Cool!

🙂

When I first got on the internet, I had to dream up a user name. My stepfather had just made his trademark ginger cheesecake. I am also a drummer, was in a garage band at the time, and Ginger Baker is one of my many drumming idols, so it just popped into my head. If the real Ginger Baker spends much time on the internet, he is probably rather annoyed with me by now, as I have made at least ten thousand comments over the years! 🙂

Sorry, I do not have a decent portfolio of my photos on-line right now. 🙂

RickA, well of course you are a corporate lawyer.

Oh, he’s much more than that.

Add in the endless years of relentless online climate change denial, the ‘Christianity’ and misogynistic denial of women’s reproductive rights and it’s a nasty picture indeed.

IMO we’re all cutting this POS far too much slack. Still

Of course what McVeigh did was an horrendous crime, but successive US Presidents and their administrations commit serial crimes and are exempt from the consequenes of them. In fact, criminals like Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Tony Blair et al. are still regularly interviewed as ‘statesmen’ on radio and television when it comes to international policy relating to Syria, Iran etc. Our own political classes can commit mass murder in the full knowledge that they are exempt from prosecution. In the very few number of cases where ‘our’ crimes are exposed, the only ones who are taken to court are the low ranking members of the military who were involved, and usually these cases go nowhere. In effect, ‘our side’ can commit crimes against humanity with impunity and have been doing so for the past 70 years. Trump is no different. He is fully embedded in the corporate state and as I said in another thread he is taking your country from a plutocracy into a kleptocracy. As Sheldon Wolin and others have elegantly explained, the US is an inverted totalitarian state. The citizenry there has been largely rendered impotent. The general population are miles to the left of their government on issues like health care, social security and the environment but they have little choice when living under a veritable corporate dictatorship. The most ironic thing about Trump is that he is shafting a significant number of his electoral base, but by using populist rhetoric he can get them to support him no matter how brazenly he redistributes wealth towards the ruling elite.

Jeff:

You are talking about people who have not yet been convicted of a crime or sentenced to die, while I was referring to people who have already been convicted, were sentenced to die and have exhausted their appeals. You are looking forward and I am looking backward.

But – sure. If some neocon gets charged with a crime, convicted and sentenced to die and exhausts their appeals, I will not be out protesting the death penalty. I was pretty happy Timothy McVeigh decided not to appeal and expedited his execution. I thought his crime was pretty heinous and he certainly deserved to die (in my opinion). He apparently agreed.

As for the compassionate lawyer stuff – I am a patent attorney and so most of my clients are smart inventors with money – a lot of corporations. Not many poor, helpless destitute people get patents. Not many social justice warriors go into patent law. YMMV.

“As a compassionate lawyer …”

The only conclusion one can make is this: if he really is a lawyer, he graduated from a law school where the only hurdle to jump prior to getting a degree was having a check clear.

“resulting in the death of a person who has not actually convicted any crime and did not receive due process.”

Well no, it doesn’t, but now we know you are as astoundingly ignorant of biology as you are science, ethics, decency, honesty, …

And meanwhile, despite getting caught out peddling lies about Antifa and then educated about the real menace of rightwing terrorism, Ricky STILL won’t disavow rightwing terrorism. Which results in actual murders of American citizens as opposed to lying rhetoric aimed at demonising women for refusing to allow (rightwing, ‘Christian’ men) to control their bodies.

What a piece of work you are, RIcky.

dean says “The deeper questions are why people would support executions in general, and who would think attending one is a frivolous decision.”

As Roger points out, the context of the quote is that she likes this person so much that she would go to a public hanging if invited, and even sit in the front row. See, the public hanging would be distasteful, but if invited by this person, who she likes, she would force herself to do it. That is the context of the quote. So it would not be a frivolous decision.

As to why people support executions (not public anymore) – well that is because some people deserve to die. At least that is what some people think in some states in the USA. People who commit horrific crimes.

Obviously reasonable minds can differ – and they do. But it is the law of the land in 30 states, and the Federal government (including the military).

It is interesting how some people are against the death penalty, for a person who has had due process and been convicted of a crime – and yet are also pro choice, resulting in the death of a person who has not actually convicted any crime and did not receive due process. Weird. Oh well, that is what makes America great – people get to disagree.