Save Money--Abolish the Death Penalty. Plus, Jim DeMint is an Ignorant Ass.

It's interesting how people don't consider certain things until they see it personally affect them. Case in point, the death penalty. I have been a longtime opponent of the death penalty and know well all the sensible reasons why it should be abolished. One reason being the expense involved in keeping the death penalty in place. It has been a long time issue raised by opponents of capital punishment that we spend way more money on enforcing capital punishment than with a conviction of life in prison without parole.

Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits. So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.

"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row. Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death - an additional expense that totals more than $60 million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

TPJ: People didn't feel the financial pinch before but now that they are we're looking to end the death penalty. Don't get me wrong, I'm always excited when there is serious talk of ending the death penalty but I wonder if any bans would last the length of this recession. Hopefully if bans are put into place people will really think about the other arguments against the death penalty and come to understand that evolved civilizations don't need to or should resort to capital punishment.

And think of all the money we will keep saving if we maintain any bans after we (hopefully) recover fiscally. I would think that this would appeal directly to many conservatives who are often very finacially frugal and looking for ways to pay less taxes. And appealing to their common belief system, Christianity--did Jesus ever electrocute someone or have someone hanged? You often hear the arugment from Christians of "Eye for an eye." Well, the "eye for an eye" stuff is the Old Testament--the Law of Moses.

Jesus (supposedly, if you're Christian) came to Earth to fulfill that law of Moses once and for all. His crucifixion was the final sacrifice, he (supposedly again if you're Christian) died for ALL men's sins--even killers on death row. It is then up to their God to decided what to do with them--not us. We do not have the right to punish them with death. Thus if you believe Jesus DID fulfill the old covenent then the "eye for an eye" argument becomes null and void.

South Carolina Rep. Jim DeMitt Says D.C. Students "End up in Gangs."

South Carolina, I feel sorry for you having to deal with this douch, Jim DeMint:

In comments made at a Republican news conference on the need to save the district's federal school voucher program, DeMint said, "If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating." The Times noted that the graduation rate for D.C. Public Schools was close to 70 percent last year, which puts it in line with the national average. DeMint's own state of South Carolina however has a much lower graduation rate - 56 percent, which is the fourth lowest rate of any state in the country, according to a 2008 article by South Carolina newspaper, The Post and Courier.
TPJ: His comments about ending up in gangs is a veiled (or maybe not so veiled) racist remark. He's been in D.C. for awhile now and surely he knows that something like 90% of D.C. is African-American. And gangs have unfortunately become a racist stereotype for minorities.

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