But what I didn’t realize until I checked is that you’re the fellow who claims to have been mercilessly beaten without provocation by protesters while the police only looked on.

Really? Someone who arbitrarily hates over a billion people and is quick to call others “scum” while having a third grader’s conception of justice didn’t provoke the attack?

There’s also the puzzle of why the vicious protesters allowed an ambulance to get through. If they were so bent on hurting you, why did they let the ambulance through?

Me, I’m waiting on the investigation, and hope it receives the media attention your story did.

In the meantime, thanks for letting me know that it’s a waste of time to bother trying to reason with you.

Most murders (not counting the hits by the drug gangs) are crimes of passion very unlikely to be repeated. True, you never bring the victim back to life, but neither do you gain anything except the good feeling of vengeance by incarcerating the murderers for extended periods or executing them.

Bang for your imprisonment buck, you do more good for public safety by keeping petty thieves locked up than murderers, since the petty thieves are much more likely to be repeat offenders than murderers.

Think about Ann Patton. Suppose she did kill her husband. Even if she did, she’s unlikely to become a serial murderer.

Mind, some pedophiles fall into more the petty thief than the murderer category, since if released some of them are bound to be repeat offenders. But this depends upon whether the convict is really a pedophile or just screwed a 17-year-old who was already selling her ass all over the neighborhood.

What we want, I think, is smart sentencing based upon the public good it serves, and this depends more upon the specifics of the crime than a general characterization of it. Killing someone is a big deal, but it’s often ironically one of the least likely crimes to be deterred by imprisonment or the death penality.