Comment Re:truly an inspiration. (Score 1) 494
TL;DR America is the whole world.
TL;DR America is the whole world.
Why did they seceed from India when India has millions of muslims?
There are generally two reasons why countries secede: either the previous regime is intolerable, or someone is on a power trip (or some combination of both).
I'll let historians debate which was the more dominating motive in the case of Pakistan.
How do you know that gtall is American? If he or she lives somewhere else in the developed world, US-style fundamentalist evangelicals probably are a tiny minority there, and worldwide they certainly are.
They aren't a problem because they are numerous (on a worldwide scale). They are a problem because they've been infiltrated by secular politicians (and only quite recently; we're talking the mid-to-late 70s) and their leaders are cashed-up at the moment. Comparisons to Saudi Wahhabism are not coincidental.
And yet, their cultural identity as the foundation of Christianity and Islam make them culturually.
Jewish people do not generally define themselves culturally as the foundation for Christianity and Islam. This makes even more sense when you consider where antisemitism has historically come from: the majority culture wherever they happened to be.
The very term "Judeo-Christian" is a piece of modern revisionist history.
Yet they're amazingly well represented in finance, media, and law.
European culture made sure that they couldn't do anything else. Historically, Jews in Europe were not allowed to be members of a trade-guild, because doing so required making a Christian oath. For city dwellers (i.e. non-farmers), peddling and money-lending were two of the only jobs available until quite recently.
Neither Christians nor Jews are book-worshippers. Besides, both Christians and Jews agree that no Gentile is bound the civil/religious code of the ancient Hebrews. By the way, that is right there in the Bible too.
The statement that "neither Christians nor Jews do that" is not a universal quantification, and nobody who made it through the first week of any critical thinking course would ever mistake it for one. Finding some tiny subset of Christians in some cultish backwater of Christendom (such as, oh, the US Bible belt) does not negate the claim.
[...] spoke on multiple popular TV programs which are -undoubtedly- watched by judges.
There is a world of difference between being interviewed on a TV program which is probably seen by judges, and being invited to deliver a lecture to a conference of judges.
Every one of the AC's points is incorrect except the first: There is no "charge of rape".
What Russian secret papers do you refer to? What does Wikileaks have on Russia that it hasn't (yet) published?
If members of ISIS are going to continue down a path of heinous activities [...]
If ISIS ever makes it as far as Oklahoma, we all have bigger problems than execution methods.
Be serious. Escape from prison in the US is so rare that it's basically statistical noise.
It raises a good point, though. Once upon a time, executions took place in public where citizens could observe what their government does in their name.
Compared to the shame with which the US kills people, you almost have to admire Saudi Arabia's public beheadings. At least it's honest, and actually provides some deterrent value. Good old-fashioned barbarism has its advantages.
if a murderer should be released or escape from prison
I've never understood this argument. If a murderer is legally released, that should mean that on our best evidence, we believe the offender is unlikely to reoffend, or that we didn't have sufficient evidence to incarcerate them in the first place. In either case, having executed them first is an abomination.
As for the escape argument, saying that we should kill people because the prison system sucks at its primary job isn't exactly the most persuasive line of thinking I've ever heard. (Or is the argument that we should pre-punish inmates for escaping before they do?) That's quite apart from the fact that almost exactly nobody escapes from correctional institutions these days; they're pretty much all from work release or work camps.
I don't really see a criminals behavior changing if there isn't a death penalty [...]
Well, there's always the broken windows theory. If we live in a society where it's normal to believe that some people don't deserve to live, this could (in theory) result in more homicide.
Precisely what problem does execution solve that "life without possibility" doesn't?
It's certainly not cost; executing someone costs far more than life does.
If it's prison overcrowding that's the issue, we have better ways to manage that, like not incarcerating so many non-violent offenders.
HELP!!!! I'm being held prisoner in /usr/games/lib!