1. It's about time. Her congressional district has been without representation for over a year. Thus proving that Democrats don't really care about democratic representation as much as they care about "winning". In total, Ms Giffords has not worked a full day since her injury. She has continued to draw her full salary during that time.
2. With announcements in newspapers and facebook, it is easy for someone else to be doing the announcing and Giffords being credited. We the public really don't know the extent to her injuries or disability. A bullet through the brain is going to leave a mark. So we don't really know if she is competent to hold office let alone to resign from it.
3. It was the duty of the State of Arizona to remove her from office a year ago for incapacity. I cannot explain why they did not other than a misplaced sense of compassion. Perhaps they needed to work out the details of her long term medical coverage first.
4. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is stepping down later this week so she can focus on recovering from being shot in the head just more than a year ago ...
She should have resigned for incapacity. This statement makes it look like she is just making another choice on how to spend her time.
5. Some reports are calling her "courageous". Way to lower the bar on that word. She was shot. She didn't do anything to get herself shot or to prevent it. There was nothing courageous about that event or how she lay down to die afterwards. In the immediate aftermath, she made no choices or decisions to help herself or anyone else. She was inert. Nothing that could remotely be described as courageous. Surviving a head wound like that is a significant event. She should not even be alive and yet she is. But it isn't because she did anything but bleed at exactly the expected rate of bleeding considering her injuries. I am not criticising her. I am criticising people in the media and politicians who are looking for things to praise her and are ignoring her life as a fully functional politician to focus on the period where she did nothing.
6. In the story I saw in print editions, there was also a statement that her shooter, Jered Laughner, has pleaded not guilty. WTF, people. Yah I get that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing, but seriously? He was caught at the scene of the crime while doing the crime. He wasn't captured later. There is no possibility that it was mistaken identity or an evil twin defense. It isn't possible that he is just a patsy for a deep conspiracy. He really did it. Lots of people saw him do it. There is an unbreakable chain of custody between him, his weapons and the crime. His only defense is that he was crazy. DUH! We already knew that and I don't care The crime itself proves he was crazy. Now let's fry the bastard so we can move onto more important things like Dancing with the Stars or the latest in the Twilight Saga. This is not to say that Americans have misplaced priorities about crime and punishment, but that the certainty of Laughner's guilt, and his craziness is absolute. This really requires very little effort. We don't need a trial. We can just move along to the punishment phase. Our Constitutional civil rights were never intended to protect the guilty, but to protect the innocent. There is no possibility that Laughner is Innocent.
15 comments:
To Prove: GG is Courageous
1-A hero exemplifies the highest values of a people.
2-Liberalism places the highest value on victims (esp. minorities)
3-GG was a minority victim of the highest order
4-Therefore, GG is a hero
5-Heroes are courageous
6-Therefore, GG is courageous
QED
It's great that she survived and all. But she's no hero. She just got shot and survived, just like lots of other people whose stories will never be told on the news.
@Prof. Hale- I understand your outrage about the not guilty plea, and have myself spent some time trying to figure out a way around this nonsense. I propose that we have a "loser pays" system of justice, wherein the loser of a criminal case pays all the investigation and prosecution costs, and has to make restitution. This way, victims have a very strong incentive to prosecute the correct person while perpetrators have a strong incentive to admit guilt as soon as possible. The only sentence that needs to administered is spending time in jail until all the costs are paid for (with the option to avoid jail if you plea out). Obviously, some crimes may need mandatory jail time, so I would recommend minimum time for various crimes (25 years for murder, five years for armed robbery, and so forth). It's not perfect by any stretch, but I think it would be a definite improvement on the current system.
When I heard the announcement, I wondered "why the Hell didn't she do that, or why wasn't it done for her, a year ago?" She had precisely the same need to "focus on recovering" a year ago as she does now. Maybe even more need! And her constituents needed a capable representative throughout that time.
Simon,
I am against your proposal because I believe that the state weilds such power over the poor that they can force convictions of innocent people through the pleas system that currently exists. Even the legal fees to defend your innocence may be so punitively high that an innocent man may accept a guilty verdict to avoid the cost of defense.
I would prefer that in criminal cases, the prosecutor be required to prove his case in court, every time, and that no pleas be heard at all.
The Laughner case just shows how pointles the plea system really is. I suspect he will be going for "not guilty by reason of insanity". But being insane does not translate into not also being guilty. The proper plea he should be seeking is "guilty while insane". The insanity may explain his motive and create pity for him in sentening, but he cannot argue that he didn't do it or that he didn't have a moral obligation to refrain from doing it.
Someone else who needs to resign to focus on his recovery:
"Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., likely faces permanent physical damage and a long-term cognitive recovery after successful surgery for a stroke, doctors said Monday.
Neurosurgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said parts of Kirk's brain are permanently damaged.
"The prospects for his full physical recovery, particularly on the left side of his body, are not great," said Dr. Richard Fessler, a neurosurgeon at Northwestern Memorial.
The stroke may also result in "some facial paralysis," Fessler added, with Kirk maybe recovering use of his left leg, but "the use of his left arm is going to be very difficult."
Fessler said that Kirk's "prospects for a full mental recovery are pretty good."
"Senator Kirk's job is cerebral, and I believe the functions required to do his job are going to be fine," he added.
Kirk, 52, was elected in 2010 to fill the seat previously held by President Obama. He is divorced and does not have children. His office announced his surgery early on Monday in a statement that said he had a stroke on Saturday and underwent surgery early on Monday to relieve pressure on his brain.
Fessler warned that recovery would be difficult. "It's not going to be days," Fessler said."
No. He's a Republican, so he can stay.
Seriously though, his doctor signed off on his mental capacity to perform his job. If it becomes apparent that he cannot speak, think, or physically handle going to work on a regular basis, then i would agree. But I am not in favor of removing elected officials every time they visit the doctor.
In general, The Republic can survive a couple of non-functional representatives. Just look at the Congressional black caucus and Seb Byrd's final years. In most cases, the elections every tow years is a sufficiant control on allowing incapacitated representatives serving. But the rules already exist to handle people who are obviously not coming back to work and those rules were ignored for Gifford.
Erm, brain surgery after a stroke is not merely a "visit to the doctor".
Depending on the stroke, recovery takes six months to a year or more. There is no reason to let an elected office go unfilled during that time.
Not all strokes or brain surgeries are alike. Nor are all recovery periods of equal length, intensity or focus. If he can speak, think and physically get to and from his office for votes, he can represent his district. This blog isn't going to advocate a policy of telling medical science how to diagnose and treat strokes. So he limps. So a side of his face sags. The essential question is, can he perform his duties? indications from his doctors and staff are that he can. This was never the case with Giffords.
"Not all strokes or brain surgeries are alike. Nor are all recovery periods of equal length, intensity or focus."
Um, did you read the story?
permanent physical damage
parts of Kirk's brain permanently damaged
prospects for his full physical recovery not great
recovery difficult
Whatever. It happened YESTERDAY? Give the guy time to get out of surgery before you name his replacement.
@Prof. Hale- I was necessarily brief in my comment, since I've written on this before at my blog. One key element of this proposal is privatizing prosecution, which should help to substantially reduce the power the state wields over the poor.
Simon,
I read your design for the courts and I am forced to conclude that it suffers from an overabundance of Libertarian belief in the inherent goodness of man and in the ability of men to choose what is best for themselves. There is ample evidence that this is not the case and that especially among the criminal class, there is no pattern of making good choices to avoid prosecution.
Further, the purpose of jails is to separate the criminal class from the rest of society so that the criminals have less opportunity to continue committing crimes against the general population. Your proposal would only serve to turn all prisons into debtor’s prisons where only the poor were ever kept locked up and they would be kept locked up forever because they would never be able to pay their fines.
I don't see how such a system would accomplish the purposes you stated. It would in all likelihood be counter-productive.
I'm not a lawyer, but is it even possible to enter a guilty plea in a capital case? I think that the court must "accept" a guilty plea, since doing so would put a ceiling on the punishment at life in prison.
Giffords needed 5 years to get her pension.
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