Things that make me proud to be liberal
November 26th, 2007, 1:32 pm · Post a Comment · posted by fsherman
There’s nothing that makes me happier to be a liberal than when some conservative announces that things like human rights, respect for the Fourth Amendment and opposition to torture are left-wing positions, as Bill O’Reilly did last month. Yes, O’Reilly seemed to think he was slamming liberals, but if being pro-torture and pro-warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is the right-wing stance, I think that says more about conservative flaws than liberal ones.
Ditto Ron Hart’s column on the previous weekend in which he announces that the possibility of sending someone innocent to the gas chamber is “the cost of doing business” and that using this as an argument against the death penalty is “a liberal knee-jerk reaction.”
So in other words, Ron Hart—allegedly a libertarian—believes that it’s acceptable for government to execute innocent people in order to make the execution of guilty ones more efficient. The rights of that innocent person to life, liberaty and the pursuit of property should be sacrificed to the greater good of society.
The next time Hart claims he’s against giving government too much power, please remember this and laugh at him.
It also mocks his claim that he supports the death penalty because it saves innocent lives. Killing someone who didn’t commit a crime guarantees one life lost, and possibly more, because the real killer is still out there, somewhere and nobody’s going to be looking for him.
Hart goes on to recite the usual arguments of death penalty supporters: Murderers shouldn’t be able to live for years on death row while they work through their appeals, the government shouldn’t have to spend lots of money paying attorneys to defend the indigent and innocent people aren’t going to be convicted anyway: Nobody would be put on trial if there wasn’t “overwhelming evidence,” juries can be trusted to find the truth, and groups opposing the death penalty will knock down any false cases.
In other words, Hart’s position isn’t only that we should have a death penalty—which is a reasonable position—but that we shouldn’t worry about executing innocent people, which is a monstrous position. Like many death penalty supporters, Hart doesn’t just want executions, he wants the execution process sanctified as flawless, moral and devoid of any drawbacks.
The trouble is, his argument is complete hogwash. Innocent people have been convicted, many, many times, and sometimes the only reason they didn’t get the chair is because after 18 or 20 years of sitting on death row, DNA tests or witnesses recanting cleared their name.
There are also multiple examples of prosecutors whose case only looked ironclad because they concealed evidence, hid facts from the defense or accepted perjured testimony. In some cases, even after DNA evidence has cleared a suspect, the prosecutors keep fighting to keep them in jail.
One man on Florida’s death row, for instance, was cleared by DNA testing but the prosecution argued that since the tests took place before state law requiring release in such cases, there was no legal obligation to let the man out.
In some rape-murder cases, when DNA evidence cleared the accused after the trial, prosecutors argued that “Oh, we never mentioned it before, but obviously he had a partner who left the DNA behind, so the accused is still guilty, obviously.”
Funny, aren’t libertarians the ones who distrust government power? Who warn us that officials might exploit their power for their own advantage? And in a high-profile murder case, there are definite advantages to putting someone in jail on dubious evidence (”See! I’m keeping you safe! Vote for me at the next election!”) as long as you don’t get caught.
If Hart thinks killing the innocent is an acceptable cost of doing business, remind me to never, ever, ever go into business with him.
