Greg B.'s Comments
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Jul 1, 2008 | comments: 95
Greg B. Jul 6, 2008, 2:47am EDT
Thanks for the clarification Dan. I didn't mean it to be an attack, sorry if it was perceived that way. A suggestion I have for you, however, is to give interested readers a link to where they can read more, or a study your article is based on. That way it doesn't look like one of so many other articles posted on the Internet, and increasingly on Gather, that have no factual basis.
Jul 1, 2008 | comments: 95
Greg B. Jul 2, 2008, 5:53pm EDT
Dan, I am wondering if you are a doctor, med student, medically interested person, or what kind of credibility you have to be instructing people on something like this. I am not a medical professional, but my father works for a company that makes implantable defibrillators, and my mother worked in a hospital for several years. My conversations with both of them about the hearth tell me that your thesis—that shocking someone in asystole is never a good thing to do—is not entirely true. If the person is dying, from cancer for example, and their heart is slowly dying with them and they go into asystole as part of the dying process you are right, shocking the heart will not do them any good. On the contrary if you are in an ER and a patient with an otherwise healthy heart flatlines, shocking the heart is the only way to get it beating again. This is why AED's and implantable defibrillators/pacemakes were invented, and why they are in hospitals, ambulances and many public places these days. If the heart is healthy it can be saved, shocking it will cause the muscle to flex and could get the heart (a muscle) to beat.

Again, I am no credible medical expert of any kind, but I am not handing out sensitive medical advice on Gather masquerading as one. I am just making connections based on the opinions of the medical experts I have interacted with in my life. Could you give a source or show me some reason to believe you other than that you posted an article on gather? Are you really a medical expert, or are you just trying to get points on Gather by posting something that you know will get you a lot of comments, and then posting it to the groups where people post "great article" or "thanks for the info" without reading the article?
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jul 1, 2008, 1:31pm EDT
They get several years on death row and numerous appeals because they have a right to those appeals. I'm not sure how quickly, or on how large a scale you want to execute people, but in America it takes time. It takes time for several reasons, chief among them being that the American justice system theoretically assumes you are innocent until proven guilty. Last I checked this is America, and last I checked criminals in America have rights no matter how disgusting, repulsive or cruel their crime may be, and last I checked our Constitution guarantees a speedy and fair trial to ensure a just punishment. If a criminal is not given a speedy or fair trial by a jury of his or her peers that criminal deserves his or her appeals. At the appeals stage a new judge will review the case and determine whether the defendant has a case and whether his appeal should be granted before determining whether to reverse or modify the sentence. This is why the appeals process is so long and this is part of why it takes so many years to execute someone on death row. Another part of the problem is an underfunded justice department and over worked civil defense attorneys. The crux of it though, is that if capital punishment is used in the American Justice system it is used as a means of preserving justice, something that takes time and careful administration.

If you want to live in a place where people are executed immediately move somewhere else, that is not justice to me. Immediate, or speedy executions that threaten the stability of the justice system sound like a recipe for an decrease in the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and, as a consequence, an increase in violent crime, not a decrease. Think about what America would be like with a criminal justice system that is perceived as illegitimate, and think about other places without a legitimate criminal justice system. What you should expect to see in places like those are vigilante justice, mob rule and disregard for the rule of law. When your justice system lacks legitimacy, your laws begin to lack legitimacy.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jul 1, 2008, 12:44am EDT
Kimber, to answer your question: "how do you know that??? We haven't tried using it on a larger scale yet!?!!!"

I guess I do not know it, but how can you know anything? We can argue about the theoretical underpinnings of knowledge some other time (and I would gladly, would be a lot more interesting than this debate), but for the sake of this argument, let's say that I come to know things by way of research. In this case, legal research. I have taken my readings of the major capital punishment cases throughout the history of the Supreme Court, and the reasoning given to support each side of each case (the majority opinion, as well as the concurrences and dissents). The upshot of reading those cases for me has been that I have generated a "knowledge" of the history of the death penalty, the eighth amendment, and the current legal and political situation relating to the death penalty.

In 2008 a similar (though much more thorough and professional) line of research was used by Justice John Paul Stevens in his concurring opinion in Baze v. Reese where he writes: "Despite 30 years of empirical research in the area, there remains no reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact deters potential offenders." He then footnotes that statement with: "Admittedly, there has been a recent surge in scholarship asserting the deterrent effect of the death penalty, see, e.g., Mocan & Gittings, Getting Off Death Row: Commuted Sentences and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 46 J. Law & Econ. 453 (2003); Adler & Summers, Capital Punishment Works, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 2, 2007, p. A13, but there has been an equal, if not greater, amount of scholarship criticizing the methodologies of those studies and questioning the results, see, e.g., Fagan, Death and Deterrence Redux: Science, Law and Causal Reasoning on Capital Punishment, 4 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 255 (2006); Donohue & Wolfers, Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate, 58 Stan. L. Rev. 791 (2005)."

I have not read each of those articles, but I trust that as a Supreme Court Justice, Stevens and perhaps his clerks and colleagues, have read those articles: making him qualified to make such a statement on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. I am not asking you to take my view, but to understand how I got there and why I think that I know that there is no convincing evidence showing a deterrent effect. Here are a couple links to pages with some resources related to Baze v. Reese including the Court's opinion if anyone is interested in reading it or learning more about the case:
http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Baze_v._Rees
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-5439.pdf
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jun 30, 2008, 12:12pm EDT
"toast them and feed the needy and struggling families"

That would be great if killing people would actually save money: it wont.
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Thanks Stacey
Jun 28, 2008 | comments: 37
Greg B. Jun 30, 2008, 12:08pm EDT
I should also note that it is not a new phenomenon. Pathos, or emotional, appeals have been employed by American politicians since before the Revolution. In fact, many of the revolutionary leaders employed pathos appeals in their speeches and other rhetorical actions to rally people against the British tyranny. Politicians, business owners, and every other public official uses these appeals to get what they want: they were doing it in america as far back as the 1600's, without a "21st century understanding" of how the mind works. The people who wrote these speeches knew the power of the human mind without neuroscience to prove it to them. Washington was a neuroscientist.

I urge anyone interested to read Jonah Lehrer's book "Proust was a neuroscientist" for more examples of artists "knowing" how the mind works long before neuroscience could prove it.
Jun 28, 2008 | comments: 37
Greg B. Jun 29, 2008, 10:42am EDT
"Why do liberals always assume that their is something wrong with conservatives instead of just realising we disagree with you and your ideas? "

From my reading of the review, the author does not say there is anything wrong with conservatives. I saw it quite the opposite, that there is something wrong with progressives. The review made it pretty clear, I thought, that the thesis of the book is that progressives are stuck in a different dimension of time, and a different understanding of how the brain works, not conservatives. IF progressives want to start winning elections they need to learn how to speak to voters in a way their brain can comprehend. I consider myself pretty progressive and do not think there is anything wrong with conservatives, but agree that modern progressives (with a few exceptions) do not know how to communicate to a modern audience.
Jun 28, 2008 | comments: 37
Greg B. Jun 29, 2008, 10:32am EDT
Thanks for the review. This book was recommended to me by a teacher, nice to hear a perspective from a person who is not an academic on the topic.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jun 27, 2008, 6:33pm EDT
Your point on mandatory death sentencing being the only way of it being an effective deterrent is valid; it certainly makes sense that it might work that way. In 1972, the Supreme Court decided on the case Furman v. Georgia. In that case a divided court threw out the death penalty entirely because it was sentenced in an arbitrary and capricious manner. That is, the Court found that it was unclear whether the penalty was administered based on the severity of the crime, or because of some characteristic about the convicted—like race. The Court in that decision left the door open for states to reinstate the death penalty in two different ways, one was to have some kind of mechanism for narrowing the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty (this is what every state that has the death penalty does now). The other option was to make the death penalty mandatory—every person convicted of murder, for example, would get the death penalty regardless of any mitigating circumstances. Both methods were tested before the Supreme Court four years ago in the cases Gregg v. Georgia, upholding the narrowing method, and Woodson v. North Carolina, striking down the mandatory option.

The Woodson decision dealt with a North Carolina law mandating death penalties for all persons convicted of first degree murders. The Court rejected the law as a violation of the 8th Amendment chiefly because mandatory sentences do not provide "standards to guide the jury in determining which murders shall live and which shall die." The key to this decision, and the Gregg decision is that not all crimes are equal and the death penalty, because of its permanence and severity, should be reserved for only the worst of the worst crimes. It is not a radical or crazy position to take to say that murders have a wide range of severity and brutality and that not every murderer should receive the death penalty. You can find a summary and full text of both of those opinions here (Woodson) and here (Gregg)

Also, the appeals process is not always used to "get someone off the hook," or prove that they are innocent. A convicted person has a constitutional right to appeal their case and that can mean any number of things. Many convicted persons facing the death penalty appeal to reduce their death sentence to a lesser conviction. Different cases are appealed on different grounds: illegal evidence/testimony, unfair or illegal treatment of the criminal, etc. It is difficult to imagine someone on death row being put back on the streets after going through the appeals process unless they were actually innocent. Limiting the appeals process would be fine but points to larger problems in the court system's ability to work quickly. Again, the criminal has a constitutional right to appeal their case, and is innocent until proven guilty. The court system is designed to produce justice, and there are historical reasons for the protections guaranteed to criminals by the constitution. I urge people in this discussion to research the justice system before calling prison "Club Fed" or comparing it to some kind of country club. It is not as peachy keen as you all seem to think. I wouldn't want to go there, especially if I were innocent.
Jun 27, 2008 | comments: 57
Greg B. Jun 27, 2008, 9:50am EDT
Whatever the tree is with the tiny seeds in my front yard that are tiny enough to infiltrate my car's ventilation system when the fall, thus causing my vents to shower me with seeds every time I turn my car on. I don't know what it is, but that is definitely the tree I would not be.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jun 27, 2008, 9:40am EDT
I will not argue that fear of getting caught will not deter crime. Any person who has seen an entire freeway slowdown when a police officer is watching traffic can tell you that. That is different, however, than the deterrent effect that capital punishment supposedly has. Your points are valid and show part of why it is difficult to show a relationship linking a deterrent effect to capital punishment. The studies I am familiar with suggest that the availability of capital punishment for a crime is not a strong deterrent for most crimes. Justice Stevens discussed the lack of deterrence in his concurring opinion in Baze v. Rees when he writes "The legitimacy of deterrence as an acceptable justification for the death penalty is also questionable, at best. Despite 30 years of empirical research in the area, there remains no reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact deters potential offenders.".

Seeing the police and knowing you will get caught is a different deterrent effect than knowing you might get the death penalty if you get caught.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jun 27, 2008, 2:37am EDT
"the offender who kils or rapes a child and found guilty and is then put to death will not be offending again. It has deterred him."

Not exactly what we mean by a deterrent effect. A deterrent effect of a punishment means that other people will not commit a crime because of the potential punishment. In the case of capital punishment it means that people will stop murdering if they know that death is a possible punishment. Capital punishment has been shown in recent studies to deter very few people form murdering, raping or any of the other capital crimes. I'm mostly convinced that the only circumstances under which the death penalty is just is in treason cases and other assaults on the state—ie. extreme instances of terrorism like 9/11 where thousands of people lose their lives, and the like.

Also, I also urge all of you who think that prisoners on death row should have be put to death swiftly, or who would deny them healthcare, an appeals process, and other so-called "luxuries" to put yourself in the perspective of a wrongfully convicted or imprisoned—that is *innocent*—person. I know I would want those "luxuries" especially the appeals process and healthcare "luxuries" if I were wrongfully convicted. In the United States a person is *innocent until proven guilty,* it's a shame that some of the people in this conversation fail to realize that. A person has full right to appeal his or her case, no matter how convinced the jury was, through all the levels of the court system. That includes the Supreme Court of the United States. If the convicted has a strong enough case for his or her innocence or other factors that should prevent them from getting death—like being a child, mentally handicapped, etc.—a lawyer will take the case, and the SC might actually hear it. If the case is not compelling the prisoner might have a difficult time finding a lawyer to take it, and the Court probably wont hear it. The issue is not as simple as some people here are making it. Just remember, any one of us on here could one day be wrongfully convicted of a crime. I know I do not want to be in some of the justice systems some of you are advocating for if that is me.
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a footnote about lethal injection, sometimes, if administered incorrectly, the convicted can feel intense pain before the paralytic kicks in. furthermore, the people administering the injection are not doctors or medical professionals because *doctors will not kill people, no matter how disgusting.* Most (if not all) American doctors hold true to an oath to do no harm—which includes people supposedly deserving of the death penalty.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 68
Greg B. Jun 26, 2008, 1:35pm EDT
Great read, I had heard of the Hadron collider before but never connected it to the internet or anything other than understanding black holes and other cosmological concepts I do not fully understand but find fascinating. There was an episode of PRI's Studio 360 a while back for those who want more information about the Hadron Collider.
Jun 26, 2008 | comments: 93
Greg B. Jun 26, 2008, 11:10am EDT
As a Constitutional issue, I have no problem with it, and I think the supreme court got it wrong yesterday when it handed down *Kennedy v. LA*, a case I researched and prepared arguments for as part of a Constitutional Law course. The LA legislature authorized the death penalty for the crime of Child Rape and had the same discussion we are having right now about whether it was a just and practical punishment. As far as I am concerned, the Eighth Amendment reads "And no cruel or unusual punishments inflicted." And the 14th Amendment, the one that applies it to the states, reads: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." This tells me that as long as the state's law is given through due process (a bill is written, debated, signed by the governor, etc.) it is neither cruel or unusual.

As a matter of public policy however there are few instances under which I would be comfortable with the death penalty, and I am glad I live in a state where it is illegal. Prisoners have rights, whether you like that or not you have to accept it. Our Constitution is written with rights protecting persons convicted of crimes from unjust punishment. This is why prisoners have access to cable television, the Internet, libraries of books. Depriving prisoners of these rights, I think, would justify as cruel and unusual punishment long before the death penalty ever will. Think about what might happen if you were wrongfully convicted and you had no mechanism to research your case, discuss your case with a lawyer, learn about the appeals process if you did not know about it, etc. For some prisoners, their access to education in prison can also function as a rehabilitation exercise (for those who are serious about it.) Do all of these so-called "luxuries" change the fact that prison is a horrible and awful places? Not at all. Especially the Super Max prisons that are showing up these days, prison is still a terrible and terrifying place to spend life without a chance of parole. Just because a prisoner can watch cable television does not mean that person is enjoying life. They still live in a cell, usually with another person, without a real door, or bathroom. They still take group showers. They still are completely cut off from any real contact with society and any family they have out side of prison, and they still wear a cloak of shame after their release, marked for life as an ex-con. This cloak makes it harder to get a job after being in prison and generates all the awful images every one of us conjures up when we think of ex-convict.

I doubt any of you who are arguing that prisoners should have "luxuries" taken away would extrapolate that to Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter; all of whom used these "luxuries" to organize people against their unjust imprisonment. Some people are wrongfully imprisoned and are not criminals. Sometimes they are targets of society—ethnic and social minorities—other times they are just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Those people deserve to make their case to get out of prison, and back on the streets.
Jun 25, 2008 | comments: 56
Greg B. Jun 26, 2008, 1:24am EDT
That was a great story, I especially like the vivid character descriptions and their development as the story progresses. Well done.
May 16, 2008 | comments: 23
Greg B. Jun 26, 2008, 12:57am EDT
Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate the comments, long paragraphs seems to be a consistent flag. I tried to catch all the spelling errors but some of them apparently slipped through the cracks; if you could let me know (if you remember) what the redundant words were that you mentioned that would be really helpful. I know it is a shall not do and it's something I've struggled with as a writer for a while so it would be wonderful if you could point those out more specifically. To answer your question, there was no word limit to this piece. Not having a word limit is a gift and a curse because it does not limit how much I can say but usually leads to wordy and unnecessary paragraphs. Thanks so much Angela, and everyone else who has commented here, your help is much appreciated.
Jun 20, 2008 | comments: 74
Greg B. Jun 25, 2008, 11:24am EDT
This is a great article. Street murals, graffiti, whatever you want to call it is grossly under appreciated art. Props to you for supporting underground artists and art! Sweet garage too, a lot cooler than mine....
May 16, 2008 | comments: 23
Greg B. Jun 16, 2008, 3:50pm EDT
The article was my final paper for my contemporary rhetoric class at Gustavus, but the motivation for the topic came from the recent lawsuits waged upon some of my fellow students down here by the Recording Industry Association of America. It initially started as a piece applying Kenneth Burke's scapegoating theory to the RIAA but eventually turned into a (much more interesting) discussion about the idea of ownership as it relates to something so esoteric as art, specifically music. I have changed some things in the paper since you read it, nothing major, just some editorial things to make it acceptable to hand in as a final draft. This will likely turn into my honors thesis for my Communication Studies degree.
Dec 28, 2007 | comments: 15
Greg B. Dec 28, 2007, 11:44pm EST
Ron Paul's honesty does not exclude him from the nut case title.
Oh yeah, and Mike Gravel is a nut case too, funny yes, but a nut case nonetheless.
Dec 18, 2007 | comments: 11
Greg B. Dec 19, 2007, 10:35am EST
@M.C. Will you stop posting and deleting comments and settle on one please, you are flooding my inbox. You think I'm wrong, I get it.
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Greg B.
St. Peter, MN
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