The case for flogging
From Mr lain Cassie Sir: Clive Stafford Smith (Flow kindness is killing the death penalty', 28 April) is correct to identify the reason for the decay of the death penalty as squeamishness on the part of the liberal elite. This is only part of a general loss of will to deal with uncomfortable problems for which solutions exist. Condign punishment most definitely does have an effect. Petty theft and street robbery do not really exist in places where you get your hand lopped off if you are caught. The threat of the cane certainly made myself and my schoolfellows less likely to make mischief. This is not to say that I recommend manual amputation as an immediate solution to London muggings, but the principle applies. If you know that you will get caught and that something significantly unpleasant will happen to you, then you do think twice.
We may take comfort from the fact that a very large number of people in this country — almost certainly a majority — do not share the view of Mr Stafford Smith. As the failures of the current orthodoxy become ever more painfully apparent, I suspect that it will come to be overturned by popular pressure.
As for your cover line 'Why is this man dying?', the simple answer is that Timothy McVeigh murdered a very large number of people in cold blood. The question that you should be asking is why, after Ruby Ridge and Waco, the US government officers who murdered a large number of, admittedly rather peculiar, private citizens do not find themselves in the same position as Mr McVeigh? Further, if Slobbo is for it, then so should Janet Reno be.
lain Cassie
icassie govcommet
Previous page
