‘pitch our tents toward Sodom.’

Before I get worried about their agendas, I so often have to stifle my giggles.  I sometimes wonder if the amazing lack of self-awareness these lunatics possess is part of what makes them get so much attention.

3letterjon@1

That was the first thing I thought as well. This has to be some kind of super-Boratian stunt. Nobody could possibly be that oblivious, could they? Every day brings ever more confirmation of Poe’s Law.

If we’re going to have the death penalty, executions *should* be performed in public. (Preferably with the state legislators who proposed or voted for the bill to required to serve as executioners.) No more of this shadowy secret crap that allows people to think capital punishment isn’t so bad.

I’d like to think it would take one or two grisly public hangings before opinion turned against the practice, but what’s more likely to happen is that an execution highlights show becomes the top-rated show on television.

Is this another Rahm “yo let’s run a conservative dem to undercut the republican to end up with another corporate yes man” thing?

If we’re going to have the death penalty, executions *should* be performed in public.

I think they used to do that but the sickos used to get off on it. Shit on one forum someone I know had a .gif of saddam’s hanging as a profile image. I googled public execution to get some kind of source and near the top of a list there is a site called beheadedart.com and that’s exactly what it sounds like.

The political power that would come from public executions would make prosecutors more likely to do whatever it takes to get convictions.  While I completely understand the desire to not have ugliness hidden behind a wall of secrecy, I think prosecutors already have too much of an incentive to cheat already.

Some reforms I’d like to see in capital punishment: no prosecution would lead directly to a death sentence.  Instead, all sentences that exceed the lifespan of the convicted (life sentences would be included) would lead to a separate trial in which the state can argue that keeping this person alive isn’t worth it.  No prosecutor from the first trial could prosecute in this venue, which will help with any bias issues.  I don’t know if that’s even plausible under various statutes and constitutional legal theories, but it makes it less easy to get a death sentence and it’s more honest in what the state is trying to do.

Homosexuality is a leading cause in undermining the problems in the traditional family structure

There. Fixed it for him.

Sexual expression outside the confines of a marriage between a man and a woman cheapens God’s gift and subverts His perfect design. Whenever the physical acts of sex (or even images associated with sex) are separated from the relational context God intended, they lead to heartache, disappointment and pain.

Um, hello? Gay marriage = RELATIONAL CONTEXT HERE! Earth to douchebag?

Also, I just LOVE how he blithely calls it a “perfect” design when it’s based on excluding some of us from EVER being fulfilled or protected under it. This is not what one can legitimately call perfect.

Polygamy, incestuous relationships, and even non-sexual relationships might be called marriage, and this would be considered an infringement of personal rights.

People having personal rights is an infringement on personal rights? Dude, you keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means. Personal rights means rights viewed from an individual perspective—-“society is going to suffer” in the general, vague, Borg-collective way they keep yammering about is not talking about personal rights.

First of all, FFF is simply not a hate group.

Oh, WELL!  In THAT case! *sporfles* Seriously, though—-denying their targets’ experience and analysis of them in the definition of what they are does not exactly scream “non-hateful.” “Defense of traditional marriage” is an attempt to disappear the human cost of their bigotry, to sweep under the rug the extent to which defending this perfectly-legal-and-pretty-dominant institution requires denial of gays’ and lesbians’ abilities to have fulfilling sexual relationships, interact socially as a couple or as a person in love, visit their loved one in a hospital, immigrate and gain citizenship to live in the same country, make funeral arrangements to their loved one’s wishes, inherit and keep the home they’ve made together, et cetera.

Any idiot can put the name of a party next to their name (obviously).  That doesn’t mean they actually represent the ideas of that party.

Since the current Republican Party is certifiably insane, it looks like some people have decided to take the Democratic Party and split it into the conservative and “liberal” parties our political system tends to favor.  Because actual liberals never really have a chance, once again we’re presented with only conservatives, in our choice of Red or Blue flavors…

And I see the effort to make LGBTs into the “International Jew” of the modern American Fascism continues to gain speed…

This is why we need the separation of church and state.

Jabartlet # 3

They actually used to have gruesome public hangings in Arkansas - and other Southern and Southwester states All The Time.

They were called “lynchings” and their brutality was unimaginable - they often featured public castrations of Black men (in at least one case, a man was forced to eat his own severed genitals AND they made him say “they taste good”), often men’s teeth were pulled out, one by one, fingers and toes were cut off, pregnant Black women were publicly disemboweled, whippings were common as well and then came the main event, the actual execution, which often involved the victim being SLOWLY BARBECUED ALIVE.

And these were quite popular events at the time.

Crowds of thousands of White folks would attend, in some cases, special trains were chartered to being lynching spectators from other cities and states.

In one Florida lynching in 1934, they actually delayed the lynching 4 days so the maximum sized crowd could attend (and that great liberal President Roosevelt did NOTHING to stop the lynching, even though it involved the lynching victim being kidnapped and transported across state lines from Texas to Florida, the lynching site).

Photographers would flock to these events and take lots of pictures - and then SELL THEM AS POSTCARDS (in the 1940’s, federal postal regulations were revised to ban the mailing of lynching postcards - they were really that common and that popular!)

So, public executions would NOT make them less popular, they would make execution MORE POPULAR - especially since it would be BLACK PEOPLE getting publicly hung - and the White crowd would doubtlessly enjoy it if the hanging went bad and the victim died in undue pain and agony (I’m sure it would be on youtube within minutes!)

I think you’re dangerously naive about how your fellow Americans (in particular, the White portion of America’s citizenry) actually really think.

“So, public executions would NOT make them less popular, they would make execution MORE POPULAR - especially since it would be BLACK PEOPLE getting publicly hung - and the White crowd would doubtlessly enjoy it if the hanging went bad and the victim died in undue pain and agony (I’m sure it would be on youtube within minutes!)”

The obvious mistake “Democrat” Tim Wooldridge makes in his call for public executions is that they should be held in a sports stadium of of some sort, maybe called the Colosseum, to hold the crowds.  And the executions shouldn’t be onesy, twosy, they should be saved up so there’s 10 or 20 for more of a spectacle. And maybe bring in some vicious zoo animals to spice things up.  Have the condemned fight each other first, to the death, until there’s only one left alive and then execute them. 

Oh, and it should be done during prime time so it can be a nationwide TV event, like the Super Bowl, with lots of commentary and advertising.  That way the money generated can help offset the cost of prosecuting and punishing crime.

Of course, in order to have enough condemned for a good show, the definition of Capital Offense needs to be dramatically expanded:  too many parking tickets, believing in Global Climate Change, library book overdue by more than a month, being an Atheist, being Gay, drawing on a desk at school, etc.

Regardless, I’m sure it would be a great way to bring law and order back to America…

In fairness, the phrase “pitching one’s tent toward Sodom” comes directly from the Bible, or at least some translations of it:

http://bible.cc/genesis/13-12.htm

Of course, it was still clueless not to pick up on it. Like the first couple of commenters, I immediately thought of something like Beavis and Butthead when I read the phrase. (“Huh huh…he said we’re gonna pitch our tents!”)

As for public hangings…no. Whatever the intention, there are too many people who would get off on them. (There are plenty who joyfully demonstrate outside of non-public excecutions now.) And commenter #11 makes a particularly good point about the associations of publically hanging a black man in the South.

The obvious mistake “Democrat” Tim Wooldridge makes in his call for public executions is that they should be held in a sports stadium of of some sort, maybe called the Colosseum, to hold the crowds.  And the executions shouldn’t be onesy, twosy, they should be saved up so there’s 10 or 20 for more of a spectacle. And maybe bring in some vicious zoo animals to spice things up.  Have the condemned fight each other first, to the death, until there’s only one left alive and then execute them.

Come now - this is America we’re talking about.

pitching our tents towards Sodom

I wouldn’t touch a straight line like that for a free weekend at Pismo Beach.

Obviously, the death penalty should be abolished outright. There’s simply no excuse for it in any civilised country.

Barring that, the inner optimist in me would think mandating public executions would persuade people to oppose the death penalty, but that’s unlikely. In the US, most people executed are black and too many white people would love to see black people getting killed.

If we can’t get rid of the death penalty outright, we should at least put in some safeguards to protect the innocent.

-Require two separate trials for conviction and execution, and make sure that people who oppose the death penalty are not excluded from either, as people who support the death penalty are far more likely to believe that accusation necessarily equals guilt and are therefore more likely to convict the innocent.

-Mandate a waiting period of at least 15 years before sentence and execution and impose numerous mandatory appeals.

-In the event that an innocent person is actually executed, the execution should be considered a murder committed by the state and all people responsible for it (judges, juries, governors who could have issued a pardon, and the people who actually carried out the sentence) should be immediately arrested as accomplices to that murder. All such people would be forced to sign a waiver acknowledging this risk before acting in any such capacity, and no one would be forced to serve in such a position; jurors would be permitted to refuse (or vote not guilty/no death sentence), judges would be permitted to recuse themselves, governors would be permitted to pardon/commute sentences or resign, all without penalty, if they didn’t want to sign the waiver.

-In the event that an innocent person is actually executed, the state itself would be charged with murder and, if convicted, be punished by the permanent forfeiture of one member of Congress, to be assigned at random to a state that has outlawed the death penalty. (So Texas would lose one member to, say, Maine due to the execution of Cameron Willingham. The congressional districts in Texas would be redrawn to account for one fewer representative, those in Maine redrawn to account for one more.) When the number of representatives for each state changes due to shifting populations, the decisions would be made without regard to previous wrongful executions; forfeitures would be applied to the final results and the districts drawn accordingly.

@GregoryAButler: Clearly I should have included the “sarcasm” tag. Of course we aren’t going to have public executions. Although it probably wouldn’t hurt a few of those who scream so loudly in favor of the death penalty to actually see one. And you’re right—they would be quite popular with a certain segment of viewers. Which I believe is what I said.

Nothing says family values like public executions.  It is bad enough that there are judicially mandated murders conducted in the US, but in public?  This guy is too creepy to run for any party other than the Republicans.

Pro-public-hanging, huh? I’m guessing Mr. Woolridge is anti-choice, too.

...pitching our tents toward Sodom

To join the chorus of disbelieving voices: how the hell did nobody pick up on that? It’s like using “gay” in place of “happy” - that word does not mean that any more.

This is the bullshit the people who actually run the democratic party believe.  I’ve asked them.  They talk about big tent and bring in a wide range of beliefs.  So they take in shit like this.

Wonder why the democratic party doesn’t work?  It’s this.  A big tent is one thing, this is trying to grab every fucknut who couldn’t make it elsewhere.

Sorry, you have to stand for something and anyone who signs on this bullshit shouldn’t be allowed to place a “D” after their name.

We laugh, us liberals, at the crisis still brewing on the right.  What will the teabaggers do the rethugs?  But we have own problems here because the party that is supposed to represent us wants to represent everyone and in doing so, they represent no one.

ice weasel, they don’t want to represent us, they want to use us to hold on to their own sweet ride of power or money or status.  We are the means for most of them, not the reason d’etre.

Well, like Amanda says, any democrat is better than any rethugpugrapelican!  And all third parties are outlawed by the something or other amendment to the Constitution and voting for them is just voting for rethugugraplicans and and and ANYBODY BUT BUSH!  ANYBODY BUT BUSH!  HOPE FOR CHAAAAAANGE!!!one!!1!!eleventy!!!1!!

McAvoy makes a great point here, highlighting that yes, LGBT equality and dignity are moral issues, though it is the side screaming loudly about morality (the hateful religious crowd) that is immoral:

“This issue is not about what Wooldridge thinks about a particular issue like marriage equality-it’s about his view of human beings that happen to be different and about fundamental decency and character.”

I dare say that most opponents of same-sex marriage do not merely oppose the practice: they are filled with a hatred and intolerance of fellow human beings. Even worse, they get to pass of their position as motivated by morality and values, because morality and values in the USA seem to mean nothing more than what a group of people happen to feel deeply, whether justified by reasons or not.

A second and related problem is that religion is held up as an unquestionable source of morality, regardless of the view of fellow human beings it creates (which is almost always negative: at the very least, it provides an excuse for hatred and a means of passing it off as one’s deeply held convictions that are gauche to challenge in a debate).