Joel Hirschhorn

Attack Criminality With More Death Sentences



Posted: Friday, December 19, 2008

by
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com

Our current justice system is a joke. It is a failure. Day by day I see more revelations about the criminal behavior of all kinds of Americans, from elected officials to very high level people in the corporate world. It seems to me that if there is anything that best explains why the US is in terrible shape it is a collapse of honest, law abiding behavior on the part of people that have the potential to either help or harm enormous numbers of Americans.

At the top of the criminal hierarchy is, of course, George W. Bush and his many underlings that helped him commit a large number of crimes against Americans and the whole world. And of course there have been thousands of people in the banking, mortgage and financial sectors that clearly have acted without any sense of decency and honesty. Our current economic meltdown is not just a result of incompetence, though there surely has been an enormous amount of that. No, it has resulted from an incredible level of criminal behavior, outright frauds that have injured millions of Americans.

It seems to me that all of this "white collar" criminality has done more damage to most of the population than all of the conventional crimes against individuals. Collective criminality that destroys the lives of huge numbers of people or corrodes the foundations of our democracy, political system and government and that is driven by greed or delusion merits the highest level of punishment.

It should be clear that punishing these many white collar criminals with public criticism, fines or jail sentences does not deter more awful, shameless behavior. The lack of honest, ethical and trustworthy behavior on the part of people with the most power in our society has reached such widespread and elevated levels that we should, as a nation, seriously consider far more use of death sentences. I am dead serious about this.

With public corruption and corporate misdeeds running rampant we should conclude that as a society we must send a much clearer and stronger message to everyone that criminal behavior that impacts huge numbers of people is as terrible as homicide. I want more death sentences. When some super-rich person commits a $50 billion fraud that is a disaster for enormous numbers of people and organizations, then a jail sentence and fines are not the answer. I say the death sentence is called for.

Let's stop our collective delusion about what is needed to rid our society of pervasive criminal behavior. All that imprisonment does is cost taxpayers yet more money. The time has come to revamp our laws, forget forgiveness and rehabilitation and put the fear of a death sentence to work.

Joel S. Hirschhorn has succeeded as: a full professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison; a senior staffer, U.S. Congress (Office of Technology Assessment); head of an environmental consulting company; Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources, National Governors Association; now an author and consultant. Recent books are: Sprawl Kills - How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money, and Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He has published hundreds of articles in newspapers, magazines, journals and on many web magazine sites. He has given hundreds of talks at a wide range of conferences worldwide. He focuses on American culture, politics and government, and health issues.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)
» left by Johne Doe
from Florida 3 years 20 days ago.
Death to Madoff and others who pillage the hard earned money of investors and ruin many lives. I feel public hanging will curb this in the future and only till then will we see a change.
 
Currently they get a 1-2 sentence a DVD/TV and hide the proceeds in a international safe haven then write a book or sell movie rights. What a corrupt Judicial system that makes a example out of poor street kids that people like Madoff help to create.
 Crime pays when you wear a White Collar.
» left by Condition Anonymity
from here, yes here 1 year 115 days ago.
Now this is what I think, 1- please everyone unless you work for AT & T, are in communcation no-one should be sending any messages, no judges, no jury, please stop using this statement, I beg you all. And secondly (ALL) our representatives- Congress, Senators, the complete Whitehouse- Staff and all, The complete Judicial system, from city, county, state, to all of the federal Judicial system ( Check & Balances them ) the IRS, and most if not all Federal Government money draines "We the People", By The People, For The People, but as I were saying gather all of our So?Called leaders, and try them with High Treason, and after they "ALL" are found guilty the same day shoot them all in D.C. The trial of "ALL" of them shouldn't last no longer than a few hours. Then "We The People" will have our Nation back, and All of our debt should then be wiped out, because "We The People" had no contract with no-one. Just trust me folks, I never signed nothing to our enemies, like China, who "they" our former leaders had a contract signed, not us. The way I see it, I could fix this nation in 3 1/2 days. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I would create a new Police force ( City, County, State ) in all 50 states, and they would get back to their old core beliefs, like "Serve and Protect". I would outlaw cigarettes, boozes, but yet make it legal to smoke pot, and in public. I wouldn't totally outlaw boozes, you could drink at home, but close all bars. Oh I really could fix quite a large part of the U.S.A.'s problems, I have millions of ideas. But enough about me, NEXT... and remember ya'll, no-one should be sending out messages, especially judges and juries, I'm sick of hearing this crap... and about the demo-crats and the puppet-can't, their the main reason we are in this kinda shape anyway, they are treasonous vipers and nither one of the two demos, and puppets are any better or worst than the other.
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