How to bankrupt the anti-death penalty groups in America:

Those American anti-death penalty activists in the United States appear to look powerful, although they are only a small minority. As most Americans continue to support the death penalty, the only way to defeat the Anti-death penalty groups are to bankrupt them. Currently, the European Union is funding them, once the EU collapses, those anti-death penalty groups will have no more funds left as most Americans will not fund them anymore. If they want to abolish the death penalty, they should move to Brazil, where they have a homicide rate that is five times worse than the United States.

Check this article by Nile Gardiner:

Nile Gardiner is a Washington-based foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. He appears frequently on American and British television and radio, including Fox News Channel, CNN, BBC, Sky News, and NPR.

The European Union gives millions in taxpayers’ money to anti-death penalty groups in America

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: March 2nd, 2011

The EU lacks a respect for democratic rights (Photo: Rex)

Why on earth are British taxpayers being forced to fund European Union lobbying for policy campaigns in the United States? Furthermore, why is the EU directly interfering in domestic political debates in America, and so far without Congressional oversight? As the research detailed below demonstrates, the EU’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) is spending millions of Euros on US-based campaigns against the death penalty. An extraordinary development.

The EIDHR project list for 2009 (the latest year for which a full itemised list is given), unearthed by my intrepid colleague Sally McNamara, is a real eye-opener. While most of the projects focused on developing countries, several million Euros were actually set aside for projects in the United States, specifically for groups opposed to the death penalty.

This extremely unusual funding for US groups – by a taxpayer-funded foreign entity to advance a political cause – deserves to attract a great deal of public attention, including Congressional scrutiny in Washington and parliamentary scrutiny in London. On Capitol Hill both the House Judiciary Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, should apply oversight on EU funding for American groups. And this could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of EU money flowing to US organisations on any number of causes.

Here is a list of US recipients of EU EIDHR aid in 2009, which amounted to €2,624,395 ($3,643,951). The recipients of EU aid include the rather wealthy American Bar Association, whose annual budget approached $150 million in 2008.

American Bar Association Fund for Justice and Education: EU grant: €708,162 ($983, 277)
Project: The Death Penalty Assessments Project: Toward a Nationwide Moratorium on Executions

Death Penalty Information Center: EU grant: €193,443 ($268,585)
Project: Changing the Course of the Death Penalty Debate. A proposal for public opinion research, message development, and communications of capital punishment in the US.

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: EU grant: €305,974 ($424,829)
Project: National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Intensive Assistance Program

Reprieve LBG: EU grant: €526,816 ($731,591) (some of these funds also went to “European countries”) Project: Engaging Europe in the fight for US abolition

Murder Victim’s Families for Human Rights Non-Profit Corporation: EU grant: €495,000 ($686,608) (some of these funds also went to other countries, including Japan and Taiwan). Project: Voices of Victims Against the Death Penalty

Witness to Innocence Protection: EU grant: €395,000 ($548,538)
Project: American DREAM Campaign
MPs reading this should be asking questions why British taxpayers’ money is being used by the European Union to fund campaigns against the death penalty in the United States, without the consent of the British people. (Not least when 51 per cent of the British public support the reintroduction of capital punishment for murder, with just 37 per cent opposing it, in a recent YouGov poll.)

This is also an extraordinary intervention in a highly charged, intensely political domestic debate in the United States over the death penalty, the use of which has been ruled Constitutional by the US Supreme Court on several occasions, and is backed by 64 percent of Americans according to Gallup, with just 29 percent opposing. Can you imagine the outcry in Brussels if the US government funded policy groups in the EU, and the charges of “American imperialism” that would inevitably follow?

It is bad enough that Brussels consistently interferes with the internal affairs of EU member states, but it is surely a bridge too far when it tries to intervene in the affairs of one of the world’s greatest democracies that isn’t even part of the EU. This is hugely insulting to the US. After all the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights is supposedly dedicated to “enhancing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in countries and regions where they are most at risk.”

Evidently, unelected bureaucrats sitting in the European Commission feel they have a divine right to lecture the United States and its citizens on how they should decide their own policies. This demonstrates a fundamental lack of respect for US national sovereignty, and a sneering condescension towards the American people. But perhaps this should come as no surprise. A supranational entity like the EU that has no respect for the democratic rights of hundreds of millions of Europeans can barely be expected to respect freedom and democracy outside its own borders.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100078360/the-european-union-gives-millions-in-taxpayers%E2%80%99-money-to-anti-death-penalty-groups-in-america/

Unelected EU apparatchik Baroness Ashton lectures America on 'human rights'

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: March 14th, 2011

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post revealing that the EU has been giving millions of euros to anti-death penalty groups in the United States. As The Wall Street Journal subsequently commented in an editorial on my Telegraph piece:

European countries may need bailing out, but you’ll be pleased to know that the European Union has enough money to promote human rights and democracy—in America. Don’t laugh.
American states are free to decide their own penal codes, which vary widely and change as facts and public values evolve. Europe won’t allow such a debate at home but feels the moral afflatus to tax its own citizens to promote one side of the argument in America. Europe can’t find the money to pay for its fair share of NATO but it can spare a dime to hector its main defense benefactor on criminal law. This is why fewer and fewer Americans take Europe seriously.

One of those US groups that receives EU funding is the Illinois branch of the Death Penalty Information Center, which was given €193,443 in 2009 for a grant “changing the course of the death penalty debate” (hat tip: Sally McNamara). Illinois abolished the death penalty last week, making it one of 16 states in America that ban the practice, in contrast to 34 states that retain it. Needless to say, the EU’s foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton immediately used the occasion to lecture the United States on “the progressive development of human rights”, declaring in a March 11 statement:

The European Union congratulates the Governor and the Illinois State Legislature on this historic decision, making Illinois the 16th state in the United States to end the death penalty.

The European Union strongly hopes that this decision will encourage other US States to follow suit in joining the growing national and worldwide movement towards the abolition of the use of capital punishment.

The European Union considers that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights. The European Union reaffirms its objective of working towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.

It should of course come as no surprise that the European Union, which has zero respect for the sovereignty of its own member states, seeks to meddle in the affairs of a great democracy such as the United States. Baroness Ashton clearly has a greater interest in hectoring the American people than she does in condemning the brutal rule of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The EU chief’s condescending statement is a reflection of a warped world view in Brussels that treats the United States as though it were a third world tyranny in need of enlightened guidance from Europe. After all, the EU’s Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, which gave nearly a million dollars to the American Bar Association for its anti-death penalty campaign, is dedicated to “enhancing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in countries and regions where they are most at risk.”

One of many glaring differences between the European Union and the United States is that US officials are accountable to the American people, whose laws are drafted by elected representatives in line with a Constitution that actually protects individual liberty rather than usurps it. The EU’s sneering at America’s stance on the death penalty is merely the latest reflection of Brussels’ contempt for democracy, national sovereignty, and political accountability. 

If unelected apparatchiks such as Baroness Ashton really care about human rights perhaps they should spend a bit more time examining the lack of political freedom that exists within the European Union itself.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100079776/unelected-eu-apparatchik-baroness-ashton-lectures-america-on-%E2%80%9Chuman-rights%E2%80%9D/

EU funds anti-hanging lobby

December 20, 2005

THE European Union, applying subtle pressure on Jamaica, yesterday handed $24 million (euro320,000) to a local human rights group, saying the grant was to support continued advocacy against the death penalty. Capital punishment remains on Jamaica's books although no executions have occurred in 17 years.

The Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights (IJCHR), which received the EU grant, has long lobbied against the death penalty, playing a role in an early 1990s law that differentiated between capital and non-capital murder - of which conviction on the former would have meant a mandatory death sentence.

However, the UK-based Privy Council, Jamaica's court of last resort, last year ruled, in the case of Lambert Watson, that the mandatory death was against Jamaica's constitution and ruled that it was up to the judge to determine from a range of sentences after a capital conviction.

Nancy Anderson, the executive director of the IJCHR, welcomed the grant, saying it was important to advancing the organisation's work.

"We are going to continue our efforts towards the abolition of the death penalty in Jamaica," she told the Observer.

Yesterday, the EU office in Kingston said the funds, to be spent over two years, were to assist with the resentencing hearings of several death row prisoners, who were affected by the Privy Council judgment. The sentences of some prisoners have already been commuted to life, while others are pending.

But the funds are also to be used for advocacy training, including direct assistance for attorneys fighting human rights cases in the courts, and for research on alternatives to capital punishment as well as reform of the parole system.

The Kingston-based IJCHR is also branching out into Montego Bay, and the EU grant will help seed the office there.

The Europeans have long been against the death penalty, and yesterday Gerd Jarchow, head of the delegation in Jamaica, signalled that the EU expected the IJHRC to eventually prevail in having capital punishment erased from the local statutes.

"Based on their track record, we are confident that IJCHR are the right people to carry this out," said Jarchow.

However, a majority of Jamaicans - 76 per cent - want the death penalty - more specifically, hanging - to remain an option, according to the November 2005 Observer/Stone Poll, in the fight against out-of-control crime.

The Opposition is also in support of putting certain convicts to death, saying a Jamaica Labour Party government would resume hanging immediately, and accused the government of wavering on the issue.

Subsequent to the Opposition declaring its position, Prime Minister and president of the People's National Party, PJ Patterson, invited Opposition leader and head of the JLP Bruce Golding to iron out a common position on the death penalty between the parties.

This, however, drew stern criticism from the Glenys Kinnock, co-chair of the African, Caribbean and Pacific/European Union Parliamentary Assembly, who visited here as part of a delegation in November.

This is not the first time that the issue of capital punishment is being placed firmly on the political agenda in Jamaica. In 1978, for instance, the government of the late Michael Manley allowed a parliamentary conscience vote on the issue. The House voted in favour of maintaining hanging, while the Senate voted against.

Jamaica's wishes notwithstanding, appeal court rulings and pressures from trade partners have had an influence on the position that the government takes....

Continue reading this article

Author: Vaughn Davis
Source: Jamaica Observer

http://www.ziplaw.com/news/archives/000182.htm

20 QUOTES CRITICIZING THE DEATH PENALTY ABOLITIONISTS

Here are 20 quotes criticizing the death penalty abolitionists, especially the European Union who are the leaders in the abolition of the death penalty:

1. “Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” - Adam Smith (baptized 16 June 1723 – died 17 July 1790 [OS: 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790]) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. It earned him an enormous reputation and would become one of the most influential works on economics ever published. Smith is widely cited as the father of modern economics and capitalism. Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow teaching moral philosophy, and during this time he wrote and published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day. Smith returned home and spent the next ten years writing The Wealth of Nations, publishing it in 1776. He died in 1790. 

2. “Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property, or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable it is to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary...our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself and that while no other crime that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall." - John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873), English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential British Classical liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. 

3. “Why is it barbaric to require that one who violently steals the life of an innocent (or 168 innocents) not be allowed to keep his own? Where is the moral tradition that prescribes life for mass-murderers? How can it be civilizing to tell the world's worst people that no matter no matter how many victims they butcher, no matter what cruelty they inflict on others, the worst that will happen to them is that they will go to prison? Those are questions that abolitionists never answer.” - Jeff Jacoby (born February 10, 1959) is an American conservative syndicated newspaper columnist.

4. Contrary to the claims of capital punishment opponents, the death penalty is not a means of exacting revenge, nor does it debase us as a society. Instead, it is a legal, judicial means of judging responsibility and an appropriate punishment for particularly atrocious or hideous crimes.

For example, how can one justify leniency for someone who abuses and murders a child? Not only is that youngster deprived of the carefree experience of childhood, but also the family is forever denied the joy of guiding the child through to maturity and the hope of grandchildren. There can be no more horrific experience than that of a parent burying a child. - J. Karl Miller writes a weekly opinion column for the Missourian. He retired as a colonel in the Marine Corps. He is a Columbia resident. 

5. “Those who demand the abolition of the death penalty for murderers and criminals, in both the East and the West, forget the feelings of the victim’s family, and the magnitude of their loss. The role of the death penalty is to offer a form of just retribution, whilst it also serves as a deterrent, and supports the security of societies. Even states that adopt the principle of ‘blood money’ should not allow profiteering from the millions paid by good-hearted humanitarians, since this might lead to a dangerous increase of the rate of murders or a desensitization towards the act of killing. Yet, it is necessary for the concerned authorities to distinguish between a killer and another in terms of the nature of the crime, its motives and its surrounding conditions.” - Muhammad Diyab is a well-known Saudi writer and journalist. 

6. “The tragic slaughter of innocent human beings includes the shooting of women, pregnant and otherwise, babies, children and the elderly, involving beheading and dismemberment, to name some of the barbaric practices that are anathema in a civilised Christian society. If similar brutal murders had taken place in the EU, they may have adopted a different point of view towards the death penalty. God forbid, but if there is ever another significant attack by Al Qaeda in the EU, the terrorists, if caught, would likely be treated accordingly by public demand, instead of being given “bed and breakfast” for the rest of their lives.” – Anthony Gomez is a columnist of Jamaica Observer.

7. 25 Feb 2008 - WE need the death penalty - and we need it NOW.

The metropolitan liberal ruling elite dares to sneer at people like you and me, who are demanding its restoration.What planet do these fools live on? The ultimate deterrent of the rope would make some of the madmen pause for thought.But forget deterrent. When someone commits crimes as heinous as those of Steve Wright or Mark Dixie, what's wrong with revenge? Poll after poll shows the public wants the death penalty. But every time it is debated, politicians ignore the wishes of their constituents and vote against it. Forget the human rights of monsters. Let them swing. - Jon Gaunt (born 3 March 1961 in Coventry), is an English radio talk show presenter, and a former newspaper columnist for The Sun.Gaunt describes himself as a "working-class, educated guy with, in broad strokes, a rightwing agenda". He regularly appears as a newspaper reviewer on Sky News Sunrise. 

8. Unrepentant serial killers and soft MPs 24 February 2008 12:10 AM - The political class dislike the death penalty because it makes them directly responsible for protecting the gentle. They make the most pitiful excuses for being against it, which don't stand up to a moment's examination. Absurdly, they claim to be worried about the deaths of innocent people, as if every murder victim was not innocent. - Peter Jonathan Hitchens (born 28 October 1951) is an award-winning British columnist and author, noted for his traditionalist conservative stance. He has published five books, including The Abolition of Britain, A Brief History of Crime, The Broken Compass: How British Politics Lost its Way and most recently The Rage Against God. Hitchens writes for Britain's The Mail on Sunday newspaper. A former resident correspondent in Moscow and Washington, Hitchens continues to work as an occasional foreign reporter, and appears frequently in the British broadcast media. He is the younger brother of the writer Christopher Hitchens. 

9. “According to the logic of anti-capital punishment campaigners, if just one innocent life is taken then the system is wrong. So why do the same people not campaign against probation, when in just two years criminals on licence have committed 120 murders, 103 rapes and 682 other serious violent or sexual offences? Has anyone made any films about those 120 innocent victims? Nope. Have any rock stars made James Hanratty-style campaigns about probation? Not a chance.” - Ed West is a journalist and social commentator who specialises in politics, religion and low culture. 

10. Why I'd gladly hang Huntley 26 April 2004 = However, so long as Huntley and other murderers like him live, we shall inhabit a society where evil is, in the twisted minds of the potential killer, all but condoned. Tragically, the only position taken by our rulers towards such wickedness is their surrender to it - and their utter hypocrisy in claiming to be fighting it. - Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is a British journalist, columnist and writer, noted for his conservative political views. He was educated at King Edward VI's School, Chelmsford, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read English and subsequently took a PhD in modern history. He joined The Daily Telegraph as a leader writer in 1986 and had since held the posts of chief leader writer, political correspondent, parliamentary sketchwriter, comment editor and deputy editor. 

11. “Countries that give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death.” Mr. Kaczynski said in July 2006. His coalition partner, the far-right League of Polish Families, wants to change the country’s penal code so that pedophiles convicted of murder would face execution. - Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (18 June 1949 – 10 April 2010) was the President of Poland from 2005 to 2010, a politician of the party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS) Kaczyński served as Mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 22 December 2005, the day before his presidential inauguration. He was the identical twin brother of the former Prime Minister of Poland and current Chairman of the Law and Justice party, Jarosław Kaczyński. 

12. UKIP voted against the World Day Against The Death Penalty on 7 October 2010: “UKIP accepts there are legitimate arguments about the death penalty, both for and against. However, UKIP feels that the decision to have or not have the death penalty is a decision that lies only with the individual nation state, and not the undemocratic EU. UKIP notes the attempts the EU has made to interfere with other countries’ policies in this area. It is not for the EU to bully any country into maintaining abolition or enacting abolition of the death penalty. UKIP also notes the way the EU has shut down any debate on this topic in the European context, despite public opinion on the subject. The maintenance or otherwise of the death penalty is, and should remain, a decision solely made at the nation state level via democratic means. Any state with the death penalty should ensure proper procedures of evidence collection, prisoner interrogation and fair trials.” - Nigel Paul Farage (pronounced /fəˈrɑːʒ/; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and is the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a position he previously held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a current Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

David Campbell Bannerman (born 28 May 1960 in Bombay) is a Member of the European Parliament for East of England for the United Kingdom Independence Party. He was elected in 2009. He was formerly a Conservative Party activist who came to prominence as the Chairman of the Bow Group. He is distantly connected, through the Bannerman family (but by no means through the Campbell of Stracathro family, the other source of the Campbell-Bannermans) to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1906 and 1908. He served as UKIP deputy leader from 2006 until 2010 when he was replaced by Paul Nuttall.

13. “I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.” – Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was a journalist, libertarian, and the leading proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century. 

14. “The death penalty still stands, and already opponents are trying to shave the only alternative sentence that ostensibly protects the general public from the most dangerous predators.” - Debra J. Saunders (born 1954) is a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Syndicated by Creators Syndicate, her thrice weekly column is also carried by newspapers throughout the country and on townhall.com. Saunders also blogs for the Chronicle under the moniker Token Conservative. 

15. Yet they certainly do. Whereas the shedding of innocent blood that proponents of capital punishment are responsible for is thus far, thankfully, only theoretical, the shedding of innocent blood for which opponents of capital punishment are responsible is not theoretical at all. Thanks to their opposition to the death penalty, innocent men and women have been murdered by killers who would otherwise have been put to death. - Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 - Dennis Prager (born August 2, 1948) is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, and public speaker. He is noted for conservative political and social views emanating from Judeo-Christian, Jewish, and American values. He defines the latter as E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty (which includes small government). He is a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He taught Jewish and Russian History at Brooklyn College, and was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where he did his graduate work at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) and Middle East Institute from 1970-1972. He has lectured in 46 states and on six continents and traveled in 98 countries and the 50 U.S. states. He speaks French, Russian, and Hebrew, and has lectured in Russian in Russia and in Hebrew in Israel. An avid classical music lover, he periodically conducts orchestras in Southern California. 

16. “I want my daughter’s killer to go the same way as she did. If he was dead I wouldn’t have to sit here, thinking about his smirking face, him eating his dinner and watching TV – things my daughter will never do again. You always get do-gooders who say you can’t hang them. Why do they still want these people to live?” – Kerry Nicol whose daughter, Tania Nicol was murdered by Ipswich Serial killer, Steve Wright in 2006.

17. Death penalty opponents spend millions of dollars and countless man hours fighting the legal execution of, at most, 56 of our worst human rights violators per year, when they do nothing to fight for the end of those inhumane parole and probation release policies which result in the needless injury and slaughter of the innocent. "The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that convicted criminals free on parole and probation . . . commit ‘at least’ 84,800 violent crimes every year, including 13,200 murders, 12,900 rapes, and 49,500 robberies." American Guardian, May 1997, pg. 26. Incredibly, this slaughter does not include violent crimes committed by repeat offenders who are released and who are not on "supervision". Where is the compassion in honoring the previous victim’s suffering and in protecting the human rights of future victims? Opponents’ actions show virtually no compassion for the victims of violent crime or concern for future victims, yet, they exhibit overwhelming support for those who violate our human rights and murder our loved ones. – Dudley Sharp was the Vice President, Political Director, Chairman of the Endorsement Committee and member of the Board of Directors of Justice For All from July 1993 to January 2000. Formerly the Resource Director for JFA until 2003. Justice For All is a criminal justice reform organization based in Houston, Texas. Mr. Sharp created the process for endorsing political candidates, forming a political endorsement committee, investigating the background of candidates, developing a questionnaire used to explore the candidates true positions on criminal justice and victim’s issues resulting in a committee recommendation for endorsements. Formerly an opponent of capital punishment, in December 1995 he made himself a death penalty expert and changed his position.

18. “For the worst murderers, life in prison is just not enough punishment. Abolitionists were willing to lie for at least a decade about Roger Keith Coleman, and some things never change.” - Kent Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He has written over 100 briefs in cases in the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Scheidegger is the Past Chairman of the Criminal Law and Procedure Practice Group of the Federalist Society and has served on the Group’s executive committee since 1996. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications and Congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited in the Congressional Record and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions. After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation. 

19. Abolitionists simply are not being up front with us when they talk about imprisonment with NO chance of parole. This is demonstrated, not only by the current attempts in the legislature, but even more by understanding the emotive wellsprings of the abolitionist movement.

The single most important element in abolitionist motivation is the belief that society is too harsh and the killer is himself a victim. You can see this just by reading what defense lawyers say all the time in capital sentencing memos.

With that belief as the anchor, OF COURSE they don't really mean it when they say "never." That is just a tactical ploy in the present, anti-DP struggle. Real LWOP is, in the abolitionist worldview, something that a fair and decent system could never impose on the socially deprived and downtrodden.

Ladies and gentlemen, they don't believe in punishment AT ALL, not in the sense that normal people would understand. They're lying. There is, unfortunately, not a whole lot more to it than that. - Bill Otis A.K.A William Graham Otis is a 1974 graduate of Stanford Law School and has held a number of positions in the federal government. He started his career in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, and in 1981 was asked to become head of the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. While in that position he argued more than 100 criminal appeals before the Fourth Circuit. He was a charter member of the Attorney General's Advisory Subcommitte on the Sentencing Guidelines, where he served for ten years. In 1992, he was detailed to the White House to act as Special Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. He left the U.S. Attorneys Office in 1999, but returned to federal service three years later as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy. In 2003, he was appointed Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he remained until 2007. He has appeared before both Houses of Congress to testify on diverse subjects in criminal law including the death penalty, illegal drugs and the operation of the Sentencing Guidelines. A number of media outlets have interviewed him on these and other subjects, including CBS's "Sixty Minutes," "The O'Reilly Factor," ABC News and MSNBC. He has written several op-ed pieces for the Washington Post, covering everything from legal ethics to Scooter Libby's sentence commutation, and is an occasional contributor to the blog Powerline. He and his wife split their time between their homes in suburban Washington, D.C and Hawaii. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

20. “When I think of all the sweet, innocent people who suffer extreme pain and who die every day in this country, then the outpouring of sympathy for cold-blooded killers enrages me. Where is your (expletive deleted) sympathy for the good, the kind and the innocent? This fixation on murderers is a sickness, a putrefaction of the soul. It's the equivalent of someone spending all day mooning and cooing over a handful of human feces. Sick and abnormal.” Syndicated columnist Charley Reese made an interesting analogy while criticizing the way abolitionists typically behave - Charley Reese (born January 29, 1937) is a syndicated columnist known for his plainspoken manner and conservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971-2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities. King Features Syndicate distributed his column, which was published three times a week.