Posted on 02/09/2009 6:56:56 PM PST by Asceticon
Yeah, it's unthinkable - and I can't stand the creep Madoff. I don't want to live in a world where people are put to death for financial crimes.
I’m familiar with the Pinto case. The 180 lives “potentially” saved is garbaged, because the total number who died in all Pinto fires, regardless of cause, was about 20.
One of the handful of repeated “Pinto fires” was a van that plowed into the rear of a stopped Pinto at highway speeds. The impact killed the people inside, and a fire started afterward.
Notwithstanding that any 70s compact being rear-ended by a van going 50 or 60 would kill the people inside, it was a Pinto and there were flames, therefore it was a “Pinto fire”. Kind of like how if someone blows a stop sign, slams into you, and kills himself and your whole family, if you blow a .05 for the two beers you had with dinner then suddenly 5 or 6 “alcohol-related deaths” are added to the numbers, regardless of cause.
It was an ugly car, and like any tinbox of the era it wasn’t the safest in an impact with a larger vehicle, but categorizing them as fireballs of death intentionally designed to explode at the slightest touch is just keeping Nader & all the trial lawyers’ fraud alive.
If you are going to go after guys like Madoff for the economic ruin they visit upon us, up to and including the death penalty, then the US Congress should be lined up on the gallows right next to him.
Conservatives have gotten soft. 150 years ago, small town America would have taken taken scammers who cheated people of their life saving and strung them up.
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