Cynical Nation

agreed. let 'em fry.
who's the next killer the liberals will try to turn into a folk hero? So sickening.

I was afraid Arnold would cave in to the Left Coast mentality of "Sure he ruthlessly murdered men, women, and children -- but after that he wrote childrens books!"

If he reformed, good for him. He still had to pay for his premeditated murders with his life.

Can't we all just get along?

Helloooooo! Liberal here. Not a fan of the death penalty for the same reasons as Barry. If OJ can get off, then innocent people can be convicted. Clearly the system has major flaws and I just don't think we should kill people when the chances of their being innocent of the crime are so good.

However, fred, "the liberals will try to turn into a folk hero?" Why make this about "liberals" versus, well, whatever "your side" is? Some people took a certain view of Williams and his execution and you disagreed, so you label them as "the liberals"? But the part that I love is that you had to add that bit about "folk hero". Do you like placing blame on other people, fred? Remember when placing blame was against conservative values? That was when conservative leadership was responsible for, well, their usual incompetently managed garbage. When Katrina blew through New Orleans, that was mishandled by FEMA and the famously incompetent Republicans appointed to run FEMA (who, in fact, dismantled FEMA), so placing blame was against the rules. Now we have this tempest in a teapot over Williams (such a minor issue when compared with verified voting, which gets so little attention by comparison), and fred blames "the liberals" for "making him a folk hero". What silly mindlessness.

From what I have seen, this "controversy" is largely genned up by the right-wing media. Most of "the liberals" I know don't care much about this one. I'm a liberal who opposes the death penalty, but as long as you have a death penalty, Williams seems like exactly the sort of person for whom it was designed. No question in my mind that he did the crimes and that the law was appropriately applied. The issue, if there is any, is that Williams seemed to be rehabilitated to some people. Me? I remember how the Christian Right, and specifically James Dobson, were trying to get Ted Bundy's execution stayed because Bundy had embraced Jesus and was therefore rehabilitated. So fred, who were "the liberals" turning into a "folk hero" when Ted Bundy was in the batter's box?

"The liberals" stayed home on the Bundy execution and "we" have mostly stayed home on this one. The press created a controversy because it gave them an angle, but there seems to be awfully little real interest in this one.

Why so little interest? I don't know. I blame it on "the liberals". They're guilty of everything, after all.

Let's see...Joan Baez, Rev Jackson, Mike Farrell and Bianca Jagger were some of the folks I saw/heard--a real right-wing quartet if ever there was.

And, yes, if that idiot Dobson backed Bundy being spared his just desserts, he's to be condemdned as well for using the "he found Jesus" excuse. When was Bundy executed, back in the late 80s? Was Dobson even "anyone of importance" back then?

My beef was liberals, for the most part, it seems, turning people like Williams and Mumiya, et al into folk heros worthy of protest songs and deification because they saw that max security prison sucks and decided to try to do something constructive like write a book or something.

Convicted cold blooded murderes are just that--and get what they deserve--be it Tookie or Jeffrey Dahmer. Putting on a clean suit, speaking clearly and maybe even eloquently doesn't change what they did.

If he reformed, good for him. He still had to pay for his premeditated murders with his life.

Bailey.... is that really you?!?1?!?

I'm not a liberal, and I don't have liberal views, as I've already stated many a time you thick fucking Neocon johnny-come-lately pseudo-conservative Dubya dong polisher.

"Some people took a certain view of Williams and his execution and you disagreed, so you label them as "the liberals"? But the part that I love is that you had to add that bit about "folk hero"." (DBK)

"Folk hero" or not, and you could certainly make the argument that the media has recently certainly lionized the purportedly "redeemed" Tookie Williams, a man who never expressed either regret or remorse for the crimes he committed, the thing that bothers me is all the hand-wringing, tears and outrage that goes on over every one of these death penalty cases...radical, misguided people chanting and crying over scum like Ted Bundy or Stanley "Tookie" Williams, or John Wayne Gacey and not one tear, not one yelp of outrage for the real victims of these enemies of society, those they've murdered.

I've heard the inane excuses/explanations, "We're here to oppose state sponsored murder."

Utter nonsense!

Every one of the over fifty combined victims of Bundy, Gacey and Williams were given the death penalty, but not for any wrong-doing on their parts, not after a judge and jury convicted them of any high crime, but merely for being decent in the face of abysmal indecency.

The outrage I have for Mike Farrell, Ed Asner and the other "supporters" is their unwillingness to shed even a drop of the emotion they waste on monsters like this, for the real victims...the people eradicated from this earth by these vermin.

I honestly believe that many of these anti-death penalty advocates actually live vicariously through these scum they rally around, monsters who openly express the outright people-hatred they themselves hold within their very own hearts.

These folks are very much like those so-called "animal lovers," who despise their fellow humans.

In some regards these folks are even lower than the likes of Bundy, Williams and Gacey, in that THEY are cowards, unable to do the deed, but all to willing to admire the evil-doer.

"Joan Baez, Rev Jackson, Mike Farrell and Bianca Jagger"

Yup, that's all of us. Every last liberal is in that list.

You know, when I refer to the absolute idiocy that is done in the name of the GOP, I refer to the "party leadership" or some other limited but identifiable and accurate grouping. I don't villify what amounts to roughly 100 million people (call it 37% of the country, approximately) over my latest hobby horse. Oh, but you name four people and that's "the liberals". That sort of easy shorthand is simply lazy and thoughtless and insulting. Which was kind of my point.

I cry no tears for Tookie Williams. And I still oppose the death penalty. Enough innocent people are being killed in this country. The state doesn't have to kill more. For every Tookie Williams there is another, unnamed person on death row whose guilt is in doubt and who ought not to be executed when his guilt is in doubt. Gacey? No tears here.

Bundy, by the way, was executed in 1989. Dobson was influential then, and just about as influential as he is now. And yes, he is an idiot, but he's the GOP's idiot and certainly not a moderate or liberal. Which, oddly enough, was my point again. Dobson, in fact, was and is every bit as influential as Joan Baez and Bianca Jagger and Jesse Jackson.

Dobson was as influential in 1989 as he is today? I'd seriously question that notion. Back then, it was Robertson and Falwell; anyone else was a mere footnote.

His rise began in 1977, when as an unknown pediatric psychologist in California he published Dare to Discipline, a denunciation of permissive parenting that tried to rehabilitate the practice of spanking. The book sold 2 million copies. Dobson then cranked out a string of follow-up Christian self-help books, with titles like Straight Talk to Men and What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women.

http://www.slate.com/id/2109621/

While not always as politically active as he is now, yes, in terms of influence, I would say yes he was "just about as influential", which is what I actually wrote. Is this what your position is going to be now, fred, minor quibbles about marginal points while ignoring the main thrust of my criticisms of your remarks and also failing to acknowledge that many liberals, such as myself, are neither making a "folk hero" of Tookie Williams or especially disturbed by his execution?

Sorry, but I didn't conveniently forget what you or I wrote earlier.

I was talking about Dobson as being as politically influential then as he is now--and the answer to that would be no.

It was liberal folks who turned some of these murderers into folk heroes. All liberals? No. But people of a liberal bent? Yes.
Perhaps I should have said "certain liberals" instead of "the liberals."

I recall first reading the details of Cory Maye's case and having a strong sense of "There but for the grace of God go I." It seems to me that if someone busted into my house in the middle of the night, unidentified, then I too might take exteme measures to protect those I love.

It seems to me that at most Maye should have been charged with manslaughter. I doubt he deserved even that much, but if he had he would have probably gotten about 4 to 5 years, and so he would be out this year. He deserves to be out this year, no matter how you look at it.

Laura Denyes, myself, and some like minded people have been working on a petition asking or Cory Maye's release. We've tried to word the petition in a manner that conservatives, libertarians and liberals would all feel comfortable signing it. We have it up now here:

http://www.whatisliberalism.com/index.php?pageId=87667

We hope to bring attention to the case of Cory Maye. At some point this spring, we intend to print this out and mail it to the Governor of Mississippi and to all the major newspapers.