US keeps exalted company, sort of (1 Viewer)

[AnthonyGerrard]

Let's make AB's point a bit more directly.

How about we ask Spain and Argentina just how 'enlightened' the United Kingdom is? Or India; I seem to recall a fair bit of unpleasantness there, too, not too incredibly long ago. To be quite honest, the UK have only very recently stepped out of the role of 'international thug', even if it's to move into the role of "George Bush's Bitch".

You're also painting all of America with one single brush. Tell me, how would you react to someone pointing out that the whole lot of you are hooligans who riot at every sporting event, have an overblown sense of your own nobility, and all have horrible teeth? That's what I thought.

And how rediculous would it be if you started a thread on any of those topics for a Brit to reply - yeh - but what about the US's death penalty?

Teeth - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32883893
Hooliganism - largely history.
Nobility - Moi?
Bushes Bitch - we'd mostly agree.
India - again we learn from history.
Gib - complicated - if Spain wants to give up its N African enclaves etc etc. Even then do we go against the wishes of 98% of the residents. Sets a very troublesome rule to follow, do we give back the US to the Indiginous tribes.
Falklands - I frankly don't see they have much of a claim at all - except they are closer than us, I think Spain has more claim, but again as above.

Maybe its easier for us to take criticism, as we aren't so nationalistic as the US. We separate ourselves from our government decisions a bit more maybe, if we disagree with them. We are also in union, living cheek by jowl, travelling to and from countries in which you describe as not too incredibly long ago we were killing each other in the 100s thousand , millions. So history has to become history quickly and you have to learn and move on.

All this is irrelevant though - needlessly introduced -


- the subject is of America and the company it keeps in using the death penalty. Engage on it , keep schtum , or look like an ass.

 

[Frothingslosh]

*sigh* My Austin Powers photo not loading kind of ruined the teeth joke.

And once again, let me point out that this topic is vastly oversimplifying the topic and making it look like all of America has a consensus on a topic where we are actually deeply divided. That's why I posted what I did. You are being both disingenuous and actually deceptive in portraying it as America as a whole supporting the penalty. Honestly, it's actually about as honest as the lawyer asking the defendant "have you stopped beating your wife yet?'.

Also, you're still laboring under the misapprehension that the federal government runs everything. Even with how powerful the federal government has become, the states still have FAR more power than similar subdivisions in most other nations, even to the point of having more autonomy than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The fact is that SCOTUS has ruled that execution is neither cruel nor unusual, although methods or certain applications of the penalty can be and are. That puts the onus on the state, where it honestly belongs.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

*sigh* My Austin Powers photo not loading kind of ruined the teeth joke.

And once again, let me point out that this topic is vastly oversimplifying the topic and making it look like all of America has a consensus on a topic where we are actually deeply divided. That's why I posted what I did. You are being both disingenuous and actually deceptive in portraying it as America as a whole supporting the penalty. Honestly, it's actually about as honest as the lawyer asking the defendant "have you stopped beating your wife yet?'.

Also, you're still laboring under the misapprehension that the federal government runs everything. Even with how powerful the federal government has become, the states still have FAR more power than similar subdivisions in most other nations, even to the point of having more autonomy than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The fact is that SCOTUS has ruled that execution is neither cruel nor unusual, although methods or certain applications of the penalty can be and are. That puts the onus on the state, where it honestly belongs.

I don't think we are that interested who enacts it in the us or Saudi or where ever. We are more common by intrigued if you agree with it, and if the others involved make you consider it differently. Noones being given disingenuous. You're all being re divulges defensive of something you may not even agree with.

 

[Frothingslosh]

I don't think we are that interested who enacts it in the us or Saudi or where ever. We are more common by intrigued if you agree with it, and if the others involved make you consider it differently. Noones being given disingenuous. You're all being re divulges defensive of something you may not even agree with.

Except that if you re-read the OP, that wasn't what spikepl was doing at all. The OP was nothing but an attack on America - "Look at all these other terrible countries that have the death penalty, just like America" and nothing else.

So if we seem defensive in this thread, perhaps it's because the thread was not constructive in the slightest, and instead appears to have been meant as an attack on America and Americans as a whole.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Except that if you re-read the OP, that wasn't what spikepl was doing at all. The OP was nothing but an attack on America - "Look at all these other terrible countries that have the death penalty, just like America" and nothing else.

So if we seem defensive in this thread, perhaps it's because the thread was not constructive in the slightest, and instead appears to have been meant as an attack on America and Americans as a whole.

I didn't see it that way. Even if it was, just agree with the policy or disagree to disarm it.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Maybe its easier for us to take criticism, as we aren't so nationalistic as the US.

After beating our brains out for 15 years in this forum you imply we are to sensitive? Sorry that tactic no longer works, you guys need a better excuse.

Your other tactic of saying "we are better at taken criticisms" is pure rubbish. You haven't been tested yet.

 

[GaryPanic]

Except that if you re-read the OP, that wasn't what spikepl was doing at all. The OP was nothing but an attack on America - "Look at all these other terrible countries that have the death penalty, just like America" and nothing else.

So if we seem defensive in this thread, perhaps it's because the thread was not constructive in the slightest, and instead appears to have been meant as an attack on America and Americans as a whole.

I must admit I didn't see this a a Anti American thing - more generalisation on the death penalty ...

but if you re-read it it could/does read this way
I am not anti american - I am anti double standards (that does include myself)
I know that the UK has its flaws and in fact if you asked any Brit - they will quite happily list them for you -

but when someone decides to list them in a "point the finger" sort of way then they have to be prepared to have that, thrown back on them ...

 

[Frothingslosh]

but when someone decides to list them in a "point the finger" sort of way then they have to be prepared to have that, thrown back on them ...

Of course, but in this case, the finger was pointed at the US in the original post, and I pointed back on post 18, not the other way around.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Also, Gary, keep in mind that this forum has a couple folks with anti-American leanings and one British fellow in particular who is a fanatic about the idea that the US is the most evil nation to ever exist and filled with nothing but people dedicated to pure evil and a few barbarians. He's slightly less flexible in his chosen hatred than our local foaming-at-the-mouth, spittle-spewing religious fanatics from over on the atheism thread.

 

[Brianwarnock]

I have just read this thread for the first time and did have a quiet chuckle at this post, AB America is an Empire inhabiting conquered lands non of which it has given back.

Where you find stone throwers living in glass houses, there's usually a checkered past.

http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/

Brian

 

[Brianwarnock]

I must admit I didn't see this a a Anti American thing - more generalisation on the death penalty ...

...

I think the title makes it an anti American thread.

Brian

 

[Brianwarnock]

.. but people dedicated to pure evil and a few barbarians. .

I'm glad you realise that we barbarians aren't the most evil beings.

Brian

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

The OP simply noted the dubious company the US keeps on this issue. Should he not have mentioned it?

 

[Brianwarnock]

If he had been discussing deaths by country and mentioned the US ,fine, but the US and only the US was named in the title, to me that makes it an attack on the US.

Brian

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

If he had been discussing deaths by country and mentioned the US ,fine, but the US and only the US was named in the title, to me that makes it an attack on the US.

Brian

A little dig in the ribs with the facts - that's all. US keeps odd bedfellows on this subject.

That's all he said? And they do.

Somehow it seems he needs to either not say it, or pad it out a little? I have no idea why? He not welcoming a Chinese delegation and musn't mention Tibet or something? He read this story - and noted the bedfellows. Now its an anti American attack?

I'll agree to disagree.

 

[Frothingslosh]

I'm glad you realise that we barbarians aren't the most evil beings.

Brian

Those would be politicians.

 

[Frothingslosh]

If the OP weren't meant as an attack on America...

• ...it wouldn't have had such a sarcastic title.
• ...the OP would have had much more extensive and less biased comparisons rather than just comparing the US to what are generally considered the 'worst' regimes and only them.
• ...there would have been an attempt at actual, you know, DISCUSSION.

Spike's post was less "Why does America retain this practice?" and more "You guys suck as much as THESE countries!".

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

If the OP weren't meant as an attack on America...

• ...the OP would have had much more extensive and less biased comparisons rather than just comparing the US to what are generally considered the 'worst' regimes and only them.
  

• 
  
  The article is posted directly by the OP, its a list of the top killing nations?
  
  Where the US had odd bedfolk. The note of the odd bedfolk, doesn't need a rehash of the arguments for and against the death penalty we all know so well anyway? But yes the worst countries and the US do share the same outcome. That's a fact - not an attack.

 

[AccessBlaster]

The OP of this thread wanted people to know that "US keeps exalted company, sort of". Fair enough.

The author of this article would like people to know that the UK also keeps exalted company, sort of.

"In a single year, 10 percent of the entire Boer population died in the British camps—a figure that gets even worse when you realize it includes 22,000 children."

http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

The OP of this thread wanted people to know that "US keeps exalted company, sort of". Fair enough.

The author of this article would like people to know that the UK also keeps exalted company, sort of.

"In a single year, 10 percent of the entire Boer population died in the British camps—a figure that gets even worse when you realize it includes 22,000 children."

http://listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/

Its hardly a point concurrent to an article just published on stats from now, comparing nations at the same point in history is it? - but yes - and our teeth are bad? If the OP wanted to make the US look bad and nothing else - your succeeding for him.