Abolishing the death penalty while pissing on the victims of crime

Let me start off by simply stating my position on the death penalty, I support it! I’m sick and tired of people saying the death penalty does not solve or is not a deterrent to crime so it should be abolished. If that is the case then I say break down all the prisons and turn them into shopping complexes because we could do with some extra ‘WestMalls’ in T&T and do away with the life imprisonment sentence because neither of these are solving crime nor are they proving to be deterrents. Currently no one is being hanged, everyone is being imprisoned and the murder rate keeps sky rocketing. People the reality is the death penalty was never meant to be a deterrent nor was it meant to be a cure to rampant crime or any crime for that matter.

The death penalty is simply the consequence of committing a particular crime just as life imprisonment or any imprisonment is a consequence for someone perpetrating a particular type of crime. The death penalty is based on the old adage an eye for an eye. It is based on the premise that the law seeks to promote equality and fairness, hence the statue of the blind woman with the balancing scale. Abolish the death penalty and the scale becomes skewed in the favour of criminals. On the 21st April 2009 gun men killed a man and his wife and then proceeded to burn their two children inside the house. Granting someone life imprisonment for this heinous, gut-less, premeditated crime does not equate to the lives of these four people, there is no way in hell that scale could balance!

What is even more stupid, is people who say the death penalty causes and promotes violence. What utter bollox! If that is the case then we should do away with all the laws against stealing, money laundering, driving recklessly, rape, child molestation etc, because all these laws are promoting the respective transgression right? Wrong, so the argument that having the death penalty on our law books promotes violence in our society is moot, it is dead, it defies logic. Another argument put forward by anti-death penalty activists is that there stands the chance of an innocent person being put to death. Well gee there is also the chance of an innocent person being found guilty of rape even though they didn’t do it and being sentenced to life imprisonment. Anyone can be mistakenly found guilty of any crime and you could also wrongfully be sentenced to life imprisonment.

I fail to see how imprisoning someone for life at the age of 25 and it is only when they reach 80 you find out that they were innocent all along, I fail to see how that is better or more humane than the death penalty so exactly what is the point with that argument? The fact of the matter is all human processes are subject to error and that includes law. Error is an inextricable part of the human fabric it cannot be eliminated. To say that you are going to abolish the death penalty because human beings are imperfect is rightfully stupid. In that case then all laws should be abolished because all laws and the methods by which people are held accountable to these laws are open to error.

Also people who promote this ridiculous argument shouldn’t fly because they could never tell which man made plane will give out in mid flight and they should never drive either because they could never tell which man made tyre will bust on them causing them to lose control of their car and be killed instantly. They should live a life of doubt, return to the caves of our ancestors and avoid the Sun God! In any event there have been tremendous advancements in technology that has increased the investigative abilities of law enforcement officers triple fold. Word to the wise, we no longer live in the 14th century, we are way past the Petri-dish era!

What amuses me about human rights organisations such as Amnesty International is that they are never around immediately after a crime is committed. When those gun men killed that family in April where was Amnesty International? Did Amnesty International issue a statement about these dead people’s rights and how they were brutally denied of their right to life? Did Amnesty International send any support units to assist the family members who were left behind to moan the loss of their daughter, son, and grandchildren? No, Amnesty International is never around when the victims of brutal crimes are being buried! But the minute a government decides to hang a perpetrator for committing a most gruesome act such as setting a house on fire with two little children in it; Amnesty International throws their hands in the air and pontificates to our government about human rights! Is it that only the criminals have rights?

Amnesty International likes to use statistics to prove that country’s that have abolished the death penalty have a lesser crime rate than those that retain the death penalty. What Amnesty International does not tell Joe Public is that the country’s with the lowest crime rates are also the most wealthiest, with the citizens of those countries living improved lives compared to the citizens of those countries with the death penalty but which also has a significant disparity with the distribution of national wealth. Having the death penalty in your law books does not cause crime, what causes crime is social inequality. However as human beings we all have choices and being poor does not justify taking the life of another human being, especially when you choose to sit on the block all day scratching your arse because you’re too lazy to go find a job. These criminals are like parasites that prey on the work force of a nation. We work, we do all the sweating and toiling and like parasites all they do is kill so they can consume and reap the benefits of our labour, they are like a malignant cancer that steals the life out of a human body. What do you do with a malignant cancer? Do you treat it? No, you gut it, you cut it off even if it means losing a breast or an entire limb. These criminals must be cut off permanently because they are a cancer to our society.

Another curious position Amnesty International has is the cost it takes to affect the death sentence. Amnesty claim it is simply too expensive for governments to affect the death penalty. Out of curiosity has anyone ever done a cost analysis on the effect of losing a productive citizen at the hands of these depraved criminals? Let’s say a business man aged 35 earns 400k per annum, he has three children and a wife who stays at home to take care of the household. Some criminals decide to rob him and in the process they put a bullet through his head to take from him what they are not entitled. Let’s say we give the businessman an economic life span up to the age of 65, has Amnesty International done any analysis of losses to governments through the loss of taxes they would have received from this business man? Losses which would no doubt be incremental because as the businessman aged and time passed by taking inflationary considerations to account he would no doubt be making more money at age 40, 50 and 60.

Have they estimated the losses to his family, his widow who now has to find a job and take care of her three children until they all reach legal age? And please don’t tell me about insurance because the pittance she will get from insurance isn’t going to last forever. Does Amnesty take into account the emotional and psychological cost of losing a husband, wife or children to violent crime? Furthermore does Amnesty International contribute financially to the families of victims of violent premeditated crime? Do they help pay the household bills after the sole or a significant bread winner is taken away? Do they attend all the parent day meetings of the now parent less children? Do they remember the anniversaries of the widows? Do they buy gifts for every birthday and leave a mark on the wall for every extra inch of growth? Does Amnesty International keep a widow warm in bed at night as she recoils into herself and stare at the empty spot where her hard working husband once lay?! I’m sure if all of the above costs are tallied it we would soon come to the conclusion that the price at which we hang the bastards is a bargain price!

Amnesty International and all these other anti-death penalty groups do absolutely nothing for the victims of violent crime. Family members are left on their own to pick up the pieces. With one hand members of anti-death penalty groups fight for the rights of criminals and demand the abolition of the death penalty while simultaneously holding their penises with their other hand and pissing on family members and on the graves of the victims of violent crime. Another silly argument that people like to throw at you is, ‘would you be willing to be the one to do the hanging’. The answer to that is quite simple, if it’s my wife and children that the bastard brutally killed then yes I will gladly pull the lever to pop his neck! But for those who want to be smart by asking that dumb question, are you willing to continue paying the deceased’s bills? Are you willing to continue to provide for his family and sustain their standard of living prior to the death of their loved one? Are you willing to attend all the birthday parties and graduation of the deceased’s children? Are you willing to foot the university bills of the deceased’s children?

The above are just some of the effects the loss of a loved one to brutal crime can have on a family. Families pay a high emotional and financial price when a lazy, depraved criminal premeditatedly and violently kills their loved ones. It is only fair that the punishment for such crime be equal to the rippling effect it has on the victim’s family. Giving this person perpetual accommodation courtesy state resources, along with food, entertainment and medical benefits can in no way be a just punishment for the suffering that person has caused unto others. People like to ask the question, ‘Have we become so depraved as a specie to repay violence with violence’. Well I often wonder, have we become so depraved that the rights of a criminal is now supreme to that of his victims? So much so that we are actually punishing society as a whole by seeking to force society to stand the costs of accommodating these wicked criminals in humane conditions that are acceptable to human rights groups like Amnesty International?

If Amnesty wants us to abolish the death penalty then I say let Amnesty International foot the expense of keeping T&T’s worst criminals alive. If such an agreement is unacceptable to Amnesty and I know it will be, then I say forward march to Woodford Square and let the necks start popping! We can all then visit any of our favourite watering holes on the Avenue and have a beastly cold beer, after which we can all take turns pissing on Amnesty International’s request for the abolition of the death penalty in T&T. ©

'Right'

As I grow older I've come to realise that what is considered 'right' is highly subjective and opinionated. Author - Oke Zachary ©

Would you pay for online news?

Greedy Murdoch being the never satisfied capitalist parasite that he is, says the era of free online news is soon coming to an end. His company lost $3.4bn at the end of June...well boo hooo News Corp made so much money in the past they should now provide news both digital and in print for free! Murdoch talks about 'Digital Revolution'....oh please, for someone who has been in the media for a long time Murdoch is a bit late with this idea.

Several news agencies tried this stunt already and when they started to charge visitors to their site people just simply switched to the sites that were offering free news and so the sites that were charging had to revert to offering free news. Asking people to pay for online news would be the equivalent to facebook asking it's members to use their site and there is no way in hell I will pay to use facebook unless it involves using their advert template to advertise my business.

Some are ready to state that we pay for news when we buy a newspaper, that maybe true but news in the print and news online are not comparable because I'm already paying flow for my broadband subscription so why should I pay to view the websites online?

My online news websites are BBCnews.com and Trinidadexpress.com and I will not be willing to pay for either of them. Most news are bad news anyway, why should I pay a subscription fee to read about two foreign tourists being hacked in Tobago, or pay to read about Goopeesingh's ethnic cleansing and Patrick Manning's assasination claims. And worst still, in any event most news are repetitive and are regurgitations of past articles. So would you pay for online news? The poll is at the top of the page.©

Woe Is Man

God created man and said his creation was good. Then he created the other sex and realised that the other sex was manipulative and spiteful against the man! And so God named the other sex Woe is Man, because the other sex distressed and mislead the man, hence the acronym 'woman'. lol Author - Oke Zachary ©

Dying Celebrities and Lying ID Cards

It’s a strange thing, the way people over the age of 45 say to me “Buh you young”. With the understanding of time and relativity I know what they are saying is true, yet there is something slowly etching away at the comfort of my youth. I was really shocked by the death of Michael Jackson not only because of the realisation that the King of Pop is actually no more but by the revelation that he was 50 years old! It is strange how until his death it never occurred to me that Michael was twice my age, his age was something I seldom thought about. As a matter of fact it is only until his death that I actually acknowledged that many of his songs that I liked were released the year I was born 1982 and some of them shortly thereafter.

I grew up on Michael’s music and it is only in the year 2009 that I realised I had a false perception MJ and I was of the same era, heck we were separated by two decades and a half! Then there was the death of David Carradine famous for his role as Cain in the TV series Kung Fu the legend, one of my favourite all time childhood TV shows. Cain I knew for certain was older than I am I had no illusions of sharing an era with him, however his death still had an impact on me because it reminded me of my childhood with such clarity. It’s amazing how the death of a celebrity can really jolt you back into reality and it is not because they were famous and are celebrities. The world of celebrities is like a timeline for us average mortals. Your celebrity fan affiliation is a signature of the era you belong or belonged to and it can scare the living day lights out of you if pondered upon too seriously.

Watching the 2009 BET awards I had a surreal feeling watching Tevin Campbell sing his 1993 hit ‘Can we talk’. This was still the time where the women in a young male’s music video were still fully clothed. I consider myself to be more in Kevin’s era, him turning 31 years old this year just 4 years older than I am. The feeling was surreal because Kevin was no longer the smooth face pretty young black man in his video ‘Can we talk’ and after not seeing him for such a long time it was so strange to watch this man with grey hair setting in, sing his 1993 hit song on the BET Awards. He is still good looking, but after not seeing him for such a long time the difference in his appearance was markedly different. I wonder if people who know me and who are about 4 years younger than I am who may not have seen me for a while, if they see me now would my changed features stand out to them the way Kevin’s stood out to me? And how much grey hair will I have in the next four years?

In the environment I work, the perusal of people’s ID cards is a necessity. Lately I’ve found myself paying greater attention to the year persons were born and observing their features. You’re able to make a better comparison with those who have IDs that are soon to expire because our ID cards are valid for 10 years so you actually get to observe the marked changes of the person’s features over the period of a decade. My ID card is due to expire next year and I’m of the view that ID cards are one of the most dishonest inanimate things to exist on this planet. You give them your youthful beauty via a photo and in later years they lie to you. They list your date of birth and state your name, they claim that the person in the photo is you but every time you look in the mirror you know your ID card is a liar. After you grant them your youthful beauty they flaunt your youth in your face.

As I write this I acknowledge that there are certain parts of my body that are starting to ache, it’s an aching that I’m not accustomed too but I’m sure I will become familiar. It’s strange but seven years ago I don’t recall having a single ache, not unless I bounce my toe or fell real hard while playing football. As I watch school boys in their prime pass me by in the street I feel a tinge of jealousy creeping into my psyche, a jealousy I never knew existed. I suppose it’s the type of jealousy my girlfriend has often explained to me that she has noticed in the eyes of women older than her while observing her and of late my girlfriend has been wondering if she would have that same distant gaze while observing younger girls.

I noticed that her interest in anti-aging creams has suddenly peaked within the last couple months. Being one year older than I am and a woman at that, my girlfriend makes more observations and comments about her body than I do of mine. Two weeks ago she went into Pennywise and while perusing the various brands of anti-aging creams one of the ‘just out school sales clerks’ asked her how old she was and she said she just stared at the girl, she couldn’t answer off the bat. Determined to make a sale the sales clerk indicated to her that once she reaches the age of 30 she should start using the anti-aging cream.

That comment was a grave injustice to me, the unknown boyfriend! Sales clerks ought to be more sensitive to the unknown and unseen boyfriends. We are usually the ones who are left with the challenging task of assuaging our women’s distress of growing old! Another new trend I noticed lately is being asked ‘Will you still love me when I get old”? How does a man answer a question like that but in the affirmative? And how are we to sound sincere every time the question is asked? I don’t know the answer, all I know is some kind of male survival mechanism usually kicks in and I am able to endure the repeated questions and conversations of growing old and for that I thank the natural laws of evolution.

It’s a funny thing how between the ages of 14 and 20 you usually feel as if your life is at a standstill. You yearn for your ‘independence’ and it seems as if adulthood is taking forever to come knocking at your door. August holidays usually feel as if they are a year and the next birthday seems like two years away. Between the ages of 20-25 you enter into a phase of existing but not truly existing as your life takes on a transformation that is most certainly irreversible. Your allowance is replaced by a salary and your home work is replaced by industrial work. Your snack and mall indulgences are replaced by bills, real hardcore never ending bills and control battles with your parents are replaced by emotional battles with your significant other.

By the time you reach 25 your life goes into high gear. The years cease to appear as long and your clock begins to count down. Pretty soon you begin to notice that in the next couple years you will be 30 and the years keep getting shorter and concluding much more quickly. You start to notice the many changes in the world and it amazes you how so many things change and in so little time. The phrase “We are all here only for a time” becomes much more meaningful as we live out and observe the transformations take place during ‘our time’, transformations both internal and external. We solemnly trot along our time lines and embrace all that come our way and the false belief that we control everything in our lives suffices if only to maintain our sanity while another celebrity of our youthful days passes away and an ID renewal is no longer an indication of independence and a new beginning as when we first acquired it. Instead it is now a sign of imminent conclusion, a conclusion we may not be looking forward to but a conclusion that is certain to come nonetheless. ©