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Supreme Court Decision on Child Rape: An open Letter to Barack Obama
Recently, Barack Obama said that he disagreed with the supreme court decision banning capital punishment for child rape. I know this is an emotional issue, but the real question for me is what is Barack's stand on capital punishment. That he disagreed with this decision says to me that he stands with previous administrations that support capital punishment. According to available data we along with China execute more people than any other nations on the earth. If Barack really wants to lead, to take us in a new direction he is going to have to develop some backbone and stand up for important issues instead of figuring out what the audience wants to hear and spouting positions that are done solely to mollify the electorate. These kinds of stands are extremely disappointing and represent "politics as usual". Is he going to exercise moral leadership or is he going to be just another follower of the failed policies of the past?
Comments (23)
He will do both, it depends on what issue you are talking about. No one will ever be the politicaly pure one you seek on all issues.
June 26, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid this is the unfortunate truth here. I think Obama is the best presidential candidate I've seen in my lifetime. However, it's not a very high bar. (I was born in 1970.)
June 26, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, really. Name an occasion where Obama has ever acted on principle, without regard to the political consequences. Ever.
I'll answer my own question: You can't name such an occasion, because the event has never occurred. Here's the part that twists my knickers: people actually accept his positions on issues like FISA and Iran and healthcare, offering the argument that "He's just lying now so that he can get elected; but he'll really be progressive once he gets into office." Say what?? And the reasons why he would suddenly grow a pair and become morally enlightened on 1/21/09 ... yeah, pretty fuzzy on that part.
Drop the cup of kook-aid. We may feel like we have to vote for him because the alternative is horrendous; we don't have to take the press releases as revealed truth.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Thanks.
mp
June 26, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tell you what—once you prove God does or does not exist, I'll attempt to prove what motivates a particular person to do something. Unless you have a crystal ball into the heart of Obama, you have no idea when his actions are based on principle and when they're based on political expediency.
He's not perfect. He's also not perfectly devious.
June 26, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a down-side to this argument: it seems to leave us Obama supporters with little evidence to base our support on. After all, we too lack a crystal ball to see what's really in his heart when he votes for FISA, and advocates that child rapists be executed.
Obama's positions recently have disappointed me, and while I haven't forgone my support (as you say, he's still surmounted a not-very-high bar), I've seen a lot of people here get very defensive of Obama. VERY defensive. They seem unwilling to even ask questions about Obama. I never thought that the "koolaid" or "cult" memes were very accurate, but I see it more now. Some people around here seem unwilling to be open to new information and have adopted a "My Candidate Right or Wrong" approach.
June 26, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the defensiveness comes from them wanting very, very much for Obama to be our next president. For some people, truth is not only the most important ideal, but all else should be sacrificed for it. Others find truth a tool that can be discarded when it gets in the way of achieving their goals (which might be very admirable goals), and get upset when they see their goals sacrificed at the altar of truth. Of course, there's also a middle ground that feels that truth is very important, but that minor insults to it, such as omitting facts that support your opposition, are tolerable for the sake of the greater good. Very few will admit to being willing to sacrifice the truth, but very few are unwilling to do so in at least some situations.
Also, some people genuinely aren't bothered by his shifting positions and see it as a necessary step in securing the presidency. Of course, these people are usually operating under the impression that they know how Obama really feels about the issues. I won't presume to say how he really feels, but in this one case (the FISA bill), I think it actually is fair to attribute it to political expediency. The other alternative is that this is how he really feels, which isn't really a better alternative, IMO.
That said, he's still far better than McCain, and it's really hard for me to imagine him doing anything that would change my opinion in that regard.
June 26, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I belong to a third category. Obama will have to do a lot worse to get me to switch my vote. But it's not a paradox for me to say, I dislike a number of Obama's positions but I'm voting for him anyway. I can be honest with myself and others about my candidate's flaws. I don't see why some people around here think that this is dangerous, and that I should stop discussing these issues.
Have you ever known me to be a concern troll, Ben? There's a difference between calling a politician out on genuine issues, and being a Republican plant. (Unless I've been a very sneaky, very patient sleeper Republican plant who has built up a modicum of respectability on the blogs in order to sabotage the Democrats during the general election...)
June 26, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really, really hate the over-use of the label "concern troll", and I can unreservedly say it doesn't apply to you. It seems that just expressing a concern of any kind, no matter how valid is enough for many people to accuse you of trolling. It's a very pernicious problem around here (and on any discussion site, for that matter). To me, a concern troll is someone who is not really concerned, but is merely using the appearance of concern to get a damaging idea (often a lie) out there.
June 26, 2008 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh hey, cmon, let go of buying into the concern troll guilt trip that you're letting others lay on you. Realize that in fact, this website is one where
All political viewpoints are welcome.
I think this happening is part and parcel of the whole Obama supporters clique thing that happened here for a few months and that has had some lingering effects but is passing. This is a site where Grover Norquist was invited to post, much less a boat load of neo-liberal hawks, for crying out loud. Don't you see that what is happening to you is just like high school, where you're afraid to say something because the kool kidz won't like it? The primary game is over now, it really should stop.
This is what's really silly about it: unless someone really is one and not admitting it, members here are not employees of the Obama campaign. I'd be willing to bet that REAL employees of the Obama campaign would MUCH rather see people on a site like this one speak their mind SO THAT they can use it as a barometer of what people are thinking. Get what I am saying? All this role playing of being defenders of the Obama is self-defeating. People who participate on sites like this in good faith as voters, saying what they think on the issues, and not trying to be unwanted volunteer campaign managers, are the ones that are the most precious to campaigns themselves. They are looking for what voters think, not volunteer campaign managers.
Stop the muzzling and self-censorship if you want to help someone's campaign. It's the height of hubris for people to think they know what a campaign needs and wants.
The same goes for other side, by the way. For instance, to tell someone who doesn't give a shit about government surveillance that they have to shut up because they're hurting some effort to force Obama to do something presumes a single-minded activist group, not an open forum.
BTW, I don't mean to say there is anything wrong with analyzing the play by play of the campaigns and bitching about what you think are the wrong plays. That's just fun.
June 26, 2008 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did I miss the advocacy part? I think he said he thought it should be permissible as a punishment.
I'm not sure where anybody would have got the impression that Obama was against the death penalty. He explicitly worked in Illinois to reform the death penalty, not abolish it. There, the system was rampant with errors and he helped write legislation that was intended to prevent that from happening.
Just as a refresher:
Obama is not against all wars just stupid wars.
He is ambivalent about affirmative action solely on the basis of race and not economic status.
He is for single-payer health care but believes it is impractical at the present time.
He is against private accounts, but for doing something to improve the long-range finances of the Social Security System.
He's been talking about this stuff for months. Stop pretending that all of a sudden you come to realize he's not the most liberal Senator in the world.
June 26, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, all of that I know and am fine with. Quite frankly, I didn't know much about his death penalty position, but then, it's not an issue I care a whole lot about. I'm kind of ambivalent to it, but I guess I just always assumed that it was only available for murderers.
Of course, I also took him at his word about FISA several months ago, and was disappointed that he now supports retroactive immunity, and poorly supervised surveillance. The idea that he might actually buy into this nonsense about needing to curtail civil liberties to provide protection, quite frankly, makes me ill.
June 26, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
obama's been in favor of the death penalty. He's just had issues with how its been applied, so in Illinois he worked to reform the system to ensure that only the truly guilty are executed. He also says he thinks the death penalty should be reserved for the "most heinous" crimes.
I understand it as him being in favor of executing the really really bad guys, but only the really really bad guys.
June 26, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
with regards to this specific case:
June 26, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
All politicians come from the same grasping, lying, self-centered genetic stock as the rest of humanity. They will generally encompass the two extremes of the breed but all will contain the same basic inherent weaknesses and foibles. Deal with it. If you want predictability get a cat.
June 26, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you sure Obama was arguing about the death penalty per se or about the role of the courts in deciding it? I was happy with the SC decision, but then again, I only cared about the outcome not he constitutionality of it.
Maybe more erudite minds can clarify what the issue is here.
June 26, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find hard to understand here is that we on the left have for the most part taken as an established fact that Obama is our candidate. Why then is it that he is not representing us? Almost all enlightened countries in the world over the past 30 years have eliminated the death penalty completely. In the 80's the Democratic governor of New York Mario Cuomo refused to sign any executions during his term. He did this as a matter of conscience and a matter of principle. That principle being that for the state to say that it can take life whenever it deems it necessary and then to specify the death penalty for anyone who takes another's life is beyond hypocritical, it is downright immoral. Has the left become so weak during these years of the rightward drift that even one who is considered "the most liberal senator in the senate", is actually far to the right of almost all of the countries who call themselves our allies? Ending the death penalty was a basic principle of the Democrats for years. What has happened to us? A famous man once said: "Be careful who you choose as enemies for you are destined to become just like them".
June 26, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
why are you buying into the republicans frame?
obama is not, and never has been, "a pure liberal". he's more of a pragmatic centrist with lefty sympathies.
besides, i, a full fledged leftwing liberal, actually agree with him on thedeath penalty.
We should use it narrowly, not broadly, we should save it for the worst of the worst. Not just kill everybody whos been convicted of a capital offence.
June 26, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the problem is that liberal activists aren't doing a good job of persuading non-liberals why they are right. They'd rather just pal around with likeminded liberals and bemoan the state of the country and write off most of the country as "fly over". We live in a democracy and ultimately we can't pray for the Supreme Court to advance our cause or technical challenges or the ACLU. We need to win at the ballot box and on main street. And it won't happen just by posturing and ideological purity. Obama and Dean are right that we need to get out there and talk with everyone. I don't think people even in the red states are incapable of understanding our concerns on these issues.
But to reiterate, I'd like a little more fact-based discussion of this particular SC case, not just opinionating about the DP in general.
June 26, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think part of the problem is that even after you get all the facts out there, the constitutional question of whether the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment is still a matter of opinion. This particular case is no different. That the death penalty as a punishment for this crime is relatively unusual was an argument against it, but I know that even as someone who hates the death penalty, I found that particular argument weak.
June 26, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ben: I think if the death penalty was being applied to you or anyone else for that matter I think there would be no question about whether it is Cruel and Unusual. Its like waterboarding, people can argue about this ad nauseum, until you waterboard all of the people discussing it and then ask them to vote on it. I think taking a person's life is certainly unusual and would you think it cruel to have your life ended? So much of the law and precedent is about continuing to do what has always been done. Slavery is a glaring case in point. Only those who take a moral position and stand up for it have ever changed anything.
June 26, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm completely anti-death penalty, but when it comes to the terms "cruel" and/or "unusual", I'm forced to admit that the terms are quite subjective. I'd find being put in jail cruel and unusual, for example.
I'll stand up for it being wrong, but I don't see how this case differs on the merits from so many other death penalty cases.
June 26, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the court viewed it as opening up the DP for abuse, as in, let's apply the DP to all sorts of cases based on voter's whim and populist sentiment. Sounds fine with me, although I do agree it's not clear how exactly this is based upon the letter of the constitution. Can they just opinionate up there in the SC?
June 26, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, to the degree that the Constitution and legal code are vague, they pretty much have to opinionate up there in the SC.
June 26, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
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