Gut Reaction: San Francisco

Has anyone else seen the story of the woman who threw her three kids, aged 6, 3, and 1, into San Francisco Bay?!?!

I have two questions:

1.) Why (okay, that's a pretty obvious one), and 2.) When is this country going to grow the testicular fortitude to do what needs to be done?

1.) The woman claims to have heard voices in her head, telling her to throw her kids into the bay. I can't help but remember the South Park episode in which they ripped apart John Edward, the psychic. He told Stan that he heard voices and Stan said he did, too: "It's called intuition."

Obviously, this lady isn't getting it. I mean, even if you are hearing voices, does that mean you should LISTEN to them? I hear voices telling me I should throttle every IRS agent in the United States; I don't act on them. (Ohhhh, that's gonna get me in trouble, I bet...)

Presume for a moment that you are a deeply religious individual. You hear a voice inside your head and you can't tell whether it's God or the Devil. If that voice is telling you to throw your three kids into San Francisco Bay where they will likely die withing five minutes due to hypothermia, my bet is it isn't God. So why would you listen to that voice?

Now, presume you're not religious -- my question still stands: why would you listen to that voice?

2.) I can hear the bleeding hearts now: "Oh, we have to try and understand why she did that..." The hell we do; she killed her kids! That's murder. If it can be proven that she did so in the first degree, hang her. Publicly.

I am so damned sick and tired of people thinking it is society's role to determine why someone did something bad. It's psychologists role to find out why Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate 15 people, it's society's role to remove that guy from society. It doesn't matter why he did it, other than to attempt to spot trends to prevent that sort of thing from happening again. And this is what gets me: his guilt was neither questioned nor contested! The old "by reason of insanity" bit. Thankfully, it didn't fly.

So, why does this sort of thing happen? I don't know, but I'll venture a few guesses:

1.) Publicity: The media publicizes this stuff up because we moross individuals will watch it. (I use the collective "we" as Americans here; I never tune in to this kind of crap. I didn't watch the trial of what's her name in Texas that did this, nor did I watch one second of the Michael Jackson trial.) People want to be noticed, just like the old axiom about dealing with kids: they'd rather be praised than punished, but they'd rather be punished than ignored.

2.) Because They Can: With so many people wringing their hands over why someone did something, this country has lost all concept of judicial responsibility. Lawyers introduce excuses for their clients in an attempt to get them off, 'cause that's where the bucks are. "Oh, that poor man was abused as a child; he's not a murderer." Plenty of people out there had been abused as children, but they don't go around killing people.

Screw the excuse/reason why someone did something; the law says don't do "X." If they did "X" then punish them for it! How friggin' complicated does it have to be? If someone steals my car and trashes it in the process, I don't give a rat whether they did it because they were economically downtrodden or some such similar drivel. I'm out a car, for crying out loud, something I worked long and hard to acquire!

So that brings me back to my original question: When is this country going to grow the testicular fortitude to do what needs to be done? And that is (ta-daah) punish people for doing bad things! Negative reinforcement works, folks. If you get into the cookie jar before dinner, you're going to get a spanking. If you run a red light, you're going to get a ticket. If you murder someone in the first degree, you're going to get the chair (needle, rope, bullet, whatever).

And the problem isn't the death penalty, it's how it's applied. Right now, it's racially and economically unbalanced. There are way too many sentencing guidelines, plea-bargains, and restrictions to equitably apply the death penalty any more. As such, it serves as no deterrent. Hire a good enough lawyer and you can, literally, get away with murder. Think that's justice? Not by my definition of the word...

You want some guidelines that make sense? How's this: If you murder someone in the first degree and you're found guilty; buh-bye. Period -- end paragraph. It shouldn't matter who you are, what you made last year, what race, creed, or background you're from. Commit that level of crime and you should be removed from the gene pool, and as swiftly as possible. No book deals, no movie deals, no time for a bunch of whining, sympathetic Leftists to gather outside the gate and piss and moan about how you've been misunderstood. Appeal it, sure, but you got two years, tops, for your lawyers to do so.

First degree murder, a murder in which one plans, schemes, or otherwise conceives of a method to kill someone, hence "premeditated," is tough to prove, so when prosecutors CAN prove it, the end result should be very obvious. And prosecutors that can be shown to have executed an innocent individual? Ah, there's that whole definition of "premeditated" again, isn't it? I'd bet my next paycheck against a friggin' jelly doughnut you'd see a lot fewer false convictions if the choice is between one's conviction record and one's life.

It wasn't that long ago that rape was a capital offense in this country. Rape someone, and you're off to the gallows. I think that should be brought back, too. I mean, if nothing else, it'll decrease the population of rapists in this country, either by removing them from the number of the living or by giving them an incentive to find another hobby. Again, equitably applied, I bet the frequency of rape goes down, and markedly. Instead, we put them in prison where they can rape people.

Anyone else wondering where the friggin' logic is on that one?

Semper Fi,
The Almighty Mattski