O'Brien to hear of these horrors firsthand; I could not repeat them in polite society.

A major drawback is that this ruling of a death sentence could be used to frighten the traumatize child further. What 5 year old wants to be responsible for the death of their grandfather, uncle or parent? The traumatized child could be manipulated even further.

Personally, rather than the death sentence, I feel just full flat out castration would take care of the problem. The death sentence is another story entirely but complete castration would make any man think twice before harming a child ~ especially once the process has been enacted a few times!

If a man's privates are used as a weapon, then disarm him! This way, no one dies and society has enacted full retribution from these odious creatures.

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The Truth
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Posted by: val311 on Jul 10, 2008 8:11 AM   
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For all of you who are losing your mind over this, the truth is, Barack Obama has always supported the death penalty. At least since 2006, when he wrote in "The Audacity of Hope" that "there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment."

And this quote, “I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,” Obama said at a news conference. “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable that that does not violate our Constitution.” is not him saying that it should always happen. It's him saying that it should be up to the states and the individual courts to decide.

Now am I happy with his stance on these two issues? No. However, I do not feel that he has flip-flopped at all. I knew when I voted for him in the primary that I did not agree with him on all of the issues. As President, it is not up to him to make decisions such as these. He will simply be appointing Supreme Court Justices, and I have full confidence that he will make the right choices.

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Death penalty for rape of a chils
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Posted by: gluck7104 on Jul 10, 2008 9:20 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
GO OBAMA!!! So, let me see,. Why is the death sentence for such a horrific crime intolerable? Why is it that I should care about the insensitive supporters of keeping ammoral child rapists alive? I support Obama and his NO nonsense way of dealing with the unconcienable!!!! If one less child has closure for a crime that makes a 'life' after rape one of tormented thoughts and free flowing fear....GREAT let the creeps die!!!!!!!

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