h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Greetings. Let me add here that we in the US were also heartily sick of the continuous coverage (up to the last minute) of the death of Timothy McVeigh. No matter where you are on the capital punishment issue, the only result of McVeigh's death is that he is now a martyr for his "cause". Life in prison would have, eventually, dulled his celebrity status, and we would have forgotten about him. Nothing can bring back or atone for the misery his action brought upon those innocent people in Oklahoma City. He was unrepentant to the end. His life was worthless and his death made into a media circus.

It's time to move on now, and let the healing process continue. Can you believe it's been over 5 years since the bombing? McVeigh is dead and gone, and facing his own version of Hell now. It's too good for him.



VCH

Thanks for your message! I'm not sure whether I believe in an afterlife, but otherwise I agree with you 100 per cent. I hope the column didn't read as if I thought all Americans loved the execution circus and wanted to wear the T-shirt - I'm sure many millions of Americans shared your view, and I did see the moving scenes at the anti-capital punishment protests at Terre Haute. Likewise, if I lambast President Bush (as I think I probably will in this week's column, over his environmental policies) I do so in the full knowledge that most of you didn't vote for him!
It was extraordinary how the whole grisly business dominated the media even here, an ocean away. On Tuesday, one respectable UK daily newspaper had a front-page headline "I WATCHED HIM DIE" with an eye-witness account of the execution. Well thank you, Mr/Ms eye-witness, I hope you enjoy the money you got from selling your story - but I don't wish to read the story!
I really do think that capital punishment is the modern equivalent of the human sacrifices that were found in some ancient civilisations. They sacrifice the occasional chosen one to the great goddess Laura Norder and hope that it will make all the other bad people go away - despite all the statistics proving otherwise. It also has some things in common with witch-burning. People are able to feel good about themselves because all the evil in the world was in THAT person, and now they're gone so everything's supposed to be all right.
In Britain, we don't kill criminals but we do love to demonise them; so some end up serving abnormally long sentences because they're infamous, and no politician dares to be seen to be the one that released them. As we move on into the 21st century, shouldn't we be more rational than that?

oh yeah, you could go for a walk on the yorkshire moors with ian brady.
alec.

No, it's obviously poitically impossible to release either him or Myra Hindley. I suspect this is not only because their victims were children, but also because the crimes were comitted quite near to the time the death penalty was abolished in England.
Also,by most tests he's insane
I don't see why, however, he isn't allowed to kill himself - he is currently being force fed

I guess it's precisely because Ian Brady is clearly criminally insane that he can't be allowed to kill himself. If you decide that someone is clearly too unstable even to be kept in a "normal" prison, never mind released, you can't then add: "Ah, but he's sane enough to decide when he wants to die." If the prison authorities allowed him to starve himself, they'd have to be judged as guilty of neglect of a mentally ill patient - just as they would be if they allowed someone who'd been threatening to kill themself to have razor blades.
I'm not quite sure how to take your terse little posting, Alec, but just for the record, I certainly wasn't suggesting that Brady should be released. Clearly he could still be dangerous, and that's obviously the most valid of reasons for keeping someone behind bars. A better example of what I was getting at would be the Kray twins. Other villains who committed a gangland killing would be released after say, eight or 10 years. They served maybe three times that long a sentence - one of them incarcerated until death, the other until very near death - and it's hard to see why unless it was because of their fame. And it's not that I think they were terrific guys or that their continued imprisonment was a great loss to the outside world - but there should be consistency in the penal system.
No, don't release Harold Shipman or Peter Sutcliffe. But don't keep people in prison JUST because they're famous and there might be hostile headlines in the tabloids if you released them, either.

Incidentally, I've just come across this remarkable story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1391000/1391631.stm - about a mentally disabled man who's been released from a Florida prison after 22 years, after DNA tests proved he couldn't have committed murders to which he'd confessed.
An interesting tale for supporters of capital punishment to mull over, I think you'll agree.

hey orm...i was just trying to be brief/ flippant about a very serious subject.
praps i should have suggested a train ride with ronnie
or renting a Ryder truck and finding youknowho behind the counter asking to see your license.
(if you get to go with ian you should take your own tho,
i dont think he'll bring any).
alec.

I think I'd be more in need of a ...

We could get into a huge debate about all of the non-violent first time offenders who are in prison here in the US for selling an ounce of marijuana....the largest growing prison population is small-time dealers...I agree that heroin/crack/cocaine dealers should be put away. But pot? Give me a break....We are simply warehousing these people, and it costs somewhere around $40,000 (US) a year now for their care and feeding. And it deters NO ONE from using....




vch

Absolutely. When will people learn that the "war on drugs" is never going to be won? But again, it all has to do with politicians wanting to be seen as being Tough On Crime.
There was a particularly hilarious episode in Britain last year when a leading right-wing populist, Ann Widdecombe, demanded zero tolerance for marijuana users at the Conservative Party's annual conference. It went down well with the party faithful at the conference, but her position was then severely undermined when several leading Conservatives admitted to having tried a toke in their youth!
The Metropolitan (London) police have now announced that in future they'll deal with those found with small amounts of dope merely by giving them a warning and confiscating their weed. Eminently sensible, and something that I intend to discuss in this week's "Notes From A Small Planet".

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well i guess they didnt like the bit about Barry McCavity.
Funny tho cos i got the info from the bbc news page...
thanks moderators.
alec.