Shawna Forde gets death penalty

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/02/22/arizona.double.killing/?hpt=T2

I don't advocate the death penalty but I shed no tears for this woman. Here's the crux of the story: an anti-immigrant militant attacked a Latino family, killing the father and 9-year-old daughter (as she begged for her life), and shooting the mother who only survived because she pretended to die from the gunshot.

The murderers thought the father was a drug dealer and they wanted his money to finance their budding hate group. I guess that would have been a nifty recruiting tool for extremists, their willingness to kill Mexicans to get things done. Nevermind the fact that the victims were American-born citizens, such details are irrelevant when racial bigotry is concerned.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you fan the flames of hatred, dehumanization is the predecessor to atrocity. I'm surprised this didn't get more attention from the mainstream media, I guess they aren't as liberal as so many seem to think.

Comments

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Pretty much all of the above. I always forget to include tags :P

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

I loathe the death penalty. But if it has any legitimate use, its in cases like this.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

And of course, we're not allowed to suggest any tinge of racism surrounding the Tea Party, so I'll just let people draw their own conclusions:

http://immigrationclearinghouse.org/the-feathered-bastard-on-shawna-forde-nativists-idiots-and-tea-baggers/

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/shawna-forde-tea-party-militia-murderer-found-guilty/question-1518021/

http://www.longislandwins.com/index.php/blog/post/shawna_fordes_blog_from_the_tea_party/

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Some insist this isn't a hate crime, but I doubt she would have killed this family if they were white, drug dealers or not.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Wow, she belonged to the tea party???

I'm sure none of all those other criminals we hear about belong to the democratic or republican parties.

[404.livejournal.com]

Odd how you are OK with the death penalty when it suits your politics... almost like you are using it to score some political point...

Did the OP express the opposite opinion prior?

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

If so, it should be trivial for you to show us.

And the fact that this bitch slaughtered a family means nothing?
Almost like you're using it to score some political point.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I stated very clearly that I don't advocate the death penalty, I just shed no tears for this woman's fate.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

Let me add that I'd still prefer she gets life in prison with no chance of parole. I just won't lose any sleep over this (or many other horrible crimes that got the death penalty).

For the record, I've always supported the death penalty for conservatives...

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

who commit serious crimes.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I am completely unsurprised a group calling itself Minutemen would behave like a bunch of thuggish, murderous douchebags. Nativists have always been like this. >.<

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

Just because they were a part of the minutemen does not mean that all minutemen are like this or believe this is at all ok.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

She wasn't part of the Minutemen. Did you read the article? She was kicked out because of "unstable behavior". Clearly, the Minutemen aren't the monsters people make them out to be.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

It's because the victims are Mexican and the killer is White. If the killer was Arab, Mexican, or Muslim and the victims were White, we'd already have 5 posts about different aspects of the story. Since the "bad guy" here is a White person, we can all brush her off to the side that says "crazy, freak incidents" and be done with it. This is also why we didn't hear about that Black girl who had been missing for weeks.

There is nothing new under the Sun.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

We certainly didn't hear about the white guy who stabbed a bunch of people in NY.

Searching Google news for murder just now brings up the following murderers (in order):

white murderer in the OP

Iraqi immigrant

no ethnicity mentioned

white guy who killed a boy named Anthony Martinez

another white guy

...

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

The advantage of being a proponent of the death penalty is that we don't have to justify our feelings when someone who commits a particularly revolting act of murder. Personally I hope all those involved, not just her, get it!!!

Altho I would think all good liberals should be pushing for LWOP and maybe they can write children's books like Tookie. Oh wait, he finally got the "cocktail" in the end.

I know you didn't "advocate" the death penalty, but I wonder how many people are on death row right now that have killed kids that many here with the same sentiments would shed a tear for if they were actually executed?

I'm sorry cold blooded murder is the same regardless of the "reason!!
(wow pushed one of my "hot" buttons didn't you)

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between finding a crime horrific and thinking the government should execute them for committing it. Like I said I don't think she should be executed, or anyone for that matter. But I'd challenge you to find someone that would shed tears over a child murderer being executed. They would still prefer to not have them executed but it has nothing to do with justifying feelings.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The disadvantage of course is that you must ignore those feeling when the state commits an act of murder. When state executes someone who is innocent, who then is guilty of murder?

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

While I have no sympathy for monsters like this, executing her won't bring back the dead, or somehow equalize the loss. I will never get the logic of the death penalty. It's 2011...we should be beyond such things.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

The only coherent argument I can think FOR the death penalty is that it saves money compared to life imprisonment, but even that falls down when you take a look at the numbers.

And in any case, in a court of law, we don't let people justify killing people just to save money....

If you can't rehabilitate these people, that just means we are doing something wrong. Try harder. Brainwash the fuckers into being normal, I don't care. Judicial killing will still always be less justifiable.

[kawaiimamimi.livejournal.com]

I am not against the death penalty in practice, though I am against its application today due to the obvious racial tilt in the prison systems. However, for something like this I shed no tears either.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ditto that.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I rarely lose sleep over anything involving strangers.

[singlethink.livejournal.com]

YOUR MOM WAS A STRANGER AND SHE CAUSED ME TO LOSE SLEEP LAST NIGHT!
ZING!!!

By that I mean "I think that is true for most people. Maybe sad but true."

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

How many times do we read about illegal aliens raping, robbing, killing yet this is the article you post.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I never come across any tbh, must be the fault of the liberal media. Were any of those crimes politically and/or racially motivated?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I've always wondered about the claims that Forde's group was a splinter of the main Minuteman bunch. Yeah, they claimed to have kicked her out, but let's look at it realistically. The first thing you do if you set up an organization like the Minutemen (or any other militia-type group) is kick out some people after a while to form a deniable splinter group, composed of gung-ho patsies who are willing to look like bad guys and take the fall for the operations you set up.

Really, these militia organizations are half-composed of ex-Special Forces or Green Berets or what-the-fuck-ever. That sort of 'deniable asset' operation is textbook. And y'know, with a little collusion from the Border Patrol forces in the area, who are so defunded they're amenable to bribes from all over, it wouldn't be all that hard to have your own 'splinter group' for those 'Delta One operations' Forde was all about.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a non-disprovable theory.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

there's never a good reason for the State to kill a prisoner.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Nonsense, the state has an inherent right to execute any of its citizens. That's just called justice.

But taxing it's citizens? Now that is something that just can't be justified. Every cent I make is with my own sweat and blood, and it's plain old theft for the state to come along and take so much as a cent of it.