[posted and mailed]

Jack F. Twist > writes:

> 40% of our prison population are there for non-violent drug
> offenses. Do you believe that's an enlightened approach?
> Giving drug users free room and board at taxpayer expense?

There's a bit more to being incarcerated than receiving free
room and board. I'm sure that if offered a choice, most con-
victs would gladly choose an opportunity to arrange for their
own lodging and meals on the outside, don't you? :^>

Furthermore, where is it written that only violent criminals
should be incarcerated? How about Ken Lay of Enron? Would
you have him go free simply because his crime was nonviolent?


> There's never been a single formal study that shows capital
> punishment deters crime. All it does is bring our society
> down to the same pea brained, revengeful mentality as those
> we murder.

Deterrence isn't the primary purpose of the death penalty:
*punishment* is. Any deterrent effect is a byproduct, merely
icing on the proverbial cake. That's why the practice is called
"capital punishment" and not "capital deterrence," in case you
may have wondered.

As Dennis Prager put it in his Nov. 4, 2003 column:

"And, in any event, the primary purpose of capital
punishment is not deterrence. It is to prevent
the greatest conceivable injustice -- allowing a
person who deliberately takes an innocent person's
life to keep his own."

In a way, it's unfortunate that the punishment (death) is the same
as the crime the commission of which typically leads to that pun-
ishment (murder). The less intellectually sophisticated among us,
looking at the issue superficially, will neglect to consider the
difference in context and will -- wrongly -- see hypocrisy.


> And finally, welcome to my bozo bin. Try not to wail and gnash
> your teeth too hard when you're cast into everlasting hell upon
> your death.

Ahh, this must be an example of that famous liberal tolerance I've
heard so much about.

I wasn't insulting to Jack, nor did I attack him. All I did was
hold and effectively defend ideas with which he happened to disagree.
And yet, in high dudgeon, he killfiled me when my only "crime" was
sticking to my guns and winning an argument with him. He seems to
place a high value on principle, but only when it's his own.

It would appear that the liberal reverence for diversity doesn't
extend to a diversity of views. Jack even predicted that I'd go
to Hell merely for having certain opinions. Even setting aside the
fact that most people with Jack's general worldview are atheists
(which is why they're typically moral relativists who reject the
notion of absolute right and wrong), that's pretty amazing. And
not in a good way, either. I find Jack's attitude more than a
little bit childish.

If Jack (and the two others who've announced their killfiling of
me during the course of this thread) had the strength of their
convictions, they wouldn't feel so threatened by challenges to
their own views.



Geoff

--
"So next time you're with some progressive friends, dissent.
Tell 'em you're not sold on this global warming stuff.
Back away slowly. You'll probably be called a fascist."
-- David Harsanyi