Re: No Clemency from Arnold

["David B. Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding the death penalty:

>> Can anyone come up with a rational explanation
>> of Schwartzanager's conduct (or US courts' behaviour) that can explain
>> such inexplicible behaviour except some primeval hate/revenge syndrom?
>>
>> Paul P
>>
>> --political calculation in terms of votes in future elections.  Police unions have been
>> angry at Ahnold for attacking their pensions and other unions in general.  Others think
>> I'm right on that, or are there other factors as well?  Steve

Why disregard what Arnold actually said, which is that after carefully reviewing the facts, he was convinced that Williams was guilty and that Williams was not remorseful?  Do you think that Arnold was lying (i.e. he believed that Williams was innocent and/or remorseful, bur denied clemency to obtain political advantage?).

<<It is somewhat difficult for us from outside the US to even comprehend
<<the morality and politics of this.  Here is the US trying to impose its
<<version of democracy on the rest of the world in the middle east, even
<<as it is progressively denying democracy within the US, and then it
<<resorts to the most primitive use of capital punishment/execution which
<<has been long abandoned by civilized nations in most of the world for
<<decades if not longer.  My wife's reaction is probably typical.  "What
<<in heaven's name are they trying to accomplish?"  The only answer I
<<could come up with is  '(pre-civilized) vengence' -- the blood feuds of
<<the McCoys and whoever. Can anyone come up with a rational explanation
<<of Schwartzanager's conduct (or US courts' behaviour) that can explain
<<such inexplicible behaviour except some primeval hate/revenge syndrom?

This seems like a very provincial, ethnocentric, understanding of American views toward the death penalty.  Countries (or more specifically persons) that no longer favor the dealth penalty are "civilized" while those that have the penalty are "pre-civilized" motivated by "primeval hate/revenge."  China, Cuba, Singapore and Vietnam are not civilized countries, but Angola is?  Belgium was not civilized until 1996, when it abolished the death penalty for all crimes?  Is this view dependent on a Hegelian progressive view of history?  The Moderns are wiser than the Ancients?  My generation is wiser than my father's generation?

David Shemano