To all posters

I was apalled, disgusted, embarassed, and ashamed that Premier Beattie held a minute's silence in Qld Parliament today for a convicted and self confessed drug runner.

Historically, a minute's silence is for people who have served our country (WW1 WW11 Vietnam etc). It is meant for people who faught for us off our shores to ensure our freedom. It is meant to be reverrent, vis a viz: Anzac Day and Rememberance Day. It is also for people who have done incredible community work for our country, and people who have sadly died (such as the Bali Bombings).

It is not for bloody drug runners!

So is the Beattie Government now going to have: two mins silence for the two drug runners who are about to be shot in Vietnam? And nine mins silence in Parliament for the Bali Nine (if they are executed)?

These people are criminals. They are not heros. They are not champions. They are not loyal to our country. They are dishonest and egocentric. They can read: Drugs = death penalty.

I do not believe in the death penalty in Australia. I cannot condone the death penalty in other countries - but that is their law.

I am offended that the Beattie Government has dishonoured the memory of our people who have faught for this wonderful country. I hope that the RSL and the Vietnam Vets go to town on this one!

Regards
Kay

G'day All,

I too, am sick of the bleeding heart left turning Van Nguyen into some sort of righteous martyr instead of properly acknowledging him to be the convicted, evil, self-centred peddler of death that he was.

Singapore has got the right approach to this; don't spend $70,000 a year for the next thirty years ($2.1m) on somebody of this ilk only to have him probably die in prison and require a state burial or end up a welfare recipient. What's the point? His life was over when he went for sentencing. He was never going to get off lightly as he would here.

And if you really care to thik about it, I mean, ... REALLY care to think about it, and YOU were given the choice between ...30 years in Changi OR ...a quick, relatively painless way out, which one would YOU choose?

Me? I'd be dangling on the end of that rope - no question. Despite the flaming I'll undoubtedly get, I reckon of the two options, hanging is FAR more humane. Ask any of our WWII vets that were incarcerated there for only a few years and see what they say about the prospect of spending 30 years there, I would doubt many of them would think that any sort of imprisonment there would be MORE humane.

Maybe you lefties need to REALLY think about this a whole lot more, come down from your lofty towers of academia and imagine what it would REALLY be like to spend even 10 years in that hellhole.

Singapore has shown him some inadvertant compassion I believe.

Still waiting for the answers to my questions redneck..

For all those going on about how the heroin Van Ngyuen was carring was going to kill so many thousand Australians etc, I have done some research.

The lowest figure I have been able to find for annual heroin consumption in Australia is 2.3 tonnes. http://www.druginfo.nsw.gov.au/illicit_drugs/heroin/heroin.pdf

Thats 2300 kilograms, 4600 times the amount Van Ngyuen was carrying.

Assuming the lowest figure, and assuming 400 heroin deaths a year, a death occurs for every 5.75 kilograms of heroin imported. The 500g Van was carrying would statistically have caused approximately 1/11 of a death. One eleventh.

To the rest of the death penalty cheer squad:

Arjay, what are "the certain races that don't perform to our standards of intellectual rigor and economic competance"? Jews? Asians? Nig Nogs (whatever that is, ask the amusingly named Memumza bighor)

Memumza bighor (ha ha), well, what can I say, your posts say it all. You think the killing of a 25 year old man (for something he did when he was 21), the killing of someones son, someones friend, someones brother, is a joke. You're the joke mate, and a sad pathetic racist joke too. I'm glad you're disgusted with your fellow Australians, it makes me proud to be one of them. Hope you stay disgusted.

Hello there hellothere,

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for answers from Neo-Nazis like Redneck.

Their opinions on this matter and their hatred for people that look different are purely anger-driven and baseless. Sure, they’ll quote a few statistics to prove their radical point. But if you give them statistics that counter-act or prove their argument to be “missing the main point”, they either shut-up or resort to insults (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3880#21520).

I still haven’t had a response from Leigh (Redneck’s Klan buddy) on my questions above (see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=3880#21595). Nor has anyone cheering on the execution given me a reason for their respect of a government who executes drug offenders at the same time as dealing with drug lords.

As for Redneck… He hasn’t been able to produce a valid reason for supporting the death penalty when I raised some points questioning its credibility. He fails to see that one of the reasons that multiculturalism produces crime is because of hateful attitudes like his. Which inflame racial tensions, and therefore, crime levels.

But to extend on your points…

People like Arjay base their white-supremacy on the fact that many non-white white countries aren’t as civilised or prosperous as us; totally ignoring other factors such as…

- The Western exploitation of their poorest people;
- Extreme capital punishment helping silence and frighten a country’s people; hindering any hope of the overthrowing of a dictatorship or adopting democracy;
- America’s instating/endorsement of dictators in order to get what they want from the countries (then they whinge when the dictator turns on them);
- America’s funding and arming of militants in these countries;
- Religeous fanatacism.

…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But no, they could NEVER accept that white people might have something to do with it - surely!

(Before anyone asks - yes I AM a white caucasian)

memumza bighor,

”If you wanted my respect you'd do your own research instead of following the media trail”

Well, if you wanted my respect then you’d read the previous posts to see that research proving how dumb your arguments are, already exist.

I disagree with death penalty, for reasons different from what several postings would call "leftist bleeding hearts". Knowing the frailty of human judgement, even at the highest level of judiciary cognitive power, I baulk at the thought that we might bring death to someone wrongfully because they did not have good lawyers a la Lasry.

It is no good argument to say this will not happen to you. It does to you/your own (Nguyen is the prototypical “your own” as in Australian).

2.5 million dollars to keep him alive for life? How much would you value your own life if wrongly sentenced? This is the dilemma. Perhaps a penal colony, like old colonial Australia could be set up where the cost is not so high? Islands like Nauru? It would be isolation punishment too where people are separated from family forever (like old colonial Australia). All this tongue in cheek, of course. But what would satisfy everyone?

There have been cases in the US where the evidence was not strong enough, so even death row cases were given commuted sentences Evidence of US Death row commutation reference: see

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051114/news_1n14death.html

Will this kind of injustice happen in Australia?

Given the poor record of justice administration in Australia with regards to Aboriginals, it is patently clear “white” Australians are human too.

http://www.naa.gov.au/Publications/research_guides/guides/rciadic/introduction.htm

In Singapore? Are they human too? They have commuted several death cases in the past!

However, you only have to look at the record in the US to understand the angry position some people take: For example of the O.J. Simpson case see the following websites:

http://www.cnn.com/US/OJ/
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/simpson.htm
http://www.crimelibrary.com/classics4/oj/

The case proves a murderer could “play” the system. Supports our anger that we need to punish such people more.

I rather err on the cautious side and not have the finality of a MANDATORY death penalty. I may reserve judgement on cases where the evidence is clear, being only human. Nevertheless, I would then bring in my faith conviction to bear, that only God can take a life. The faithless can disagree with me. This is democracy.

While a 25 Y.O. man swings the CIA is keeping a watchful eye on the opium fields of Afghanistan.

Murdering a drug mule really keeps the drug trade in its place doesn't it?