Jonah Goldberg makes an excellent point in his recent column about how the media always exploits shooting sprees to push for gun control but seldom asks — what should we do with mass murders? To my right-wingy, death-beasty, vengeance-seeking, cowboy mind James Holmes, the Colorado Dark Knight Rises cinema shooter, is a perfect candidate for the death penalty. Let’s review the facts.
- Is James guilty beyond any reasonable doubt? Hell fucking yes! There is absolutely no doubt this little shithead is guiltier than sin. He is so fucking guilty that even a battalion of lawyers couldn’t prove otherwise.
- Is James mentally competent? Here tiny lawyer brains will attempt to argue that poor little James is obviously mentally ill because he killed all those innocent people and only mentally ill people kill people. It’s tautological drivel like this that’s destroyed whatever esteem lawyers once had. It’s a pathetic argument but let’s play anyway. Was Caesar mentally ill when he came saw and conquered? Was Truman mentally ill when he decided to nuke Hiroshima? I hold that choosing to kill any number of people, either directly or indirectly, is not, ipso facto, proof of mental illness. We don’t live in a Kumbya universe people! Sometimes there are excellent reasons for killing people and, more often than not, murders know exactly what they are doing. James is mentally competent. He carefully, logically and methodically executed his murderous spree.
- Was the act premeditated? Duh – You don’t booby trap your apartment or stockpile ammo by accident!
James scored a perfect trifecta; he’s absolutely guilty, he knew what he was doing and he carefully planned his murders. Colorado is a death penalty state. If James retires to a life of cable TV in prison that will be a miscarriage of justice!
Coloradoans shouldn’t worry another nanosecond about the fate of this piece-of-shit. They should be lining up to execute him which brings me to my one problem with the death penalty. If you are unable to kill someone yourself you shouldn’t expect others to do it for you. Our current system of humane execution, (talk about oxymoronic bullshit), by professional executioners is absurd. It shields society from the consequences of their laws and beliefs and it grants to much power to the state. Life and death belongs in the people’s hands. We should select executioners like we select jurors. Maybe if we had to pull the trigger, throw the switch, or swing the head removing axe ourselves we might decide we don’t like the death penalty. I know many death penalty opponents think that’s the case but it’s also possible that we might like it even more. I could easily bludgeon poor James to death hence I can abide the death penalty. Can You?
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 
No, I couldn’t. : )
I saw where you wrote “Belief” is a bullshit word. You know or you don’t know!” Is this a belief, or is it something you know?
It’s something I know.
That’s interesting, because all it would take is one time where you thought you knew (but actually didn’t) and all of the sudden, you don’t “know” anything. And who cares what anyone else knows (aka THINKS they know, or believes they know) when no one really knows anything. That leaves us pretty lonely. This question of epistemology is important for someone so sure in their “knowledge” about something as complex as belief.
Not at all. This is the standard solipsistic argument that we can never be sure about anything. All of our best rational ideas are the best we can do at the time. It doesn’t preclude error or improvements or even complete reversals. So if someone is making strong claims that are later shown lacking I expect a BS detector upgrade. Failure to admit error is one of the strongest bullshit indicators. For example: look at the antics of evolution deniers. The argument was settled over a century ago but the “belief” bullshit is still going strong.