Thursday, October 12, 2006

panel discussion: jeremy needs to stop blogging and get back to work

Wisconsin is having an advisory referendum about whether the state should reinstate the death penalty. I, predictably, oppose the death penalty and so would vote against this referendum if I was still a Wisconsin resident. Nonetheless, I just got this e-mail advertising a "panel discussion" being hosted at the UW about it and, well--Is it just me, or does this really not look like it's meant to be much of a "discussion"?:
Panel Discussion: No Death Penalty in Wisconsin
October 25, 6:00 pm, Wisconsin State Historical Society Auditorium
Free and open to the public
Sponsored by: Amnesty International, Wisconsin Union Directorate, No Death 
Penalty WI Coalition, UW Havens Center, National Black Law Students
Association, Wisconsin Innocence Project, UW Lawyer's Guild, ACLU - UW,
Wisconsin Network for Peace & Justice, TAA, International Socialist
Organization, Wisconsin Coalition Against the Death Penalty
I suppose it could be good as a discussion for how the people who do attend can best persuade those who wouldn't attend something like this that the death penalty is wrong.

5 comments:

dorotha said...

wow. what do you supposed created the need for the No Death Penalty WI Coalition AND the Wisconsin Coalition Against the Death Penalty? Do you think it was some philosophical disagreement?

my brother came home one day in middle school saying that he thought the death penalty was a good idea. my sister and i about chewed his head off. my parents were very upset with us and told us that chuck was allowed to form his own opinions about things. (he doesn't support the death penalty now).

carly said...

Some of us think terrible things as youngsters. Not that I supported the death penalty up until I was 16 and went to Finland and got stared down on a class trip to a museum about how barbaric the death penalty was. Umm, ok, maybe I did. I just hadn't thought about it much before then, to be honest. I quickly changed my mind. Not because of peer pressure, of course, but because I actually thought about it.

Anyway, yeah, I thought the same thing when I got that email. But it *is* the Havens Center after all, what else would you expect from them.

Anonymous said...

thank goodness the TAA is involved- they're sure to bring evenhandedness and a careful consideration of all sides of an issue.

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's true that what Wisconsin needs is the first honest, open, true, virtuous debate about the death penalty, pros and cons.

I mean, all these years, and it's never had a single real debate about the issue!

Imagine all the fumferers getting together at this conference to "claiming to debate" the death penalty when they all have preconceived notions that it is bad, and just three weeks from an election.

Why I would say that's worth blogging about and getting a link from the juiciest lawblogger prof there is!

Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

"what do you supposed created the need for the No Death Penalty WI Coalition AND the Wisconsin Coalition Against the Death Penalty?"

Can you say "control freaks"? I knew you could.

There's nothing wrong with this, of course. If anti-DP folks want to strategize and coordinate, that's fine. At least they didn't call it the "Is The Death Penalty A Good Idea?" panel discussion, and THEN load it up with speakers from one side.