Stephen, I think you have found the only possible way to make me support the death penalty(or indeed, death as a whole): set it up with god as a swap. Of course, the Christian god has previously shown itself to be willing to let an innocent die so the less innocent can live, so maybe it needs to be arranged with some other deity?
I am sorry about your mom, though. That’s a grief that doesn’t really go away.
Willie Horton is the “gift” that keeps (those) grifting. I remember those awful ads as well. I wish I didn’t. I know Atwater is dead, but fuck him anyway. His apology came much too late.
What makes the debate question so infuriating is there really is no good answer to "how would you feel if your wife was raped and murdered". Consider the possibilities:
1) Start weeping at the thought of having to undergo such a tragedy: sad weepy guy too weak for Presidency!
2) Rage--"I'd kill the son-of-a-bitch with my axe, chop him up into little bits!"--nope, too unhinged to be president, cannot control his rage! Anger is so unbecoming.
3) Sober response about how you want justice served--wow, what a robotic weirdo, doesn't he care that HIS OWN WIFE WAS RAPED AND MURDERED?
Fuck Bernard Shaw and his MSM bullshit. Dukakis should have said "what the serious fuck is wrong with you? Get some professional help, creep." Then dropped the mic and walked out.
That’s the problem with the anti-death penalty position. If Shaw had asked Bush what he’d have done if his son was sentenced to death, he could easily spin that into a stirring response about the criminal justice system and his faith that justice would eventually prevail for his innocent son! No one ever actually imagines that their own loved ones would commit premeditated murder.
But opposing the death penalty makes people think you want to save Dylann Roof, for instance. I think liberals have done a better job since Dukakis of making this an issue about the potential risk of executing an innocent person.
Yeah--a nuanced response would be like "I would react with rage and sorrow over what happened to my wife, and my first instinct is I would want her killer dead. But decisions made out of rage and sorrow often go poorly--considering how our justice system regularly penalizes innocent people, and can make mistakes like any government entity can from time to time, how would I know they caught the right guy? How would I feel if they executed the wrong person in her name? I would certainly want her killer caught, tried and jailed for life, so he cannot kill again, but killing him to avenge my wife, knowing the not insignificant chance they could have the wrong guy? I want no part of that."
Willie Horton mostly was effective because he is Black. That is an important subtext for Lee Atwater. That was electoral gold in a racist country. And the Republicans have only worsened since, aided by their captive right-wing media human centipede and Murc's Law.
Kamala Harris is ready for this, but surrogates—and we ourselves—need to push back hard when people start this shit. We are not going to let her Hillaried, nor are we going to let her get Willie Hortoned. Never again.
Just found this. (I had the pleasure and privilege of watching Keb Mo and John Oates sit and play and talk about music and writing at a small historic theater. So. Cool.
Lee Atwater was a racist, and easy for him to ask for forgiveness on his deathbed, and after he got what he wanted in 1988.
As for trump, trying the Willie Horton attack against VP Harris, I doubt that it will work, because, as you state, Harris isn't Dukakis, and trump sure as hell isn't Bush I.
He should have stuffed that question right down Bernard Shaw’s throat. He should have really let the old country peasant out. Shaw baited him, damn it. And Lee Atwater, you rock band poser, you are not forgiven.
“That’s amusing considering the Republican nominee is a convicted criminal who dodges justice.” - IOKIYAR. The levers of justice are only acceptable against Democrats, and other people who give Republicans the ick. Everyone knows that. 🙄 They move the goalposts so much that law and order ceases to have meaning aside from an NBC series with more spin-offs than Genghis Khan. The ongoing public dialogue between opposing sides goes something like this.
LEFT: Trump committed fraud, acts of espionage, election interference, tax evasion, sexual assault, and a bunch of other stuff too numerous to mention.
RIGHT: No he didn’t. You’re so divisive. And mean. The American people know what’s up and won’t stand for it.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: Um, yes, we will.
RIGHT: Shut up, no one’s talking to you.
LEFT: He’s already been convicted of a lot of it.
RIGHT: The system is rigged! George Soros bought the jury lunch! The judge is biased and afraid of a great man and making the country be best again.
LEFT: Oh yeah? Let’s see what ::sigh:: this 😬 Supreme Court has to say about it.
S. COURT: ::while filing its nails and chewing gum:: … … … ::On a yacht:: That guy? He was president, right? Yeah, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.
AILEEN CANNON: Yippee! ::Tearing paper noises::
JACK SMITH: ::sighs heavily:: Fuck my life.
So anyway, law and order is a quaint attack for the Trump campaign when the words “felon”, as well as “illegal”, as well as “crime”, only mean what they say they mean. And they only mean what they’re supposed to mean when applied to anyone outside MAGA. And, even then, left is right, up is down because in MAGA world, innocent (Black! Women! So, already suspect) poll workers doing their part for democracy are insidious criminals and leaky haired Rudy Colludey and his fellow travelers in election interference are martyrs under assault from a rigged system. It’s all relative. I mean, lies. It’s all lies. They’re full of shit, they know it, we know it, they know we know it, they know we know they know we know it and at the end of the day it just becomes a propaganda war.
This is the correct answer (IMNSHFO) to the “hypothetical murder of a loved one vs the death penalty” debate question (the political equivalent of the “Kobayashi Maru exercise” for those against the death penalty):
“If something like this were to happen to me, the first thing the police should do is lock ME up, because my first impulse would be to find the person responsible and make them pay, but that is not a rational response.
That is just the natural and emotional desire for retribution and revenge, but it would be wrong and it would be a mistake.
It is up to the state and the courts to find the people responsible for crimes of this nature and to determine and exact justice.
I do not believe that the death penalty serves justice.”
It’s easy to sit here in 2024 and second-guess what candidate Dukakis should have said or done in 1988. It was a vastly different era and political climate, for one thing.
Oh, totally. I doubt anyone would be asked that question these days. Still, as Stephen pointed out, it was a major fuck up at the time. Any answer that demonstrated some sort of human emotion would have been an improvement. I’ve thought about it a lot through the years (IK,R?) and it is still a kind of “gotcha” question that the death cultists bring out occasionally, and, at least for me, it is the right answer.
I think my response would be a lot more expletive-ridden than that. I would really let the gorilla out. Bernard Shaw, you were a disgrace to the noble name of GBS.
As you note, Harris and Dukakis are VERY different candidates. The electorate is also very different. Yeah, the crime thing will scare some people; a lot of those people probably aren't leaning toward Harris anyway. A lot of younger people see her as an overzealous cop (I had a conversation with one of those people the other day, a progressive in a VERY red state)--you're not going to please EVERYONE.
I could be totally off my rocker here, but I think there's a momentum and a readiness for a new generation (she's BARELY a boomer), a person who is biracial, and a woman, especially up against the aging, sharking fearing Trump and his Handmaids Tale wannabe Commanders. They've pretty much insulted and pushed away anyone who isn't straight, white, and their brand of Christian.
Well, the money alone proves it. I thought Biden could have won, but I’m 66, white, and live in an area so blue that it’s ultra-violet. I’m very enthusiastic about K.
It also helps, and should never fail to be emphasized, that (1) crime spiked in 2020 under Trump, and (2) crime dropped precipitously since then under Biden. Harris should absolutely be running on a "we brought down crime and ended the chaos" message, and drive home that Trump's random cruelty and incompetence led to more murders.
I'm hard pressed to think how they can find a comparable case against Harris (though obviously they'd try). As a prosecutor and AG, her job has always been opposed to the defendants, so whether a defendant won their case or benefitted from some form of amnesty (like a prison furlough) I can't imagine there'd be any argument that "Kamala made this happen." Prosecutors usually don't grant furloughs!
But the more they talk about how she was a prosecutor, the better--reminds swing voters that she was on the side of law and order, and invites her in every response to praise law enforcement and talk about how tough she was on criminals. Swing voters will like that.
Simple. They lie. They constantly repeat the lie. Their followers believe it. Media picks it up with a 'asserts without evidence' that makes it almost seem legit.
And perhaps this recognition will help certain lefties to finally get over their counterproductive and foolish stated belief that “All Cops Are Bad” (ACAB).
Fortunately that whole "we hate all cops, defund the police" nonsense has played out by now, so Harris is more likely to lean in on her prosecutor experience (which she downplayed in the 2020 primaries). Ironically, her being elected as the first prosecutor to become POTUS since who knows how long gives her the cred to tackle meaningful police reform.
Trump will be in it up to his neck if he tries to come for Harris on criminals walking around free.
“… it took more than 30 years of concentrated misogyny, deranged conspiracy theories, and Russian interference to defeat Hillary Clinton.”
And an unbalanced Electoral College system, let’s not forget.
Stephen, I think you have found the only possible way to make me support the death penalty(or indeed, death as a whole): set it up with god as a swap. Of course, the Christian god has previously shown itself to be willing to let an innocent die so the less innocent can live, so maybe it needs to be arranged with some other deity?
I am sorry about your mom, though. That’s a grief that doesn’t really go away.
Brian Kilmeade says in the first clip, ”[Kamala Harris would] rather address — IN THE SUMMER! — a sorority — a COLORED sorority!”
Like Tя☭mp, that remark won’t age well. Did Kilmeade just get here from the 60s?
Willie Horton is the “gift” that keeps (those) grifting. I remember those awful ads as well. I wish I didn’t. I know Atwater is dead, but fuck him anyway. His apology came much too late.
How many innocent people have been zealously and mistakenly put to death there, Bernard Shaw?
He doesn't care, he's rich! When you're rich enough you can assume bad things only happen to people who deserve it.
What makes the debate question so infuriating is there really is no good answer to "how would you feel if your wife was raped and murdered". Consider the possibilities:
1) Start weeping at the thought of having to undergo such a tragedy: sad weepy guy too weak for Presidency!
2) Rage--"I'd kill the son-of-a-bitch with my axe, chop him up into little bits!"--nope, too unhinged to be president, cannot control his rage! Anger is so unbecoming.
3) Sober response about how you want justice served--wow, what a robotic weirdo, doesn't he care that HIS OWN WIFE WAS RAPED AND MURDERED?
Fuck Bernard Shaw and his MSM bullshit. Dukakis should have said "what the serious fuck is wrong with you? Get some professional help, creep." Then dropped the mic and walked out.
That’s the problem with the anti-death penalty position. If Shaw had asked Bush what he’d have done if his son was sentenced to death, he could easily spin that into a stirring response about the criminal justice system and his faith that justice would eventually prevail for his innocent son! No one ever actually imagines that their own loved ones would commit premeditated murder.
But opposing the death penalty makes people think you want to save Dylann Roof, for instance. I think liberals have done a better job since Dukakis of making this an issue about the potential risk of executing an innocent person.
Yeah--a nuanced response would be like "I would react with rage and sorrow over what happened to my wife, and my first instinct is I would want her killer dead. But decisions made out of rage and sorrow often go poorly--considering how our justice system regularly penalizes innocent people, and can make mistakes like any government entity can from time to time, how would I know they caught the right guy? How would I feel if they executed the wrong person in her name? I would certainly want her killer caught, tried and jailed for life, so he cannot kill again, but killing him to avenge my wife, knowing the not insignificant chance they could have the wrong guy? I want no part of that."
Except, being a decent, mature human being, Dukakis would have never have done that.
That's what made it such a hit job. There was no good way for Dukakis to handle that question.
It was a classic have you stopped beating your wife yet? sort of question.
Yes, I know.
Willie Horton mostly was effective because he is Black. That is an important subtext for Lee Atwater. That was electoral gold in a racist country. And the Republicans have only worsened since, aided by their captive right-wing media human centipede and Murc's Law.
Kamala Harris is ready for this, but surrogates—and we ourselves—need to push back hard when people start this shit. We are not going to let her Hillaried, nor are we going to let her get Willie Hortoned. Never again.
Just found this. (I had the pleasure and privilege of watching Keb Mo and John Oates sit and play and talk about music and writing at a small historic theater. So. Cool.
This is not that:
https://youtu.be/FciQeRGYFlw?si=Wiqc8itP2Rr-3gxT
Lee Atwater was a racist, and easy for him to ask for forgiveness on his deathbed, and after he got what he wanted in 1988.
As for trump, trying the Willie Horton attack against VP Harris, I doubt that it will work, because, as you state, Harris isn't Dukakis, and trump sure as hell isn't Bush I.
I thought the same.
He should have stuffed that question right down Bernard Shaw’s throat. He should have really let the old country peasant out. Shaw baited him, damn it. And Lee Atwater, you rock band poser, you are not forgiven.
“That’s amusing considering the Republican nominee is a convicted criminal who dodges justice.” - IOKIYAR. The levers of justice are only acceptable against Democrats, and other people who give Republicans the ick. Everyone knows that. 🙄 They move the goalposts so much that law and order ceases to have meaning aside from an NBC series with more spin-offs than Genghis Khan. The ongoing public dialogue between opposing sides goes something like this.
LEFT: Trump committed fraud, acts of espionage, election interference, tax evasion, sexual assault, and a bunch of other stuff too numerous to mention.
RIGHT: No he didn’t. You’re so divisive. And mean. The American people know what’s up and won’t stand for it.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: Um, yes, we will.
RIGHT: Shut up, no one’s talking to you.
LEFT: He’s already been convicted of a lot of it.
RIGHT: The system is rigged! George Soros bought the jury lunch! The judge is biased and afraid of a great man and making the country be best again.
LEFT: Oh yeah? Let’s see what ::sigh:: this 😬 Supreme Court has to say about it.
S. COURT: ::while filing its nails and chewing gum:: … … … ::On a yacht:: That guy? He was president, right? Yeah, he can do whatever the fuck he wants.
AILEEN CANNON: Yippee! ::Tearing paper noises::
JACK SMITH: ::sighs heavily:: Fuck my life.
So anyway, law and order is a quaint attack for the Trump campaign when the words “felon”, as well as “illegal”, as well as “crime”, only mean what they say they mean. And they only mean what they’re supposed to mean when applied to anyone outside MAGA. And, even then, left is right, up is down because in MAGA world, innocent (Black! Women! So, already suspect) poll workers doing their part for democracy are insidious criminals and leaky haired Rudy Colludey and his fellow travelers in election interference are martyrs under assault from a rigged system. It’s all relative. I mean, lies. It’s all lies. They’re full of shit, they know it, we know it, they know we know it, they know we know they know we know it and at the end of the day it just becomes a propaganda war.
This is the correct answer (IMNSHFO) to the “hypothetical murder of a loved one vs the death penalty” debate question (the political equivalent of the “Kobayashi Maru exercise” for those against the death penalty):
“If something like this were to happen to me, the first thing the police should do is lock ME up, because my first impulse would be to find the person responsible and make them pay, but that is not a rational response.
That is just the natural and emotional desire for retribution and revenge, but it would be wrong and it would be a mistake.
It is up to the state and the courts to find the people responsible for crimes of this nature and to determine and exact justice.
I do not believe that the death penalty serves justice.”
Or something very much like that.
It’s easy to sit here in 2024 and second-guess what candidate Dukakis should have said or done in 1988. It was a vastly different era and political climate, for one thing.
Oh, totally. I doubt anyone would be asked that question these days. Still, as Stephen pointed out, it was a major fuck up at the time. Any answer that demonstrated some sort of human emotion would have been an improvement. I’ve thought about it a lot through the years (IK,R?) and it is still a kind of “gotcha” question that the death cultists bring out occasionally, and, at least for me, it is the right answer.
I think my response would be a lot more expletive-ridden than that. I would really let the gorilla out. Bernard Shaw, you were a disgrace to the noble name of GBS.
Agreed.
Thanks for wading into the weeds on this. Good information with which to be armed.
As you note, Harris and Dukakis are VERY different candidates. The electorate is also very different. Yeah, the crime thing will scare some people; a lot of those people probably aren't leaning toward Harris anyway. A lot of younger people see her as an overzealous cop (I had a conversation with one of those people the other day, a progressive in a VERY red state)--you're not going to please EVERYONE.
I could be totally off my rocker here, but I think there's a momentum and a readiness for a new generation (she's BARELY a boomer), a person who is biracial, and a woman, especially up against the aging, sharking fearing Trump and his Handmaids Tale wannabe Commanders. They've pretty much insulted and pushed away anyone who isn't straight, white, and their brand of Christian.
Well, the money alone proves it. I thought Biden could have won, but I’m 66, white, and live in an area so blue that it’s ultra-violet. I’m very enthusiastic about K.
It also helps, and should never fail to be emphasized, that (1) crime spiked in 2020 under Trump, and (2) crime dropped precipitously since then under Biden. Harris should absolutely be running on a "we brought down crime and ended the chaos" message, and drive home that Trump's random cruelty and incompetence led to more murders.
I'm hard pressed to think how they can find a comparable case against Harris (though obviously they'd try). As a prosecutor and AG, her job has always been opposed to the defendants, so whether a defendant won their case or benefitted from some form of amnesty (like a prison furlough) I can't imagine there'd be any argument that "Kamala made this happen." Prosecutors usually don't grant furloughs!
But the more they talk about how she was a prosecutor, the better--reminds swing voters that she was on the side of law and order, and invites her in every response to praise law enforcement and talk about how tough she was on criminals. Swing voters will like that.
Simple. They lie. They constantly repeat the lie. Their followers believe it. Media picks it up with a 'asserts without evidence' that makes it almost seem legit.
so far, it's worked out great for them.
That's their game, I just think Kamala has the tools to defeat it.
Agreed.
And perhaps this recognition will help certain lefties to finally get over their counterproductive and foolish stated belief that “All Cops Are Bad” (ACAB).
Fortunately that whole "we hate all cops, defund the police" nonsense has played out by now, so Harris is more likely to lean in on her prosecutor experience (which she downplayed in the 2020 primaries). Ironically, her being elected as the first prosecutor to become POTUS since who knows how long gives her the cred to tackle meaningful police reform.
The ACAB cry is still very much with us. It doesn’t just disappear because Kamala is a former prosecutor.