Tony Abdo wrote:

> <The execution of the two bit thug, Graham, has not changed that.>
>
>Oh, How much pleasure you must have got to not respect the man enough so
>as to use the name he chose to call himself by.      What's wrong with
>the name Shaka Sankofa, Isoddhos?
>
>You want to say that you oppose the death penalty, but that all that
>have been receiving it are 'thugs'.

I think the point he's alluding to (Isso' rarely says anything
straight-out) is that one's opposition to the death penalty should not
depend on the worth of those who are being executed. It doesn't matter that
most or all of the people being executed are murdering pond-scum, the death
penalty degrades human life and thus degrades all of us. It brings everyone
down to the level of murdering pond-scum.

What he is getting at is that it is rather pointless to try to make heroes
out of those being murdered by the state. I'd be surprised if some of them
weren't innocent of the crimes they were executed for, very surprised, but
that isn't the point. If you are opposed to the death penalty you are
opposed to it being applied to the guilty as well as the innocent.

If you support the death penalty on the other hand, you are no better than
the guilty scum who are executed. Worse in many ways, you are too gutless
to do it yourself but want to murder people by remote control.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas