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Posted on 04/23/2012 5:02:57 AM PDT by SJackson
When I lived in England I got used to my British friends regularly taking digs at how primitive America is compared to enlightened Europe. To be sure, most of the time the mocking denigration was done in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, and they really weren’t looking to offend me as an American. Still, the taunts were said with conviction. Today it continues, with my friends in England who hear I’m running for Congress asking me why I would want to be part of America’s fundamentalist, right-wing shift.
One of the foremost examples cited by Europeans as to America becoming a country of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals is the fact that we still have the death penalty while Europe has abolished it utterly. I’m wondering, therefore, what my European friends are currently thinking about Anders Behring Breivik who yesterday pleaded not guilty to the massacre in Norway of 77 people, most of whom were teenagers. Breivik cited “self-defense” as the reason for his rampage seeing as he was trying to stop Norway from being overrun by Muslims. He added chillingly, “I would have done it again.”
And here’s the best part. If Breivik is found to be mentally competent, which observers say is likely, the toughest sentence Norwegian law can mete out is twenty-one years, though he may still remain incarcerated if he is deemed to be a a danger to society. All told, Breivik may be walking the streets by the time he’s 55.
Counter to my European friends’ claims that the death penalty is abhorrent, I would ask them whether they felt that seeing a man who killed 77 people sipping a latte on a sidewalk café is not more so. My close friend Dennis Prager, the well-known author radio host, once said that the death penalty, where it is truly warranted, is actually the more compassionate thing to do since the idea of a mass murderer being freed from prison inflicts a sadistic cruelty on the families of the murderer’s victims who demand justice.
To be sure the Talmud famously says that any court that put more than two people in seventy years to death was considered murderous, which just demonstrates how absolutely meticulous and careful any court must be before it metes out the ultimate punishment. But surely Breivik, even according to this most compassionate of opinions, would be one of the two. If a mass murderer of approximately 70 young people merits being freed from incarceration after just two decades then justice has no meaning and the world we live in is utterly lawless.
In the United States we rightly demanded a full judicial inquiry into the death of Travyon Martin. We were flabbergasted that a 17-year-old armed with Skittles should lie in a grave without a complete investigation. Multiply that now by 77 and imagine Breivik walking the streets in his fifties, enjoying a cool morning breeze.
Europeans can mock us all they want, but one of the distinguishing characteristics of the United States of America is its hatred of evil and its constant preparedness to fight it. Whether it’s our 28,000 troops currently protecting South Korea from the new North Korean thug Kim Jon-Un or our brave service men and women fighting the wicked Taliban, America has always fought tyranny while the rest of the world has often preferred to hide their heads in the sand.
Mass murderers in cold blood are wicked beyond comprehension and do not deserve to walk G-d’s green earth along with the righteous. After a proper inquiry and absolutely fair trial, if found guilty we must dispatch mass killers to the hell they deserve. Leaving them alive to one day walk free is deeply contemptuous of the many lives they have slaughtered and trivializes the unending grief of their surviving relatives.
Likewise, when our nation sees a tyrant and bully like Saddam Hussein who gasses children we remove him from power, just as Britain and France courageously did, along with American air power and following the lead of the brave Libyan people, to Muammar Gaddafi. Which just shows that maybe even Europe admits it has something to learn from us backward Americans.
Fighting evil is not primitive nor Neanderthalic but is rather deeply moral and demonstrates a deep commitment to the infinite value of every human life.
While in England I always enjoy the sophisticated practice of soccer riots followed by a brawl at the local pub.
America was pro-good once. Now it is pro-greed.
What's this "we" stuff, kemo sabe?
My Norwegian friend is disgusted at the “sentence” this mass murderer may possibly receive. He also complains a lot about Norway; that’s why he moved out of the country.
haha them are the old days....extremely rare these days!
But we know the truth.
That this upstart Nation of dirt-farming church-goers handed the once-mighty "Great Britain" its ass in military conflicts twice within 50 years of announcing our independence from her King will rankle them for as long as they have the bad teeth through which to sneer at us, and the bad form required to publicly so soil themselves.
LMAO!
It might behoove one to remind our earnest but misguided British cousins that from about the mid 15th century onward, Europe was never without a major war.
And then show them a roll of American toilet paper. Now THAT is civilization!
Yes, because while he is in prison for 23 (not 21) years he will accrue points in the Norwegian pension system and have bigger pension than most SS recipients in US.
Sorry.
The first time we won, it was with French intervention.
The second time, The War of 1812, we lost it on the battlefield, won it at the treaty table, and topped it off with a major victory, AFTER the war was over.
Well, if the American Revolution was taught properly in British schools, maybe the woman at the dinner party I went to in Oxford wouldn’t ask me: “Wasn’t George Washington assassinated??”
You just brought up an unpleasant memory that I had long surpressed! The toilet paper in the bedsitter I lived in during my time at a drama school in London. The horror, the horror! It’s gotten better, though, if you stay in a decent hotel.
Right wing shift ? What the h*ll are they talking about. We have a socialist administration and half the Democrat party in Congress belong to the Democratic Socialists of America. The opposite is true, the US has experienced a major lurch to the far left in the last twenty years. The only bright spot has been the "Tea Party" uprising of 2010.
What would Breivik get in Israel?
Eichmann is the last person the Israelis executed.
I suggest you take some time to learn about the War of 1812. He’s quite correct.
We did pretty good at sea against the british, and unless I’m mistaken, the french didn’t join in until late in the war when we were already winning.
“Armed with Skittles”.......
Real CUTE!!!!
Try to remember that he also had a can of ‘Iced Tea”-—which comes in 20 oz and 24 oz sizes.
Put a bar of hand soap inside a tall athletic sock & swing that—you can kill someone easily...
That can of ‘tea’ was a weapon—and the concrete is considered a lethal weapon in many states, including Florida.
We did pretty well at privateering to the point that insurance rates got outrageous (a big contributor to victory!), but we couldn’t stand up to the British line of battle. Our privateers had issues because the Brits were pretty good at blockading, or capturing, our ports, making it hard to get home.
The French could, and, at the battle of the Chesapeake they did. The defeat of British fleet left Corwallis bottled up in Yorktown. That is why we had a Spruance Class named “Comte de Grasse.”
We’d certainly pulled out of the dark days when Washington was retreating in New York and was quartered in Valley Forge. But we’d had a lot help by that time.
Shhhhhh. TSA will ban socks and soap. Have to use my telephoto lens.
Good thing you guys have oil. We do too, but we’re saving it.
Multiple murders, life. Were he a palestinian he’d look forward to being traded at some point or another.
Boteach is one very confused, kosher PITA.
The French basically were the biggest “financier” of the Revolution. Once the colonists got a few “wins” under their belts, the coffers were opened up. Ben Franklin’s mastery of relations with France was a huge turning point for independence, and he was not well versed in the French language, lol. Franklin struggled but manage to convince France to pitch in some money to keep the colonists a float during the early moments of the Revolution. Once France saw that the colonists could pull the revolution off, out came the $$$ and military support. Of course France wanted several alliances secured, plus other countries pitched in.
The French also helped us during the War of 1812, indirectly at least. If Napoleon was not creating the havoc in Eurpoe, Britain would of kicked butt even harder. Finances from battling the little would be Emperor were running dry and could not sustain an ongoing feud with the US.
Haym Salomon, George Washington, Robert Morris.
Salomon: "Financier of the Revolution. Came to America ca. 1772. Imprisoned by British, 1776 and 1778. Lived in Philadelphia, 1778-85; active in its Jewish community. A broker, he lent money heavily to support the war. never repaid, he himself died in debt."...
"...Solomon negotiated the sale of a majority of the war aid from France and Holland, selling bills of exchange to American merchants. Solomon also personally supported various members of the Continental Congress during their stay in Philadelphia, including James Madison and James Wilson. Acting as the patriot he was, he requested below market interest rates, and he never asked for repayment.[8]"...Once resettled, Solomon resumed his activities as a broker. He became the agent to the French consul, as well as the paymaster for the French forces in North America. In 1781, he began working extensively with Robert Morris, the newly appointed Superintendent for Finance for the Thirteen Colonies.[6] Often working out of the "London Coffee House" in Philadelphia, Solomon sold about $600,000 in Bills of Exchange to his clients, netting about 2.5% per sale. During this period he had to turn to Morris for help when one sale of over $50,000 nearly sent him to prison. Morris used his position and influence to sue the defrauder and saved Solomon from default and disaster.... (wiki) died penniless...
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