Whoops, I realized I was responding to this as if it was posted on the article on the Root from last night, not this one. This article isn’t particularly sensationalist, but I still believe context needs to be provided when making moral judgements about how society punishes criminals.

Don’t be an enemy of truth.

I know my nose is sharp and my skin is light, but my politics are as black as night. Today, I don’t identify as mixed. I reject my white privilege in a racist America. There is no way that I or my kids will identify as anything other than black.

There’s also the West Memphis Three and several other situations.

Well, the obvious follow-up question is why you believe the various articles omit any mention of their crimes, if you think people who oppose the death penalty won’t be swayed by the facts of the case.

Good, I’m glad your position stays consistent. My problem with the two articles I’ve read detailing these two executions have very much shied away from what these people did to be put on death row and relied on sensationalism and (confusingly) trying to portray the two men as the real victims in the scenario. It’s…

To not be crueler than Jack Jones, all you have to do is NOT murder someone with them dying 100% believing that you’re going to murder their 11-year old daughter next and there’s nothing they can do about it, because again, you’re raping and strangling them to death.

“Laying out the case”? Without looking at my post, using only the original article, tell me the names of the victims and why these men were sentenced to death.

I’m aware what mitigating evidence is, I don’t think either of them being molested or sexually abused in any way excuses or lessens attempting to beat an 11-year old to death with the butt of a gun after raping and murdering her mother. I don’t think you can lessen their culpability for these vile fucking acts by…

Why are the facts making you defensive?

That’s perfectly fair, I just don’t want people thinking that these aren’t absolute monsters. Because make no mistake, they are absolute monsters, and what they did to innocent people shouldn’t be minimized or hidden for the sake of making a political point. If it doesn’t change your opinion on the death penalty, then…

Regardless of your opinion on the death penalty, for context (emphasis mine):

Regardless of the heinous crimes commited by individuals, what does it say about us that we deliberately and calculatingly take the lives of our fellow citizens?

It’s disingenuous to talk about their lives without talking about the acts that defined their lives the most. Their stories are tragic, but their choices were their own.

I agree completely. I don’t disagree with Monique contextualizing what kind of lives these people had, but I disagree with the downplaying of them of them as perpetrators of horrific acts. It’s sad that someone suffered frequent sexual, physical and emotional abuse and it undoubtedly had a large impact on who they…

I agree that the current system for the death penalty is fucked up and needs to be changed/fixed. I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong as a concept.

I’m sorry, but you including their histories of sexual abuse makes it sound like you’re excusing their crimes. If it was yet another Catholic priest busted for pedophilia, would you include that they most likely were molested themselves? Life sucks and not everyone who is abused perpetuates the cycle, and I’m pretty…

Obviously shade.

I invoke the “literal” clause, where anything can mean anything, as long as you blewb what the other guy blernt.

Guhhh, I hate to say it, but if I manage to get my sixpack back for the summer, I’d wear that. People GOTS TO KNOW, dammit. What, I dieted for months for my OWN sake? Plz.