A young girl yawns at the pilgrimage chapel in Etzelsbach, eastern Germany, before a vesper service held by Pope Benedict XVI, on September 23, 2011, the second day of the Pontiff's first state visit to his native Germany. The 84-year old pope, German born Joseph Ratzinger, has a packed program, with 18 sermons and speeches planned for his four-day trip to Berlin, Erfurt in the ex-German Democratic Republic and Freiburg. By Odd Andersen /AFP/Getty Images.
A reader writes:
This quote from Wilkinson drives me nuts:
We punish to deter. We punish to acknowledge the harm brought to the victim, to their loved ones, to their community. We punish to shame and to publicly dishonor the criminal. But the way we do it should embody ideals of humanity, magnanimity, and improvement. Punishment thus should be as light as is consistent with the requirements of security and harmonious society. We must learn, against the grain of our vengeful retributive instincts, to find satisfaction in justice that leaves the thief with his hands, the murderer with his life.
I’m opposed to capital punishment on a purely practical grounds, so Wilkinson is making an argument that effectively leaves us on the same side. However, he argues from a flawed premise – the same premise that fuels death penalty supports. I detest the notion that the criminal justice system exists to punish people.
Law enforcement, courts, probation and parole agents and community/juvenile intervention programs should exist to make us safer, period. Either through preventing crime, or by removing criminals from society, the goal is simply to protect our life, liberty and property. I have no interest in society exacting revenge for someone’s misdeeds, or making sure they suffer some sort of equivalent consequences.
As a pure choice, I don’t care if a murderer is incarcerated for life or put to death; I want him removed from society. How we can do that in the most permanent, cost-effective way is what matters. I don’t give a damn if the offender ever feels remorse or is rehabilitated, I just don’t want them to be able to do it again. The death penalty only brings opportunities for irreversible mistakes, as well as questions of morality, ethics and cost into a realm where they are neither helpful or needed.
In short, I oppose the death penalty because it does not provide any additional safe guard against violent crime, yet presents a pile of moral and financial problems to criminal justice.
Another poses a scenario that complicates the reader's bottom line:
OK, so some 6'5'' dude that looks like a pro wrestler rapes and kills 10 men with his bare hands. Because capital punishment is now abolished, he is sentenced to life in prison and put in a cell with YOU, who is there for manslaughter because you ran over somebody while drunk with zero intentions of hurting anybody, or maybe you just sold a kilo of cocaine to the wrong guy. Is that fair or "just" to you to be alone in a 10'x12'cage with this vicious, violent madman? Or even in the same chow line?
Since he has already been punished as much as he possibly can by law (life without parole), what incentive does he have NOT to rape and kill you right there in prison? If he does attack you, what penalty will they threaten him with? Not execution, since that is off the table, right? I guess they could give him "double-life," but that doesn't help his cellmate's shattered skull or his next victim, now does it?
So what exactly would restrain the behavior of "lifers" who would have nothing to lose if execution isn't on the table?
Via E.D. Kain.
If Rick Perry's candidacy falls apart, Frum sees Huntsman mounting a formidable challenge to Romney from the right:
Huntsman has a real chance to present himself as the Buckley candidate: the most conservative viable candidate. If this plan works, it will raise two thoughts: What a nimble piece of campaigning by Huntsman! Perry followed the obvious path (lurch hard right to gain the Tea Party, then pivot to the center to appear electable) – and tripped over his own feet. Huntsman did the opposite, feinting left to gain elite media support – then reasserting his previous conservative credentials on abortion and taxes.
He's declining in the polls:
After two debates Texas Governor Rick Perry’s lead over Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination has fallen by a bit over 5 points.
When Perry entered the race he enjoyed an immediate 15 point net bounce in his polling versus Romney. That moved Perry from 5 points behind Romney to 10 points ahead. This lead remained steady across nine polls prior to the GOP debate on September 7 at the Reagan Library sponsored by NBC and Politico. Following that debate there may have been a slight decline in Perry’s lead, but following the September 12 CNN/Tea Party Express debate in Florida, that lead clearly declined to slightly under 5 percent. That amounts to giving up 1/3 of the sharp gain after Perry entered the race, but still leaves Perry ahead of Romney and in a considerably better position than before he entered the race. After Thursday night’s third debate we will look for new polls to say if this decline continues or not.
Video via Matt Welch, who quips, "If you can't slap Mitt Romney silly for being a flip-flopping used car salesman, you can't win the GOP presidential nomination."
Driving faster can be safer.
Hitch blames God:
The reason why the United States is alone among comparable countries in its commitment to doing this is that it is the most religious of those countries. (Take away only China, which is run by a very nervous oligarchy, and the remaining death-penalty states in the world will generally be noticeable as theocratic ones.) Once we clear away the brush, then, we can see the crystalline purity of the lex talionis and the principle of an eye for an eye.
"A story about growing up in the universe":
"I hope Governor Rick Perry enjoyed his six week run as the front runner of the GOP field, because it’s now over," – Pete Wehner, Commentary.
Garrett Epps argues that the former impedes the latter:
Courts can’t conjure social change out of the air, like magicians with top hats. Courts don’t organize movements or conduct mass education campaigns. Those are the province of ordinary people. Courts can, however, succeed depressingly often in freezing the status quo and paralyzing legislatures, sometimes for decades.
After the Civil Rights Cases and Plessy, the ideal of an integrated society was crushed for more than 50 years. Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) thwarted a national movement to end child labor. Only after Darby, two decades later, was child labor banished from mines and factories. (If you doubt that it would have persisted otherwise, consider that the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, upheld in Darby, exempts agricultural work from its child-labor provisions. Last year, Human Rights Watch reported that “hundreds of thousands of children under age 18 are working in agriculture in the United States.”)
Michael McCann offers an alternative view:
The Dish 