“Please read the article.”
What a condescending thing to say.
I already read the fetid apologia for coddling violent criminals. I guess you belong to the Michael Dukakis wing of the Republican Party. I don't.
The bottom line is that if the moron Gov. Huckabee hadn't done the evil thing and permitted this violent offender to get out FIFTEEN YEARS EARLY, Mr. Clemmons would still be in prison right now. Alive. The crimes that he committed in 2001 would not have been committed. The young girl that he raped this year would not have been raped. And four police officers that he murdered would still be alive.
“Locking him up bored with career criminals breeds violent animals.”
I don't like calling any human beings “animals.” It both insults humans as well as animals, in that it robs humans of their moral agency, and slurs animals, since they don't choose to commit moral evil.
But as for the violent part, it seems that Mr. Clemmons already had that part down. He didn't need 11 years or 26 years or 108 years to learn to be a raging, violent, out-of-control self-centered verminous predator.
This was a young man who would beat up little old ladies for pocket change. This was a fellow who was so intent on violence that he made weapons out of every day items to attack his guards.
By age 17, 18, this man had already chosen to become a violent predator. By the time the criminal justice system had caught up with him, he'd already chosen violence as his primary problem-solving methodology in life. He'd already decided that he would wage violence against others on the least whim. He was already devoid of the internal restraints most of us feel most of the time, the restraints that keep us from doing violence to each other except in extreme circumstances.
By the time he was 17 years old, he was already a violent criminal sociopath. He should have been incarcerated until well past his physical prime, not 11 years, not even 26 years, but at least 35 or 40 or 50 years, so that upon release from prison, he would have been too physically spent and psychologically broken to be much of a threat to other people.
We have a place for people like this: prison.
Ordinary people have a right to live free from the fear of sociopaths like this. Prison is where we put people like this so that the rest of us who don't view violence against other persons as the primary way of getting through the day can live in relative peace.
sitetest
It sounded like you didn’t read it as you ignored key arguments. I also don’t know how “please read the article” is condescending and no, I don’t belong to the Mike Dukakis wing. Was Huckabee freeing murderers or are you just having fun blaming him for not having had a crystal ball at the time he freed a juvenile burglar whose most violent act came when he was 17 and facing a life sentence and who had behaved after that for 11 years? Why not blame the trial judge who supported the commutation? Do you have someone else who knew more about the case than he did.
I agree with the rest of what you say and yes, we do have a right to live free of murderers, attempted murderers and child rapists. That doesn’t mean that throwing the key away at teen burglars who were neither murderers or attempted murderers at the time is a sound policy or even a humane one.