dan gillgrass wrote:U can still receive the death penalty in the UK for "treason" and "piracy on the high seas"
Not any more, as it happens. These were removed as part of the Criminal Justice Bill in 1988, and then the signing up to the European Convention of Human Rights in 1999 sealed the deal, as it were.
Up until 1971, you could still be hung for "Arson in a Royal Dockyard" - a bugger for dockers who smoked...
On the wider issues in this thread (wow! politics!), anyone who hasn't heard my opinions on global stuff and just wants to keep thinking of me as Mr Mad-as-a-fish Bouncychoonmeister may wish to look away now...
I have to say that the idea of punishing death with - ermm - death always seems rather bizarre and hypocritical to me - private murder being punished with public murder. Also, as with Tim Evans - wrongfully hanged for killing his wife and child, largely due to the evidence from the
real murderer - and many others, the possibility of miscarriages of justice abound. The 'Guildford Four', found to be innocent after 20-or-so years, would undoubtedly have been hung were the death penalty still in place.
As a deterrent, it's worse-than-useless. States in America with the death penalty have *higher* murder rates than those without. (see
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article ... 12&did=168), and I believe this is true internationally also.
As for the London bombings, of course, it's abhorrent. Most people that know me are probably aware of my vegetarianism - I can't even bear the thought of killing animals, nevermind humans. Let's not forget though, that the US/UK coalition is killing the same number of people *every day* in Iraq -
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ is currently running at 22-25,000 *civilians*. We should be putting as much, if not more energy into decrying this as the London tragedy.
There is always an emotional reaction to local death - the old Fleet Street (newspaper publishing, for those outside the UK) formula of 'one little girl drowning in Essex = 10 French people in a train crash = 100 Turks in an earthquake = 1000 Africans in a famine etc.' still holds true.
When it's grouped as well, it has a greater impact, but let us not forget again that double the same number of people killed in London have died on the roads in Britain since the bombing. Where is the cry for the death penalty for the driver who was talking on his mobile and hit one of the 200 children killed every year in road 'accidents'? At most, it's a 2 or 3 year sentence. Why does 3,000 road deaths and 300,000 casualties every year in the UK not merit any headline inches whatsoever? Someone once wisely pointed out that if an inventor today came up with a device that made getting from A to B twice as fast, but wiped out the population of a small town every year, he'd be ridiculed.
OK - rant over - or as my kids would say... "Put the megaphone down and *step away* from the soapbox".
Cheers,
Benn.
Piracy on the high seas, now that has a nice ring to it! 
