According to a TOC facebook update, Yong Vui Kong will be hanged by the Singapore government on Dec 4, 2009 (Fri). These State-sponsored killings ‘normally’ take place at 6am on Fridays. Read this article for an idea about Vui Kong’s final days.

Click on image to enlarge

Statement from the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign

The President has responded to the petition for clemency of Yong Vui Kong sent in by the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC) through his Principal Private Secretary Mr. Tan Eng Beng.

“I am directed to refer to the petition for clemency of Yong Vui Kong and to inform you that the President, after due consideration of the petition and on the advice of the Cabinet, has decided that the sentence of death should stand.”

According to the date stated on the letter, the statement was issued on 20 November 2009. M Ravi, lawyer for Yong and co-campaigner of the SADPC, received the letter on 26 November 2009.

Yong has also signed a document agreeing to donate his organs.

Although no date has been fixed yet, he is expected to hang the week after next.

M Ravi has been allowed to talk to his client and will do so in the week to come. Further legal action to save Yong in this short amount of time, is being planned. Let’s all hope for the best.

Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign singaporeantideathpenalty@gmail.com

From Rachel’s blog post,

The anti-death penalty campaign in Singapore has been held under much criticisms from the supporters of the death penalty. I think that the supporters of the death penalty have misunderstood our point. I would like to further reinforce that the whole point about the anti-death penalty campaign is that there are many other ways the judiciary can punish those who commit crimes. The death penalty is not the way because it takes away lives and because it leaves no room for rehabilitation and repentance. We are not saying that being a drug mule is right, not saying that any other crimes are right. We are saying that the death penalty is not a solution at all.

Watch the rest of the videos here of the forum/campaign held on Oct 10, 2009.

Note: Scanned image of petition from Ravi Philemon’s article on the forum.

First day on tumblr;

I don’t taunt octopus…

I do taunt New Yorker…

I want old friends back…

I feel sad… … so I try to do something about it. 

Is Charlie Brooker good? Yes.

Is Peter Mandelson bad? Yes

Stop! Poem time. Thanks 1920s poet lady whose name I have forgotten.

LGBT Rights Activists

This is going to be a strange post from me, since I usually keep silent on LGBT issues in Uganda.  After reading about a 2002 campaign by Ugandan activists to deport American journalist Katherine Roubos during her internship with the Kampala-based Daily Monitor for her analytical coverage of a gay rights’ court case, I’ve never wanted to comment.  Although the articles were assigned to Roubos by her editor, who praised her “enterprising and reliable reporting,” and she did not take an editorial perspective, hundreds of Ugandans gathered that August in a rugby field to demand her deportation, calling her a “homo propagandist.”

Martin Ssempa, who I interviewed last summer for an unrelated story, spoke during the rally, and shared his google search of Roubos with the crowd.  Using the search engine, he saw that Roubos had been involved with Stanford University’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center, and accused her of being a lesbian involved in spreading not journalism, but “criminal propaganda.”  For my Ugandan readers, such centers and programs are not uncommon in the U.S., especially at colleges.  Many hold events that celebrate diversity and support the campus’ LGBT students.

Despite my silence on these issues in the past, I have to speak up.  I can’t even begin to describe how disturbing I find the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which is in a Ugandan parliamentary committee right now.  The bill is so severe it’s practically laughable; it would be satire if it wasn’t, well, real.

Homosexuality has always been illegal in Uganda, due to my favorite country’s (dated) colonial law, but this bill practically makes that draconian law look like a pride parade.  (The current law classifies homosexuality as a “crime against the order of nature.”)

Some low points:
-The bill would nullify any international treaties that don’t have an explicit anti-homosexuality sentiment.
-People engaging in homosexuality will face life imprisonment.  Those found spreading HIV through homosexual acts will be put to death, as will those who engage in homosexuality with minors and the disabled.
-Those with knowledge of homosexuals living in Uganda and don’t report the individual to the police within 24 hours can face three years in jail.
-Ugandans in the diaspora in gay relationships could be extradited back to Uganda and put in jail for life.

One big change in my life that happened as a result of living in Uganda was constantly interacting with people who misunderstand and hate gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.  At first, I felt puzzled.  How could my kind, sensitive, intelligent and empathetic friends and coworkers really feel that way about gay people? I tried to keep my own background in perspective– after all, I am a child of two progressive parents who met at San Francisco State, liberal California transplants who now live in the suburbs of New York City.  I went to Sarah Lawrence College, where you can get a degree in LGBT studies.

This was very different from the background of my treasured coworkers and friends, needless to say.  I remember a professor from Sarah Lawrence, Joshua Muldavin (my don!),  who said our lives are full of many, many contradictions– and we need to hold those contradictions in our hands, and somehow draw strength from them.  This always confused me.  Don’t these contradictions weaken us, rather than strengthen us? My life in Uganda was full of many contradictions, exposing constant complexities I had never fully considered.  The twenty-year-old me would never grasp that I could have a friendship with someone who genuinely believes that gay people have to wear “Pampers” because of their anal sex lives.  But, this is what an incredibly kind coworker and neighbor told us at an editorial meeting at New Vison, and she genuinely believed it.

There is a ton of misinformation floating around in Uganda about gay people.  For instance, some coworkers at New Vision couldn’t tell the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, perceiving homosexuality as something synonymous with, let’s say, a Ugandan male headmaster forcing his boy students into sexual acts (what that says about the education system, I don’t know!).

Homosexuality (as presented in the Ugandan media) seems inextricably linked to defilement, the English term for molestation.  My supervisor, trying to explain how homosexuality works to editors and reporters at an editorial meeting, said sympathetically that homosexuals are traumatized, formerly defiled children who repeat the cycle by defiling other boy students.  To me, homosexuality seems as linked to molestation as heterosexuality does– after all, the New Vision newspaper was full of stories of female students being molested by men in their communities, from teachers to relatives.  But to many of my colleagues, they couldn’t explain the difference between the two.

My SIT urban host mom also did not know what the term gay meant.  One time, in Kanyanya, she asked me if Michael Jackson was a “lesbian,” and did he really defile boy children in America? This made me laugh in surprise, and I told her that lesbians were women who had relationships with other women, and that adults who molest children in the U.S. are called “pedophiles.”
What we do know is that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill under review in a Ugandan Parliament committee is, well, insane.  Just the nullifying international treaties part alone is rather crazy.

At the CHOGM meeting last Friday in Trinidad and Tobago, Canada was openly hostile to Uganda, and the UK prime minister Gordon Brown tried to bring the issue up with President Museveni.  Activists there called for Uganda to be expelled from the Commonwealth if the bill passes.

What is even more fascinating is how American evangelicals have been involved in this bill.  Last March, three American evangelicals traveled to Uganda for a conference, hoping to “expose the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexuality agenda.”  The first is Scott Lively, president of Defend the Family International, and the second is Don Schmierer, an American author who works with, yes, homosexuality recovery groups.  The third is Caleb Lee Brundidge, who has made a career as a “sexuality reorientation coach.”  This would all be laughable in the sentiment of the film “But I’m a Cheerleader” (I love Natasha Lyonne in that film!), if it wasn’t all so dangerous.

Scott Lively is one of three American evangelists linked to lethal anti-gay bill in Uganda's Parliament

These American leaders have been working with Uganda’s Stephen Langa, an evangelist who runs the Kampala-based Family Life Network.  ’As one parent told me,” said Langa, who accuses Uganda’s gay population of recruiting schoolchildren into homosexality.  ”We would rather live in grass huts with our morality than in skyscrapers among homosexuals.”  Pastor Martin Ssempa, who I had great conversations with over the summer, has said Uganda no longer cares about Western donors, now that they have “oil money.”

Contradictions, contradictions.  Uganda has sold its oil fields to Canadian and now Italian investors, and a huge chunk of the country’s budget is also financed by Western governments.  But I guess on the issue of homosexuality (rather than on the issue of, I don’t know, national sovereignty?), Uganda is happy to break with the Western world.  Unless, of course, you are breaking bread with the sexual reorientation coaches of the world, but we’ll leave that to Langa to explain.

Columbia MO – Having breakfast before work with colleagues is a way to connect in our otherwise hectic world. Small corner cafes are usually the best; good coffee, good food and a wait staff that knows everyone. I use to own such a restaurant in Denver.

While having their breakfast this morning, four Lakewood Washington police officers were shot and killed. Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer said that the attack was targeted on these officers, not on the other patrons in the café. The names of the officers have not yet been released.

The death of a police officer, or any other public safety professional, is saddening. The calculated murder of four police officers is monstrous. It is terrorism.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and to the City of Lakewood.

There is a theory about reward and punishment. The punishment should be so great that the action, in this case the murders, would not happen. The reward should be so great that there would be no hesitation for doing the right thing.

There is little evidence that the threat of the death penalty is a deterrent in the commission of premeditated murder or domestic terrorism. For terrorists, the punishment is just not big enough to deter the action. For terrorists, the reward of becoming a martyr is far greater.

This, as the fire bombings in Seattle last October, was an act of domestic terrorism. The shooters, reportedly two at the time of this writing, are no different from al Qaeda or Taliban suicide bombers. Their deaths will only make them martyrs in the eyes of others, whether members of their gang or of an anarchist group.

And if the reward for the murder of the Lakewood police officers was so great that the shooters planned and carried out the attack, the reward for finding them should be equal or greater.

It is more important to apprehend and convict in a court of law then to reward them with death. As of 1:00 pm CST, the reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the two shooters is $10,000. Considering the level of this attack, considering the level of the planning and coordination, $10,000 is not enough. The reward needs to be $100,000.

It is too soon for the city to have set up a memorial fund or a method of raising that reward to a level far more substantial. I know the citizens of this Tacoma suburb will contribute heavily to both funds. As ask that you find it in your heart to do the same.

Jeff Gamso at “Gamso – For the Defense” put up a thoughtful post that is responsive to the question I posed in my entry on the Gallup poll numbers.  You can visit check out his insightful analysis here: http://gamso-forthedefense.blogspot.com/2009/11/numbers-speak.html.

In October, Gallup released figures regarding its most recent poll on the death penalty.  The report is available on the Death Penalty Information Center website here.

The most cited figures from Gallup reflect two continuing trends: (1) “65% of Americans continue to support the use of the death penalty for persons convicted of murder (show[ing] little change over the last six years);” and (2) when posed with life imprisonment as an alternative to the death penalty for convicted murderers, “47% said they preferred the death penalty (48% favored life imprisonment).”  While these numbers are obviously important to people who care about the death penalty, I took a particular interest in a somewhat surprising and perverse related Gallup finding.

According to the Poll, “59% of Americans agree[] that within the last five years, ‘a person has been executed under the death penalty who was, in fact, innocent of the crime he or she was charged with.’”  As the report points out:

However, for many Americans, agreement with the assertion that innocent people have been put to death does not preclude simultaneous endorsement of the death penalty. A third of all Americans, 34%, believe an innocent person has been executed and at the same time support the death penalty. This is higher than the 23% who believe an innocent person has been executed and simultaneously oppose the death penalty.

In August, the Supreme Court of the United States granted an original writ for habeas corpus and ordered a District Court to hold an evidentiary hearing in Troy Davis’s innocence case.  Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas dissented from the order.  In his dissent, Scalia suggested that the U.S. Constitution may not actually prohibit the execution of an innocent individual:

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged “actual innocence” is constitutionally cognizable.

Although his statement about the Court’s precedent is legally accurate, that Scalia might not find the execution of an innocent person constitutionally objectionable seemed to shock the consciousness of many members of the legal community (including Alan Dershowitz, Dahlia Lithwick, and other observers).

But, in this instance, the views of those offended in the legal profession may not accurately reflect the views of people in society at large.  Although I thought Scalia’s comments would generate more public outrage on a wide scale, people seemed relatively unmoved.  Could it really be that people who believe that the State executes innocent people support the death penalty nonetheless?  How could one simultaneously hold both beliefs?

Whatever the explanation, the Gallup numbers present anti-death penalty advocates with a serious dilemma.  Many anti-death penalty folks believed that a public understanding that the system fails to ensure that people who are executed were actually guilty of the crime for which they have been convicted would lead to a decline in support for capital punishment.  The Gallup numbers undercut the force of this assumption.  Indeed, the controversy surrounding Texas’s execution of Cameron Todd Willingham – though serious – has not yet generated a societal backlash against the death penalty.  The numbers also partly rebut the Marshall Hypothesis.  Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall speculated that support for the death penalty would decline as people came to understand how the system breaks down at numerous points in the process.  The Gallup poll suggests that he may have been too hopeful.

All things considered, the recent Gallup poll may leave one to wonder what can be done… As always, I look for suggestions…

Above, Rick Halperin discusses the death penalty at Elon University

Death is Rick Halperin’s life. He deals with it every day, opposes it every day and speaks about it every day. He has devoted his life to ending the death penalty in any way he can. He spoke at Elon University Thursday to share his thoughts.

“The death penalty is not a human rights violation,” said Halperin, “it is the human rights violation.”

Halperin is a committed board member of Amnesty International, where he fights for the abolition of the death penalty. Halperin showed the reality of the death penalty by offering a mix of statistics, names and personal experiences. He described firsthand accounts of these deaths. “No it is not humane,” he said.

“The real issue, the larger issue way beyond the death penalty is the disease of violence in this country,” said Halperin, noting that the death penalty is only one tiny aspect of violence.

“How many of you know of a family who has lost someone to homicide?” Halperin asked the audience. Roughly 30 in the crowd raised their hands in agreement. “It’s not hard to see why so many people are mad in this country,” he said. Halperin said he understands the heartache these people feel and he added that the criminals deserve a punishment, but he said he does not believe it should be death.

“The death penalty is all about people,” Halperin added. “It may not be about people you know or want to know…but they are people.”

Halperin discussed the different methods of the death penalty: electricity, hanging, shooting, gassing and chemical lethal injection. “People think this is human,” Halperin stated. “Not to bring sympathy to these people but I think we should try to understand why this is happening and from whom this is happening.” He added that the nature of punishment should be rethought before we continue to send people to their death.

“We kill the guilty and we kill the innocent,” he stated, pointing out the fact that 134 people have been released from death row after being found innocent on appeals. He recalled Cameron Todd Willingham, an example of an innocent man who was prematurely sentenced to death. Halperin recounted many other former inmates and recaptured their similar personal struggles with the death penalty. “How many people have to be killed?” Halperin asked.

Halperin questioned the audience about the ethics, morals and standards of our country. “I want to say that the trend in this country mercifully is towards the end of this death penalty,” he said. “When it (the death penalty) will be abolished, not if.”

He urged those in the audience to think about their current positions on the death penalty. He said it is the people’s right to understand what is happening and therefore make it better. In his eyes, this will abolish the death penalty. “There is no such thing as a lesser person.” Halperin read from his bracelet in his final plea to sway the minds of many.

“You think you live in a free country,” Halperin said.  “You don’t.”

UGANDA–Hitler comes in all colors. Life imprisonment for gays. Possible death penalty for HIV-positive. Story from the Times Online:

“The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 proposes a three-year prison sentence for anyone who is aware of evidence of homosexuality and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. And it would impose a sentence of up to seven years for anyone who defends the rights of gays and lesbians.”

Don’t just read this as a news story to be digusted by, take action. Contact the US Ambassador to Uganda and let your voice be heard.

Following my last post, I found a couple of more stories, of the U.K. and Canada’s denouncing of Uganda’s proposed anti-gay legislation.  From The Guardian:

Britain and Canada today led Commonwealth protests against a law proposed by the Ugandan parliament which would introduce the death penalty by hanging for “aggravated homosexuality”.

Gordon Brown expressed Britain’s concerns about the parliamentary bill when he met Yoweri Museveni, the veteran Ugandan president, at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago.

The British prime minister’s anger was echoed by his Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper. Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, said: “If adopted, a bill further criminalising homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda.”

Nothing, yet, from the U.S.

From the Daily Express (UK), emphasis mine:

Stephen Lewis, a former United Nations envoy in Africa, said in a speech in Trinidad on Tuesday. “This intended anti-homosexual statute has the taste of fascism.

“The credibility of the Commonwealth is hanging by a spider’s thread.” The Bill, introduced last month, has not been formally endorsed by Mr Museveni but has won the praise of some of his top officials.

Experts are predicting it could reach the statute books with only minor alterations.

Mr Lewis added: “What is truly staggering about all of this is that not a peep of scepticism or incredulity has come from President Museveni.”

American Christianity's influence in Uganda

I’ve posted before (here, here and here) about U.S. evangelicals’ ties to a Ugandan proposal to establish the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”.  Now meet more U.S. politicians involved in Ugandan human rights politics, pols who want to see gay people dead.  The same pols supported by all the ‘good faithful in Christ’; the same ‘good faithful in Christ’ who are supporting the missionaries who go to African countries and inflame superstitions about witches.  The same African churches and governments who are executing and imprisoning suspected homosexuals and witches, most of whom are children.  Harsh prison sentences are also proposed for any person or organization who helps, councils, teaches or doctors a known or suspected homosexual child or adult.

This is the kind of thing some Americans would love to impose here, just like Muslims in the U.K. and elsewhere pushing for Sharia Law.  The American Taliban, wrapped in the Flag and carrying a Bible,  eager to force “Biblical Law” onto the secular populace.  Hell, none of them can even agree upon what “biblical law” is — just ask any of the hundreds of sects of christianity — they’re each one right.

Meet the politicians, Bart Stupak and Joe Pitts, working together to take away women’s rights in health care reform, are also part of the infamous “The Family” of the C-Street christian sex palace (who lost their tax-exempt status).

“Speaking yesterday on NPR’s Fresh Air, Jeff Sharlet – who wrote a best-selling book documenting the political influence of the family – noted that many U.S. politicians, straddling both sides of the political aisle, are involved with “The Family.” Sharlet spoke about how members of “The Family” have been quite active in Uganda, including Ugandan Parliamentarian David Bahati, who is a member of “The Family” and one of the legislators behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009.

“[Bahati] appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Uganda National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda,” said Sharlet.

Not only that, but The Family has long considered Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to be their key point man in Uganda, according to Sharlet. And President Museveni, it turns out, is one of the biggest advocates for killing gay people in Uganda. He also just met with a bunch of Ugandan youth and urged them to resist the forces of homosexuality.

That’s a pretty direct, not to mention abhorrent, connection between U.S. evangelical political leadership and Ugandan human rights abusers. Do U.S. politicians like Congressmen Bart Stupak really want to have on their consciences the murder and imprisonment of gay people in Uganda? Urge his office to condemn this proposed bill now.”

It is absolutely shameful what our politicians and religious leaders are involved in.

• James Hamilton and Paul Krugman are having a discussion about the deficit. As an avid reader of Krugman’s NYT blog and Econbrowser, it is really interesting to see the exchange.
• I know we all have it rough, but the recession is especially hard on food banks this year. It is post-Thanksgiving now, but maybe for Christmas, you can give a bit more to charity*.
• There is a massacre occurring in the Philippines right now and the government fears further clan retaliation.
• Michael O’Hare has a really good post over at The Reality-Based Community about paying for higher education.
• Mark Kleiman agreed with Gov Rick Perry regarding a specific application of the death penalty. I found Kleiman’s (and Perry’s) logic pretty flawed. And while I don’t lose sleep over every injustice, blowing one off because it isn’t enough of an injustice is pretty terrible, especially when the injustice cost another human begin their life.

*You can give to anyone, but I’m just recommending Feeding America

Image by Nicola Lopez who has an exhibition currently at the Chazen Museum of Art.

May the death penalty rest in peace
Anti-death penalty activist addresses Elon students about his predictions and trends

By Mary Yost

Rick Halperin has spent the majority of his life trying to put the death penalty to rest.  He predicts that college students will live to see his dream become a reality.

“The trend is this country is mercifully towards the end of the death penalty,” Halperin said.  “You are going to live to see the end of this institution in America.”

Halperin, a well-known anti-death penalty activist, educated hundreds of Elon students, faculty, and community members in LaRose Digital Theatre Thursday night about the history of the death penalty and why he believes that is a disgrace to American society.

On July 2, 1976, which is Halperin’s birthday, the death penalty was re-legalized in the United States.  “I was a grad student at Auburn,” Halperin recalled.  “It was pouring down rain, everyone was inside, watching bicentennial celebrations.  The last item on the news was this 30-second blurb that the U.S. Supreme Court re-legalized the death penalty in America.

“That was the last time I ever celebrated my birthday.”

Since 1976, 1,175 people have been executed under modern death penalty laws, Halperin said.  Why have these people been executed?  The activist said the main reason is a lack of understanding about the broader picture of this issue.

“I think we should try to understand why this is happening and to whom this is happening,” Halperin said.  “How should we be surprised if somebody is 4, 5 or 8 years old, and instead of living in an environment surrounded by love, comfort and security, they are beaten by relatives, sold for sex to relatives or strangers, tortured,” the activist said.  “Is it any wonder that when these kids grow up they are walking time-bombs?”

The activist said the culture of violence that thrives in the United States is one of the root causes of criminal behavior because criminals are surrounded by crime at a young age.  “They are so familiar with violent behavior that by the time they are 10, 12 or 13 years old, this is the norm,” he said.  “How can we be surprised by that?  It’s a scandal!”

Halperin fervently argued that people view criminals as “scum,” and it is because of this view that the death penalty exists.  “You don’t really think you’re getting rid of a human being,” he said.  “You’re getting rid of a piece of garbage.”

Rick Halperin shows the audience photographs of different methods of execution utilized in the United States. Photograph taken by Mary Yost.

Halperin helped the audience put a human face to the death penalty by sharing his stories and photographs.  “In Texas, you just don’t watch somebody die, you hear them die, because they have a microphone hanging right over their mouth,” Halperin said.  “It’s very imposing to see the power of the state liquidate a human being.”

Halperin said criminals should be punished in different ways for their crimes with “long-term incarceration or life-without parole.”

The activist chose to end his lecture by reminding his audience that we are all human.  “The moment you start qualifying somebody else as lesser, which includes condemned inmates, any country is on the slope to horror,” Halperin said.  “You think you live in a free county.  You don’t.  None of us are going to be really free in ideology until we stop killing people.  We have to stop state killing.  And that is what I ask you to consider.”

Halperin is currently the director of the Human Rights Education Program at Southern Methodist University.  He is a long-time human rights activist and was twice the director of Amnesty International.  He is a member of the National Death Penalty Advisory Committee, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Web sites advocate against the death penalty include: www.people.smu.edu/rhalperi, www.amnesty.usa.org/death-penalty, www.ncadp.org, and www.pfadp.org/.

To learn more about arguments in support of the death penalty, visit the following Web sites: www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html, and www.prodeathpenalty.com.

Fort Hood Major Nidal Malik Hasan terrorist Texas Army post extreme islamic radicals Maj. Death Penalty

Let me start by quoting Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, who doesn’t approve of punishing the Fort Hood terrorist with the death penalty.

She writes:

Major Nidal Hasan had his first hearing in the Ft. Hood murder case. The hearing was held in the hospital. His lawyer says he is paralyzed from the chest down, incontinent and in severe pain.

[...]How barbaric that the military will seek to kill a man with no sensation in his body from the chest down. He might prefer it (I certainly would) but it’s inexusable behavior for a civilized society and way beyond the pale of decency.

One wonders what she would say to the families of the victims.

The death penalty as a deterrent to future crimes

The trouble with Democrats is that they make decisions based on feelings and intentions, instead of based on knowledge and results. No one likes the death penalty, but that’s not the point of it. The point of the death penalty is that is deters future crimes.

The left-wing Washington Post reports on the latest research.

Excerpt:

“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) – what am I going to do, hide them?”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory – if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).

[...]Among the conclusions:

- Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

- The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

- Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

So, removing the death penalty encourages criminals to commit more crime. And this also applies to terrorism. If you want to coddle captured terrorists by giving them civilian trials and life imprisonment, instead of military trials and death sentences, then you get more terrorism.

Navy SEALS face criminal charges after capturing terrorist

Now let’s turn to this story from Fox News. (via The Weekly Standard via Fausta’s Blog)

Excerpt:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Just consider the incentives being created by this prosecution of Navy SEALS. This is exactly what caused the Army and the FBI to keep silent when Major Nidal Hasan was giving all the warning signs of committing a terrorist attack, including communicating with terrorists. The Army and the FBI didn’t want to face the wrath of politically correct lawyers and judges.

So we have the left opposing the death penalty for terrorism on the one hand, and on the other hand the left is in favor of prosecuting Navy SEALs and CIA interrogators for their work in stopping terrorism.

How Modern Liberals Think

If you want to understand why people on the left call evil good and call good evil, be sure and watch Evan Sayet’s speech at the Heritage Foundation, entitled “How Modern Liberals Think”.

Here’s the lecture:

Democrats aren’t not serious about evil, and that disqualifies them from any office involving national security. In my opinion, they are not qualified to do anything of any importance.

BUNSOD ng massacre sa Maguindanao, napuno na naman ang bus na biyaheng Publisidad. Kabilang na riyan ang sumisigaw na muling ibalik ang bitay, na umiral sa
ilalim ng 1935 Constitution, inalis, ibinalik at muling inalis.  Sa tuwing may kahindik-hindik na pangyayari ay muling isinisigaw ang pagbabalik ng bitay.
Ano ba talaga, kuya?
Kung ibabalik, tiyak na aalisin na naman ng susunod na lider para pagbigyan lamang ang sektor na naniniwala na hindi kailangan ang bitay para mapigilan
ang kahindik-hindik na mga krimen.  At kapag nagtagumpay ang lider na yan sa pag-aalis ng bitay, sisikat siya.  Hanggang sa maganap na naman ang
kahindik-hindik na krimen.
Talastasin natin kung sinu-sino ang humihiling na ibalik ang bitay: sila’y mga taga-Mindanao, mga biktima ng kahindik-hindik na krimen at mga nabalo’t naulila ng mga kriminal na ngayon ay nakalaya pa.
Ayaw ng simbahan sa bitay, pero umalma sila nang palayain ang pumatay sa paring si Tulio Favali.
Marahil, tama ang dating us Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger: na ang mga batas at Konstitusyon ng Pilipinas ay “inexact.”

Lito Bautista, Executive Editor
BANDERA, 112509