Oct 9 2011
Park Yourself In A Pub Bar Or Its Digital Equivalent Following Any Gruesome Murder And You Will Most Likely, Hear Any Amount Of Calls To ‘Bring Back Hanging’.
There are times when the US appears an extraordinarily long way from western Europe. Their puzzled TV coverage of the soccer World Cup plays like the work of Venusians. Their taste for cherry-flavoured alcohol-free drinks commends collective derangement.
On a considerably more heavy note, that country’s continuing enthusiasm for the ultimate penalty certainly chills the blood. I should be more precise. Capital punishment remains, of course, depressingly popular across the world. Park yourself in a saloon bar or its digital equivalent following any gruesome murder and you will most likely, hear any number of calls to “bring back hanging”.
In Dublin, Dubrovnik and Dortmund, a fair portion of perfectly reasonable individuals still seeks the return of that final retribution.
In too many corners of the US nevertheless , popular will drives the particular annihilation of condemned citizens. On Thursday, Troy Davis, convicted of murder on extremely shaky proof, was executed by deadly injection in the state of Georgia. “I am innocent,” Davis said moments before the needle was applied. “I didn’t have a gun.”
It is fair to identify that there are fewer executions in the USA than you may think. “Only” 46 inmates were put to death in 2010. Keep in mind that a troubling 17 of those occurred in Texas and as well as feeling a touch more uneasy about the advance of Governor Rick Perry you will admit the country’s authorities aren’t exactly syringe-crazy. Still, it isn’t a cheerful lot for the projected 3,250 sitting sweatily on death row.
Few front-line US legislators have made any heavy effort to oppose the ultimate penalty. Returning to our opening point about the foreignness of America, it is worth noting that, in 2007, Barack Obama, then a rising force, wrote that he supported the ultimate penalty in cases “so heinous, so beyond the pale, the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its concern by meting out the final punishment”.
Western european readers could not withstanding the various lawyerly qualifications be forgiven for rubbing their eyes furiously and looking around to test they’d not been taken to Opposite Land.
At this time in his career, Obama was being hailed as the fresh face of latt-drinking liberal America. Yet he was supporting a policy that, in western Europe, only parties of the far right include in their manifestos. Welcome to the skinhead fringe, Barack.
The harsh truth is that no US presidential candidate stands an opportunity if he doesn’t support capital punishment. It comes as no surprise to hear that, at a debate, Perry, a serious contender for the Republican designation, attracted applause when commenting on Texas’s disproportionate taste for killing its own citizens. It is more sobering to remember Bill Clinton’s noticeable flight back to Arkansas to watch the execution of a psychologically diminished black man in the 1992 campaign.
Here’s the point. You might disagree the mainstream American politician’s approach towards the death penalty demonstrates that country’s firm respect for democracy. In a country that frequently elects sheriffs, judges and ( beats me ) comptrollers, it might need significant bravery some might say audacity to defy the electorate on such a serious issue. After all , a Gallup poll exposed that only 29 percent of Americans oppose the death penalty.
And yet. The parliamentary democracies of western Europe have, over the years, stubbornly, bravely declined to yield to favored stress on this matter. Of course, membership of the Council of Europe restricts individual states from bringing back the ultimate penalty. But there are always votes in stringing up wise guys. Even a futile stipulation of intention would appeal to a wide bit of the electorate.
Consider a recent farcical experiment with popular democracy in Britain. The coalition government promoted the setting up of a website that would permit visitors to substantiate “e-petitions”. Any sufficiently well-liked campaign could, in principle, generate a debate in the House of Commons. Well, you can see where this is heading. Inside a few days, thousands had voted for a debate on bringing back capital punishment. A 2010 YouGov survey advised that only 37 percent of UK citizens would oppose the reinstitution of the death penalty.
Yet there is , among MPs, no significant support for a change in the law. In spite of recent comments by retired judge Richard Johnson, who requested a return to executions, the situation remains much the same in this fine country.
For once, it behoves us those among us from the bleeding-heart tendency, anyway to tip our hats to the flesh pressers. They aren’t all yellow bellies. They do not always give in to the noisiest, angriest voices. The proven fact that they refused to reach for the rope does not mean they are not listening. It simply suggests they really have some moral fibre. Are you paying attention, Mr Obama?, as reported tagza.com.
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