the secret memo...

i have posted a couple of things to a sociology list on the "secret memo" from MI-6 that documents the Bush Adminstration already having determined that they were going to invade Iraq in July of 2002. Note this was before they told us, "we have no plans to invade Iraq." In sum, they lied to us and there is hard, tangible evidence that they lied to us.

some other thoughts about the memo that i posted today:

My last word on the memo…I think I would have more respect for politicians and their minions if they would just admit that they were lying. Like, “yeah, we lied, and chances are, we’ll probably continue lying to you when we see fit, so get over it.” The fact that they lie really wouldn’t be news; what would be news is that anyone of them would admit openly that they are lying. At least then we would know where they stand. And at this point, given the apparent national apathy, most people wouldn’t care enough to do anything about it, anyway.

One other thing along these lines; I also think that it would be nice for death penalty proponents to admit that what they really want to see is the SOB who did the crime die. We have enough evidence to know that the death penalty doesn’t deter murder. Case in point…the man who shot his way out of the Atlanta court room in March. GA is a death penalty state, and he is going to be prosecuted with the hopes of getting the death penalty. Now, was he deterred by thinking about the death penalty when he was pulling the trigger and killing those four (?) people? No, he was thinking about getting away; I’m sure that the notion of the potential consequences of his actions didn’t come into play at that particular point in time. Consider, he is in the courtroom, he gets the gun from a police officer, he shots people in the courtroom, he is in the very place where someone would sentence him to the death penalty and he is NOT DETERRED BY THE DEATH PENALTY!!!!!!!

As I have mentioned before, of all of the felons I worked with, there wasn’t one that was deterred by the thought of potential consequences when committing the crime (obviously or they wouldn’t be felons!!!). They all thought that they wouldn’t get caught, that’s why they did it. Most felons aren’t stupid. Careless, arrogant, maybe, but they go to some length not to get caught. In that sense, the “law” had no deterrent effect. Others have argued that laws, in all likelihood, have a deterrent effect on people who are less likely to commit crimes in the first place.

Maybe some day we will have a rational and reasonable society. If evolution determines this, it doesn’t bode well for the human species.