Verbal

You're just setting up an impossible test in order to prove your point. The simple fact is there is a vast pool of evidence from the 'natural experiments' I've mentioned, that demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is not a deterrent. I assure you gang culture is NOT limited to DC, or South Central LA, or other northern conurbations. It is in fact brutally common in rural areas - if not more so. (I can give you not only chapter and verse on this, but some hideously gruesome photographic evidence of it from something I'm working on right now.) Most murders, wherever they are committed in the US, are related in some way to drugs and gang/gun culture. The demographics on this are simply overwhelming.

You're not following benjii's argument. He's saying there needs to be 'no doubt' in the event that a prisoner is executed. Shipman was not. In any case, laws are not built around single cases, under the old legal adage that 'hard cases make bad laws.'

Well there's a really simple test you can do to see if you're right. Instead of taking the case of New York State, take states which DO have the death penalty, but are not only much poorer than Texas, but have similar 'cultures'. You can look at Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico (the poorest of all) and many others in the southern belt. They ALL have lower execution rates than the fry-one-a-minute Texas. And lower murder rates. These facts have nothing whatever to do with the feelings of the families of murder victims.

But you can't bring socio-economic arguments into the deterrent question. Logically, either the death penalty is a deterrent or it is not. You can't plausibly argue that a poor Texan, for example, is so mentally enfeebled by his poverty as to not understand - or understand less well - the idea that if he kills someone, he'll face the chop. In fact, if this were true, even in Texas you are actually not allowed to execute people, because by definition, they wouldn't be mentally competent (and this is a national decision, imposed as the result of a US Supreme court ruling.) It's not that I don't believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. It just isn't. This is not 'fiddling the statistics'. They are incontrovertible. (and we're not even getting into the question of why the US has by far the highest murder rate in the western world, despite the death penalty.) In the US, very few people bother with this argument any more because they know the argument is lost. What they focus on is the old frontier idea of justice being an eye for an eye. Which partly explains why more blacks end up on death row than whites.

So here I am looking for some quiet refuge from the rabid insanity of the BNP-sponsored EDL thread, and what do I find? Perfect formation knee-jerking - complete with self-defeating logic. What if those five innocent people a year were convicted of a capital offence? And here's an awkward comparison. Not all states in the US have the death penalty. The most enthusiastic state killer in the US, by far, is Texas. Their murder rate is 5.5 per 100,000. New York state does not have the death penalty. Its murder rate is 5 per 100,000. Texas not only leads the US in state-sanctioned killings, it has executed three times as many people as its two closest competitors since 1976, and four times more than any other state. Yet Texas has consistently had one of the highest murder rates in the country, demonstrating that the death penalty does not have a general deterrent effect. The three largest cities in Texas have murder rates among the top 25 in the country, while none of the largest cities in New York State are in the top 25.

Actually, this is now getting petty. and I feel like this is all going round in depressing circles. I'm out of here. Good luck - those of you who are not all mouth and no trousers - with your support for the racist cowards of the EDL/BNP.

No need for what? You mean no need for you to suggest that I would approve of someone being attacked? And since you raised the 'self-defence' argument against that splendid fellow with his sex face on while kicking an Asian, why are you not doing the same for the Asians fighting?

Of course not. After ALL I've ****ing said, do you think I approve of violence? You're 'sure' I would approve? What the **** do you mean? By the same token, TDD, I bet you can't walk past an Asian coming out of a mosque without thinking: 'If I was surrounded by my fathead friends, I'd beat your ****ing brains out.' That sound reasonable?

Don't make me laugh. These racist fatheads went looking for a fight. What gets me about the BNP/EDL sympathisers on here - and I'm not talking about you TDD - is that they drone on and on about a tiny demonstration months and months ago, that was peaceful, certainly, but also objectionable. And yet was anyone on here remotely interested in discussing the Plane Bombers' trail. If there was a thread about it, I missed it. And yet that was of FAR greater significance than a piddling little demo that in Luton that was instantly disowned and denounced by the vast majority of Asians in the town. Now why would that be? It's because the BNP-controlled EDL - and the BNP themselves - have decided to exploit that small incident for all its worth as a kind of cause celebre of racial insult against whites. They then place their internet generals in control of EDL, and recruit their foot soldiers from the far-right fatheads that hang around the fringes of football clubs. They then go looking to beat the sh!t out of any Asians they can find - smashing them, their cars, their shops and businesses. Furthermore, the attempt by the BNP to raise recruits for the EDL by posting links to Facebook groups via football site forums leads me also to think that the OP is a bigger part of this than he is letting on.

As does this, wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, trust me. Okay, now maybe - just maybe - we're getting somewhere. If all you're worried about are the Salafist fanatics, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to throw in your lot with the racist thugs in the EDL, who are busy beating up middle-aged Asians, smashing the windows of Asian shops, damaging their cars, and generally terrorising them? Or do you really want to stop the Salafists at source? Because there ARE a number of ways of going about that. 1. Lobby to help moderate Muslims drive the extremists out of their strongholds in some mosques in this country. (And don't go indiscriminately beating the moderate Muslims up. They're the ones who are bravely facing these fanatics down - not you.) 2. Lobby the government to stop the inflow of funds from Saudi Arabia that explicitly supports Salafist activity - 'radical' bookshops, maddrassas, etc. 3. Lobby for more help to Muslim women's organisations trying to fight against the Salafist imposition of draconian limitations on young women, including their forced withdrawal from education, forced marriage, and the imposition of the veil. (My wife has spent some years doing just this.) 4. Campaign for wire-tap evidence to made admissible in British courts, as they are throughout the Western world. 5. Campaign to stop the state funding of Salafist leaders who routinely finance their activities through housing and welfare benefits - and then 'top up' with 'contributions from Saudi Arabia. 6. Insist that government aid programmes to Pakistan in particular be re-purposed to extend state education, available to all, boys AND girls. This will have the effect of weakening the Saudi-financed iron grip that has been extended to the side network of maddrassas in Pakistan, which have been the recruiting ground for new generations of fanatics. (If you think that this is a pipe dream, and that the problem is too entrenched, bear in mind that the extensive Saudi-financed network maddrassas which have been part of the disaster in Pakistan were only created just a little over 20 years ago - by the Western-backed General Zia.) All of the above and more needs to be done with precision, targeting the actual sources of the problem - not Asians or Muslims in general, whose support you'll/we'll need. Success with only one or two of the above will have an effect. But if you throw your lot in the the EDL, my guess is that the sense of fear you feel will only be increased, not reduced, by the repeated sights of Asians being beaten by fathead racists up and down the country.

The ONLY danger? Are you sure? You know about this guy? His name is Neil Lewington. He is a BNP supporter. He is now serving an indefinite prison sentence for attempting to become the British Timothy McVeigh. He wanted to murder on a massive scale with an indiscriminate bombing campaign. Of course, he WANTED to kill Asians more than anything. According to Sky News: ‘The link between his extremist views and interest in explosives was illustrated by a note reading "compressed thermite grenade vs Paki front door". He also wrote a chilling "mission statement" in which he boasted of two-man hit squads attacking "non-British people" at random. Lewington told one woman that "the only good Paki was a dead Paki". Now of course, you may feel safe, because you’re not Asian. But if McVeigh, the Oklamhoma bomber, was his role model, I wouldn’t bet on it. But I suppose, as you’re not Asian, you won’t have to endure this kind of behaviour, as reported in The Guardian, 12 September, 2009: 'Yet at EDL events, skinheads have raised Nazi salutes and other EDL supporters have chanted racist slogans such as “I hate Pakis more than you”. One protest in Luton in May ended with scores of people attacking Asian businesses, smashing cars and threatening passersby.' It’s not the sort of company you’d really want to keep. Is it?

They do not 'attract' the BNP. The EDL is run by the BNP. The EDL is a BNP front, nothing more. And given his 'FaceBook' invitation, The OP of this thread may have something to saying about the following. From The Times, 10 August 2009: "Paul Ray, who claims to be one of the founding members of the League, says that the group has been taken over by a cabal of extremists including Chris Renton, whose name appears on the list of BNP members leaked last year." Renton , from Weston-super-Mare, does indeed appear on the BNP membership list leaked last year. He is the BNP's 'internet guy'. And it was Renton who designed the EDL's website. At the forefront of the EDL violence in Birmingham in August was what the Times (15 August 2009) identified as the Casuals United, 'a small army of shirt-sleeved, middle-aged men with beer bellies.' The Times goes on: 'The members of Casuals United are largely former football hooligans drawn from the terraces.' And here, as far this thread in particular is concerned, is the worst piece of information: 'The Casuals make full use of modern communications, using social networking websites, notably Facebook, where there are about 40 branches, many of which declare allegiance to various football clubs.' Friends of yours, bigtone?

BTF is a he with an 's' on the front. Otherwise you got everything right. And + another 1.

Covert - by which I mean information is passed anonymously but directly to the police. And then binned. By what twisted logic do you get from a warning being given to a warning not being given?

Way to go, Mr dot, with missing the point I was making! To reiterate, are people really so pea-brained as to commit a mirror image of the offence caused by the Luton Loonies? That is, to stigmatise, victimise, intimidate and assault people in a fit of irrational rage. Do you really think that the Asians who found themselves in the midst of an assault aimed at them were suicide bombers? do you really think they - by the colour of the skin or their religious beliefs - were somehow complicit? No. Which gets to the heart of this. People on here complain long and loud when they think they're getting tarnished with the 'racist' label. But the reality is they're aligning themselves - or even like bigtoe, actively seeking recruits - with an organisation that revels in a desire to intimidate Asians. That is racist. Period. And let's be clear about what the EDL are NOT doing. If you or they or anyone else is so incensed by the actions of the Luton loonies, then take your protests to them directly. They and their organisation has been well publicised. They are not in hiding. But the EDL won't. Because they're not only racist thugs. They are cowards. It's so much easier to intimidate middle-aged Asian women visiting their mosque or out shopping. And it serves the EDL's purpose better. They are racist agent provocateurs who want to create their own rivers of blood as a recruiting sergeant for the BNP and other cretins even further to the right. This is not about a small, peaceful but objectionable demo months and months ago. It's about fooling people like you into signing up, at least in principle, to a sustained campaign of intimidation and violence against innocent people. As to your comment about the government unwilling to pass laws - are your freaking SERIOUS? Britain has one of the most draconian anti-terror laws in the western world. These laws are so extensive, and so extensively misused that there's a backlog of cases at the European Court - and not from the 'usual suspects'. If you followed the recent court cases against the plane bombers, you'd have noticed that juries have repeatedly failed to convict on what seem like open-and-shut cases against the idiots. Why? Because the anti-terror laws are not extensive enough? Because the juries are packed with Asian sympathisers? Hardly. No, the simple answer is that in Britain, uniquely in the Western world, surveillance evidence from the intelligence services is not admissible in court. It's an utterly absurd situation, and is letting dangerous people back on to the streets. But this ban on wire-tap evidence is not the doing of a Labour government - or any other shade. It's the result of specific pressure from the intelligence services themselves, who want to keep their cloak of secrecy as all-encompassing as possible. It drives everyone crazy - not least the Americans, and other European states, who routinely use wire-tap evidence to secure convictions. If you want to talk about people actively engaged in warning the authorities about terrorist plots, then you should say a HUGE thank you to those Asian community leaders, family and acquaintances who increasingly are shopping suspcious and dangerous individuals to the authorities. Sometimes, as in 7/7, these covert warnings to the authorities have been completely ignored by the police, but subsequently acknowledged. So if you're tempted to man the barricades against innocent Asians outside a mosque, or if like bigtoe you're itching to burn it down, might I suggest instead you take a nice box of Ambala sweets, and say thank you. Nicely.

So are we going shifts then? Rabid racists in the morning, loony lefties at night?

Damn those Asians! You know, the funny thing about you, bigtoe, is that you exhibit EXACTLY the same kind of noodleheaded rage as the Luton loonies - so uncontrollable you appear to be ready to top yourself. For the Luton loonies, all the British carry the collective guilt for the actions of the baby-murdering soldiers. For you and your racist pals, all Asians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis (exterminate as appropriate) carry the collective guilt for the actions of a tiny handful of death-cult idiots. Do you not see the teeny weeny irony?

Them? Who's 'them'? I assume you're talking about the League of Extraordinary Racists.

On sale in P*mpey too? Impressive.

Ooh this is great. I think we've got a liberal lefty tree-hugging groove going on here. Far (right) out!!!!

Just to clarify then, the EDL are racist thugs. Glad we got that worked out.

It is about race, regardless of the ethnic identity of particular individuals. The EDL is racist and the Salafists are racists. (Richard Reid, the shoe bomber is not white, by the way). The EDL are racist agent provocateurs trying to create their own rivers of blood and the Salafists are actually disgustingly contemptuous of whites. Who are the 'some on here' that you talk about? The usual straw men? And you're wrong about the far right playing into the hands of Salafists - they both need each other in this particular fight, and they both know it. Both know that violence on the streets is a recruiting sergeant. The victims are the people caught in the middle of it. Because of the chosen battlegrounds, almost all of them are Asian. Can you really be happy with that?

No, relax, it's not you. Mike's talking about Sundance Beast.

"Our" (by which I presume you mean white) tolerance is way, way overrated. As a regular traveller to South Asia and Middle East I'm regularly embarrassed at the hospitality, courtesy, food, shelter and transport freely offered by people who barely know me from Adam. The only people in the UK who are as welcoming are my Pakistani and Iraqi acquaintances. And I wonder when people will tire of regurgitating a protest by 20-odd irritants all those months ago - and using it to discredit an entire community?