Gotta say that I don’t agree with you there. I don’t think that anyone is required to forgive someone who did something so awful. But forgiveness may be the very highest virtue and I deeply respect someone who can find it in their heart. In this case the victims lived their Christian faith very deeply and their…

I think that the Innocence Project has shown us the cost of “getting on with it.”

I don't think it is meaningfully lesser, either. Life in prison with no chance of every getting out is terrible. But I don't believe that the state should be killing its own citizens.

Oh, come on, please ungrey me.

He doesn’t. He is a monster.

What you say is absolutely in conflict with our Constitution. Any defendant, even this one, is innocent until proven guilty. That’s not just a cliché. It is one of the very most important foundations of our criminal justice system. And for it to work for the genuinely innocent it has to be applied to everyone. Even…

Because retribution is not one of the articulated purposes of government. It is not, “We the People, in order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility . . . And make sure that racist scumbag gets what’s coming to him.”

He doesn’t. But we merit living in a country that doesn’t kill its citizens. I was incredibly moved by the families of his victims who stood up at his arraignment, told him what they had lost, and then forgave him. That is a much more noble response than the lethal injection. (And no one is suggesting that moral…

Life without parole protects the public by removing the murderer from society. There is the risk that the convicted will commit crimes in prison but that is an issue for prison reform, not a reason to execute them. There is the possibility for rehabilitation with life without parole. There have been plenty of examples…

Of course you are right, the very worst thing about the history of the death penalty in the US is how disproportionately it has been used to execute minority defendants (it’s also racist in its application to victims - you are more likely to be sentenced to death if you kill a white person than someone of color),

None of those alleged safeguards can guarantee that we will not execute another innocent person. Nor will they do anything to alleviate the unequal impact of the death penalty on minorities and the poor. This is why Justice Blackmun late in his career wrote, “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.”

Or better yet, let’s not do it. Let us no longer tinker with the machinery of death and instead live in a country that does not intentionally kill its own citizens.

I honestly think the world is a better place when countries do not kill their own citizens. Not even little racist shits who deserve it.

That's when we know that the Constitution works. When we acknowledge the constitutional rights of a little shit like this.

What was perfect to me about your response was when I stopped and thought, “Wait, my son is a privately educated white frat boy. He’s not a rapist. That’s hurtful.” Which is, of course, exactly how every single Latino felt when Trump announced that he was running. Can you believe that was only his first speech as a…

I hate nothing more than the Trump supporters who justify that with “He says what he thinks!” What he thinks is awful. It is dishonest, racist, misogynistic, puerile, sophomoric, bigoted, stupid and almost always wrong. He is wrong almost everything he opens his mouth. I would like to be exposed to much less of what…

Wow, I hadn’t thought of this but I’m now eagerly awaiting Bill’s cookie recipe! You know he will have one and it will probably be fantastic (and vegan).

Why is a woman this demonstrably stupid given a regular platform to say crap like this? Is it just for the ratings they think they will get from whatever outrageous thing she burps up next? It isn’t just for “balance” because there are plenty of thoughtful, intelligent conservatives out there (though very few who can…

The video that I saw was ferociously edited which does make one wonder what an one edited version might sound like.

There is also a word for the opposite of shaudenfreude, when it makes you sad that something good happened to someone else. What is that?