CA anti-death penalty measure qualifies for Nov. ballot

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dear California,

Just keep doing what you're doing.

Sincerely,
Texas

Dear Texas,

Keep thinking you're all that and ignore the judgment of history and every other civilized country for your state-murder-boner.

Sincerely,
States that don't think everything they do is automatically hot sh**t in a champagne glass

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dear California,

Just keep doing what you're doing.

Sincerely,
Texas

Dear Texas,

Keep thinking you're all that and ignore the judgment of history and every other civilized country for your state-murder-boner.

Sincerely,
States that don't think everything they do is automatically hot sh**t in a champagne glass

Why so much hate?

Sorry. Instinctive reaction to Texan arrogance, particularly about subjects like the death penalty, which one would ideally really hope not even Texans would get arrogant about.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dear California,

Just keep doing what you're doing.

Sincerely,
Texas

Dear Texas,

Keep thinking you're all that and ignore the judgment of history and every other civilized country for your state-murder-boner.

Sincerely,
States that don't think everything they do is automatically hot sh**t in a champagne glass

Why so much hate?

Sorry. Instinctive reaction to Texan arrogance...

Where I come from there's a saying, "It ain't braggin' if it's true".  I googled for that saying, just to learn where it originated.  It seems it's credited to a few people, notably football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant (who coached at Texas A&M), baseball pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, and boxer Muhummad Ali.  Ironically on the first page of the search results was this entry from just last week:  http://pjmedia.com/tatler/headline/it-aint-bragging-if-its-true-texas-remains-the-top-state-for-business/

Where I come from there's a saying, "Don't toot your own horn, a-hole." I can't source it, but the first time I heard it was from my Italian aunt in West Springfield.

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Well, we like to think we keep our prisons the way they need to be to minimize the condemned men's complaints about the death penalty.  [/quote]

I don't think that's the precise concern that people from elsewhere have with your penal system.

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It doesn't on a serious level, but I won't lie, it kind of does as black comedy.

Ron White explains Texas vs. California on the Death Penalty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgQRgT15f9U

Oh wow. This guy is an unbelievable cretin.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Seatown, the first problem with that line of reasoning is that there are, at least at the moment, a lot more whites in this country than there are blacks and Hispanics. (I'm not sure if this is true in California any more.) The second problem is that it's ridiculous.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Keep it.

You do realize that the death penalty in California is now basically an extremely expensive form of life in prison, don't you?

Perhaps. I still don't favor abolishing it, however.

Any particular reason why an inoperative death penalty is better than no death penalty?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Keep it.

You do realize that the death penalty in California is now basically an extremely expensive form of life in prison, don't you?

Perhaps. I still don't favor abolishing it, however.

Any particular reason why an inoperative death penalty is better than no death penalty?

I believe that the possibility of capital punishment should exist, even if it is not used. The fact that California has an inoperative death penalty, to me, is more of an argument against the fact that it is inoperative, not against the death penalty itself.

That logic seems skewed to me, but it makes sense internally, so fair enough.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Government, by nature, is too inept to be trusted with the privilege of executing (read:murdering, exacting vengeance on) it's own constituents.  One innocent person dead at the hands of the government charged with protecting him/her and their rights is one person too many. The fact that we still have the death penalty is the strongest argument against the existence of evolution that I can make, completely barbaric law to still have in the 21st century.

I entirely agree, with the exception that I think it's an argument not against evolution but against the idea that evolution, biological or social, has any precise telos as such; thus the telos must be looked for elsewhere, no? This is where I part from Hegel and Marx, who were good diagnosticians but bad progonsticators.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I believe that every sapient individual has a fundamental right to life, something that no government can rightfully take away.

Only the sapient?  (I admit I had to look it up.)  So stupid and crazy people get no such right?

Anyway, by that standard you'd have to oppose a government using deadly force to oppose a military invasion.

Stupid and crazy people are generally considered sapient, unless you are Peter Singer.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sapient in the sense that it's being used here is more like what most people think sentient means. I'm not sure when this usage originated.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sapient in the sense that it's being used here is more like what most people think sentient means. I'm not sure when this usage originated.

Yeah, but he's trying to exclude fetuses.  I'm pro-choice on abortion so I don't have a dog in the fight other than a sensible statement.  It looks like neither "sapient" (excludes stupid and crazy) nor "sentient" (includes fetuses) will do what he wants.

Sapient is used the way that he wants in utilitarian philosophy circles, but that obviously led to confusion. Conscious runs into obvious problems. Self-aware puts us in odd territory regarding the seriously retarded. So I'm really not sure.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd vote for it.  I like the requirement to work while in prison, and in today's system of constant appeals, the death penalty is a financial drain on the justice system.

Maybe this is just the Texas view, but it seems to us that if your state's getting a lot of appeals from Death Row, then maybe you need to make some adjustments in your prison system so that life there is not so "appealing".

That's an...understandable point of view, but in fact California has infamously crowded and nasty prison conditions, probably worse than those in Texas.