Saturday, 19 February 2011

Death Penalty Blind Spot

It must gall the ‘Guardian’s’ moderating team beyond belief that the highest rated comments on their nauseating little article by Patches Rhode, mother of the recent death penalty recipient, are those pointing out that not once in this little sob-story are the true victims even mentioned by name.

And I’ve not bothered to comment, as they will no doubt simply do away with my comment once again, but I couldn’t let this bit go entirely:
Most people do not understand how a person in prison could still have a life with his family 500 miles away; well, we visited for birthdays and holidays. Our Thanksgivings were spent with Brandon sharing chips and Cokes instead of turkey and dressing. There were Merry Christmas and happy Mother's Day telephone calls or visits. Now that we are no longer able to be with him all we are left with are memories and sadness.
Well, Patches, your son’s fate was entirely in his own hands. Not so the fate of the people this vicious petty criminal slaughtered in the course of his botched robbery.

I expect the family of Steven Moss and his 11-year-old son Bryan and 15-year-old daughter Kristin would have liked more time with them, and are left with just ‘memories and sadness’ too.
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11 comments:

  1. Quiet_Man19 February 2011 at 11:17

    None so blind as those who will not see. At least the Guardianistas are showing the utter hypocrisy of the post... for once

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  2. Anonymous19 February 2011 at 11:36

    Not too bad - had to scroll down a little to get to the arms trade whataboutery and a cretinous classic from 'ArseneKnows':

    "I am sorry, but as the first 3 responses illustrate, empathy, compassion or even courtesy are rapidly disappearing from this country."

    Presumably the Guardian's user name field is too short for 'ArseneKnowsF**kAll'.

    It clearly takes a special type of individual to have empathy with a multiple murdering child killer.

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  3. NickM19 February 2011 at 11:52

    That is truly nauseating on so many levels.

    But allow me a bit of blue sky thinking here?

    What Patches (is that a real name?) is arguing is for a truncated, fundamentally meaningless relationship and is trying to equate that with, for want of a better term, "real life".

    I don't think you linked but Patches (that can't be a real name - I wouldn't call a cat "Patches") is bitchin' about sodium thiopental being sold from the Uk to the USA.

    Right. I think we all recall where were when the towers fell on 9/11. By the same token we ought to put the directors of Boeing in the dock, right? Yet I have flown on many Boeing aircraft and they were thankfully not used then for mass murder.

    More to the point (though hold the Boeing idea - it might bear fruit) I think the USA has an advanced enough chemical industry to make stuff to kill people. I man I have A-levels in Biology and Chemistry and the stuff I could cook-up would astonish with their lethality.

    The British did not "allow" this killing. The prison warden (or me) could have done it with a chair-leg.

    So we export sodium thiopental to the USA. Christ almighty! At least we export something these days.

    I am in an ambiguous space here. I am not a believer in execution but by God Patches' pet lamb killed three people for no good reason and you would need an electron microscope to find my pity for him. Nah, you'd need ATLAS at the LHC at CERN.

    The only thing that stopped Patches (dear Christ!) having a life-long normal relationship with her son (of the sort I have with my mother) is the very easy and basically means not being a murdering scumbag. It has nothing to do with chemicals we export.

    Frankly I would have gratis beat the fucker to death with a chair-leg.

    I'd expect the airfare paid. And a trip to Wendy's and to not be put up in the Ho-Jo. A Holiday Inn would suffice.

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  4. Dave H.19 February 2011 at 11:56

    Quite an achievement to put so many of her instinctive supporters right off her side.

    (this is a completely off-topic point: why the hell is Sodium Thiopental such a scarce commodity in the States? It's a pretty small molecule, can't they just get a half-competent contract lab & knock up a few grams of it themselves? It'd save us all this ghastly handwringing. Is the bloody stuff still on patent or something?)

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  5. banned19 February 2011 at 12:30

    A very good friend was in and out of gaol (Dartmoor eventually) for a variety of offences (all entirely legit in the eyes of his fellow inmates).
    I used to visit and he was quite at ease with his lot. "I've done the crime now I'm doing the time". The last thing he would have wanted was tea and sympathy from this twat Patches Rhode who, had he appeared as a sympathy monging lay visitor, he would have fandangled his address and robbed at the first opportunity.

    btw, on Thursday I found myself in need of a paper to pass some time, the qualities were sold out and all that was left was a copy of The Guardian so I wasted a pound on one. Every single article was about The Cuts or Climate Change or how events in the Middle East were a Socialist Revolt; my compensation was the Obits, three pages of dead socialists.

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  6. Lynne19 February 2011 at 14:35

    So there's one less child murderer in the world. I don't have a problem with that.

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  7. Foxy Brown19 February 2011 at 17:33

    @ Banned,

    The only good socialist is a dead one (and one who's been euthanised with sodium thiopental).

    I wouldn't inflict that newspaper on my worst enemy. Didn't the newsagents have any copies of the Beano? It's a damn sight more intellectually engaging.

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  8. Anonymous19 February 2011 at 18:50

    Whilst I personally disapprove of the Death Penalty (primarily because it's kind of hard to undeath penalty someone if the Law screwed up) the only ones I feel truly sorry for are the innocent victims. Their families will never see their loved ones again, share Christmases and Birthdays. All because this lowlife took their most basic human right. And his family want MY sympathy.
    Look for it in a Dictionary between sex and syphillis because you'll get none from me.

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  9. English Viking19 February 2011 at 19:41

    I don't swear often, but FFS!

    I remember the father of The Yorkshire Ripper being asked what was best to be done with his son.

    'Hang him', he replied.

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  10. JuliaM20 February 2011 at 06:15

    "Presumably the Guardian's user name field is too short for 'ArseneKnowsF**kAll'. "

    :D

    "More to the point (though hold the Boeing idea - it might bear fruit) I think the USA has an advanced enough chemical industry to make stuff to kill people."

    Indeed" Like Dave H, it never seems to be raised in these CiF columns (there's been lots - they ought to put Stafford-Smith on retainer) why they need to import it.

    Can't they just use another type of sedative?

    "...my compensation was the Obits, three pages of dead socialists."

    Only three? *disappointment*

    "I remember the father of The Yorkshire Ripper being asked what was best to be done with his son.

    'Hang him', he replied."

    A few years earlier, we might have...

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  11. Timdog21 February 2011 at 08:03

    Late to the party, but this http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/9572773 is the greatest comment ever, I imagine the heads of the CiF moderators exploding on reading this, fembot style.

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