Tookie Williams: You've been terminated

Arnold denied clemency for Tookie Williams this afternoon, which means that Williams will die by lethal injection shortly after midnight. I keep hoping that Arnold will get caught saying something like "My role in Kindergarten Cop never prepared me to have to make a decision like this" or something along those lines. That would be classic.

My disagreement with the death penalty is well-documented on this website. I get a lot of crap from people about it as well. Here's an example:

RTAM, I like your website, although I don't agree with much that you say. You are quite funny at times. How can you be pro-choice about abortion and against the death penalty though? I can't understand this viewpoint. Dave

Dave, it's really quite simple. I hate babies. I think they're annoying. They cry a lot, and shit themselves and cry some more. After 10 minutes with a baby, everybody starts thinking about abortions. And although this RTAM thing has started to catch on, I am not sure I like it, as it might give people the false impression that I am a robot, and not human, which is absolutely false.

In reality, my being pro-choice on abortion is simple. I am pro-life, but I don't feel like just because I feel a certain way about abortion, that should mean people, regardles of the circumstances should not be allowed to have one. You see, I'll admit that I don't know what's best for anyone but me. It's a simple as that.

The death penalty is a little more complicated. I don't object to the idea of killing people who commit crimes. There's not a lot of evidence to suggest that the death penalty is much of a deterrent, since killers and the like don't exactly sit down and reason it out like " I would kill that asshole, but I might get the death penalty." If you've reached the "I'm gonna kill that guy." stage, there are very few deterrents at that point.

The problem with the death penalty is that we don't do it fairly. Whether or not you get the death penalty is largely dependent on your socioeconomic status, your race and the race of your victim. Blacks who kill whites get the chair about twenty times more often than whites who kill blacks.

If we're going to do this whole death penalty thing, it needs to be everybody who commits a murder or no body. Not just poor people who can't afford OJ Simpson legal team.