Arnold the "Terminator 'Bitch Slaps"

[MtnBiker]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday told officials in his hometown in Austria to remove his name from a sports stadium and stop using his name to promote the city.

Good for him.

 

[Annie]

Good for him.

LOL! I liked that. Same as US should do to former EU allies.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Despite the dispute with Graz officials, Schwarzenegger said he "will remain with all my heart a Grazer, a Steierer and an Austrian."

"all his heart" huh?

This is exactly why no person who is foreign-born should ever be allowed to become President of the United States.

 

[MtnBiker]

This is exactly why no person who is foreign-born should ever be allowed to become President of the United States.

Ahmen

 

[archangel]

the Austrian Mayor Siegfried Nagal- The "Terminator" ends ties with his home city of Graz,Austria after they attacked him on his California Death Penalty stance...
The mayor is now wooing Arnold in a attempt to regain the status of having Schwartzengger's name and title on their stadium!

Good for Arnold...a man of conviction!




...go to www.newsmax.com/ scroll down to story...Inside cover

 

[MtnBiker]

Deja vu, all over again.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27776

and

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=364976&postcount=20


Sorry Arch they beat you to it.

 

[archangel]

Deja vu, all over again.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27776

and

http://www.usmessageboard.com/forums/showpost.php?p=364976&postcount=20


Sorry Arch they beat you to it.

my bad...too busy doing other things and bouncing back and forth...should have known Kathy would be on it!

 

[Annie]

I merged.

 

[Mariner]

the death penalty, I think Arnold was right not to commute the man's sentence. I do not understand why a governor should be given this type of power. If one man's death sentence can be commuted just because a bunch of movie stars take up his cause, it just adds another whole surreal layer of patent unfairness to the death penalty system.

Mariner.

 

[KarlMarx]

the death penalty, I think Arnold was right not to commute the man's sentence. I do not understand why a governor should be given this type of power. If one man's death sentence can be commuted just because a bunch of movie stars take up his cause, it just adds another whole surreal layer of patent unfairness to the death penalty system.

Mariner.

To get the death penalty in this country, you first must be found guilty of a cpital offense by a jury of your peers. Every one of those 12 must be convinced beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that you committed the crime. If even one is not convinced, you walk.

Then you must have a 2nd trial to determine whether you deserve the death penalty. Again, 12 people must be convinced beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt.

Once you're on death row, you get to appeal and re-appeal the decision. People who are sentenced to death are on death row for years.

The American justice system doesn't hand out the death penalty lightly.

The fact is that the people who are on death row are there because they are guilty of committing the most heinous of crimes.

Most of the people in prison are black and most of the people on death row are also black. Those that see an inequity in the numbers cite an injust system. I contend that the real reason is that blacks commit more crimes than whites and that blacks are more likely to be victims of crimes at the hands of other blacks than at the hands of whites. A system of quotas like affirmative action is not the answer to this problem. Simply put, you do the crime, you do the time.

Frankly, I'd like to see the death penalty handed out more often. In my opinion, deliberately killing a kid (i.e. someone under the age of 18) should be a capital offense. I remember Susan Smith, the woman that killed her two kids, who is now incarcerated for life.

She killed those two kids, both of which were under the age of 4 (she drowned them by strapping them in their car seats then sending the car to the bottom of a lake).

Those kids didn't get a trial, they committed no crime, they didn't get to appeal their mother's decision. No, she simply killed them in a cold and calculated manner and all because her boyfriend didn't want the kids around. I guess he wanted more of an opportunity to nail the rotten bitch and the kids were just in the way.

Her kids didn't a chance to grow up and have a life, they were betrayed by their own mother, they won't get to enjoy Christmas, they won't have any more birthday parties, they won't get to play with other kids, they won't grow up and fall in love and experience the joys of life. But the monster that killed them gets to enjoy life, albeit behind bars.

Some justice. If it were up to me, I'd have her impaled on a stake, instead of lethal injection.

 

[Mariner]

their children have postpartum depression with psychosis. The regret that they feel after their psychosis has resolved and they realize what they did must be one of the most profound tortures a human being can experience. Killing someone who is mentally ill when committing a crime is simply barbaric, and has been rejected by every civilized society, including the U.S.

As for the fairness of the death penalty, and the difficulty of applying it, how do you then explain the two objections I've raised so far: that over 100 people have been found innocent so far, and that the likelihood of getting the death penalty increases 9-fold if you're a black who kills a white than vice versa. That last point has nothing to do with quotas or affirmative action of any kind. It is the outcome of a system that is obviously racially biased, in the extreme. Prosecutors are more likely to bring the charge against black killers, and juries are more likely to convict black killers. That's the opposite of affirmative action.

Given that there is no way to prove that someone is 100% guilty, that new evidence or techniques (such as DNA testing) can appear at any time, and that it's more expensive to kill someone than to jail him/her for life, what is the real motivation behind the death penalty?

The old idea that it deters crime has not held up under scrutiny. Murder rates have fallen everywhere, but they have not fallen more in states that re-instituted the death penalty in the past couple of decades. Couldn't one argue that violence by the state actually makes violence more "ok" for criminals, in the kind of contagious way that repetitive strain injury or self-cutting or suicide spread? (Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point"?)

One last point--proponents always point to the victims, as if being compassionate to the victims means one cannot also be compassionate to the accused (who may turn out to be innocent). There's no limit on compassion in my religion. It's not a zero-sum game. Of course I, and every other death penalty opponent, feels for the victims.

Mariner.

 

[Hobbit]

their children have postpartum depression with psychosis. The regret that they feel after their psychosis has resolved and they realize what they did must be one of the most profound tortures a human being can experience. Killing someone who is mentally ill when committing a crime is simply barbaric, and has been rejected by every civilized society, including the U.S.

As for the fairness of the death penalty, and the difficulty of applying it, how do you then explain the two objections I've raised so far: that over 100 people have been found innocent so far, and that the likelihood of getting the death penalty increases 9-fold if you're a black who kills a white than vice versa. That last point has nothing to do with quotas or affirmative action of any kind. It is the outcome of a system that is obviously racially biased, in the extreme. Prosecutors are more likely to bring the charge against black killers, and juries are more likely to convict black killers. That's the opposite of affirmative action.

Given that there is no way to prove that someone is 100% guilty, that new evidence or techniques (such as DNA testing) can appear at any time, and that it's more expensive to kill someone than to jail him/her for life, what is the real motivation behind the death penalty?

The old idea that it deters crime has not held up under scrutiny. Murder rates have fallen everywhere, but they have not fallen more in states that re-instituted the death penalty in the past couple of decades. Couldn't one argue that violence by the state actually makes violence more "ok" for criminals, in the kind of contagious way that repetitive strain injury or self-cutting or suicide spread? (Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point"?)

One last point--proponents always point to the victims, as if being compassionate to the victims means one cannot also be compassionate to the accused (who may turn out to be innocent). There's no limit on compassion in my religion. It's not a zero-sum game. Of course I, and every other death penalty opponent, feels for the victims.

Mariner.

Go check your stats. Blacks make up over 50% of all convicted murderers and less than a third of all executions. In California, it's about an eighth. If anything, execution is biased against white guys.

 

[Mariner]

of all murderers but only 1/3 of death row inmates still doesn't take into account the racial imbalance depending on the races of the murderer versus that of the victim. Your stats aren't inconsistent with mine.

It's been a while since I looked at these stats. I should try to find a link for you.

Mariner.

 

[Annie]

I don't believe this guy!

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/breaking_news/13452216.htm

Mayor begs Schwarzenegger not to cut ties

WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - The mayor of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian hometown on Tuesday begged the California governor to reconsider his decision to cut ties to the city after locals assailed him for his death penalty stance.

Siegfried Nagl, mayor of the southern city of Graz, said he wrote Schwarzenegger pleading with him not to return a ring of honor bestowed on him by officials in his birthplace in 1999 and reassuring him that most residents still admire him.

"I hope that very soon we'll hear you say, 'I'll be back,'" Nagl told the actor-turned-politician, one of Austria's most famous sons.

On Monday, Schwarzenegger caused a stir by turning the tables on Austrians who criticized the governor's refusal to block the executions of convicted killers. He sent Graz officials a letter asking them to remove his name from a soccer stadium and stop using it to promote the city, and said he was giving back the ring because it "has lost its meaning and value to me."

His demands effectively pre-empted a drive launched by opponents in Austria who already were gathering signatures on a petition calling for the 15,300-seat arena in Graz, about 120 miles south of Vienna, to be renamed.

The petition drive began last week amid a furor triggered by the execution in California of Stanley Tookie Williams. Capital punishment is illegal in Europe, where many people consider it barbaric. They are now waiting to see how Schwarzenegger deals with the scheduled Jan. 17 execution of a 75-year-old inmate.

"Graz will not have problems in the future with my decisions as governor of California, because officially nothing connects us any more," Schwarzenegger told the daily Kronen Zeitung in an interview for Tuesday's editions.

"The death penalty is law here, and I have to uphold the law of the land and the will of the people," Schwarzenegger was quoted as saying, adding that he still considered himself "Austrian with all my heart."

Nagl told Austrian television he hoped to persuade Schwarzenegger. At a minimum, he said, he hoped to persuade Schwarzenegger to keep the ring - though he conceded he did not expect to succeed.

"Those who know him realize he sticks to his opinions," he said. "The chances are not good. I regret this deeply, but I understand."

Schwarzenegger was born in 1947 in the village of Thal just outside Graz, where he began his bodybuilding career. He emigrated to the United States in 1968 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984, but has retained his Austrian citizenship.

Kurt Flecker, a local official with the opposition Social Democrats, said Schwarzenegger damaged his own image - not Graz's - by refusing to spare Williams' life. There is no point, he said, in "glorifying anyone who supports the death penalty."

Walter Ferk, the deputy mayor of Graz, said Schwarzenegger's decision to allow executions to go forward makes him "an unsuitable godfather for a public building."

But Hermann Schuetzenhoefer, a tourism adviser in the province of Styria where Graz is located, said Tuesday he also wrote a letter to Schwarzenegger expressing regret "that some politicians who proudly bore your name a few years ago are dragging it through the dirt now."

 

[MtnBiker]

I wonder if the Mayor was standing up for Arnold when while people in Graz where complaining about the decision?

Somehow I doubt it.

 

[Annie]

I wonder if the Mayor was standing up for Arnold when while people in Graz where complaining about the decision?

Somehow I doubt it.

I don't think so.

 

[Gunny]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051213/ap_on_re_eu/europe_williams_execution_1

Typical left-wing buffoonery. Let's punish Arnold. He's the criminal here, not the guy who murdered four people.