Locking someone up for life is not punishment enough to you? Ok, if you want to go for the "eye for an eye" mentality, but risking to kill innocent people while doing it is, in my view, unforgivable.

Unfortunately governments and courts consist of people and they tend to do mistakes.

Desert Deweller said:Capital punishment is very effective at driving home a point.

If Capital Punishment was effective, then why is your state of Arizona so crime ridden and so many murder occur in Arizona ???

I have always been a big supporter of the EU...and wish that Canada would be given associate/special status in the EU..

Agent: As per your comment about Arizona haveing a high crime rate, I will not make an effort to deny that we have our problems. Per capita we are one of the lower for murder. In Arizona as with all states that have the death penalty the decision to give the death penalty is made by a jury now as opposed to a judge. Since that has came down via the US Supreme Court the average citizen seem more ready to hand out the death penalty than did the judges previously. There seems to be concern that an innocent person could be sent to the death chamber. That is always a concern. That is one of the reasons that it takes so long between the time a murder is commited until the execution. With the new DNA evidence being admitted in court, more people have been exonerated via DNA than have been convicted. We had a man that had been on death row for 18 years when DNA from the crime scene was tested he was released from prison.

To point of the death penalty is not a deterant to murder. It gives closure to the victim's family, and lets the criminal know in no uncertain terms that "society owes him nothing." Someone made the comment that doesn't locking a person up for the rest of their life punishment enough. To the criminal that would seem fair, however in our system of justice a life sentence usually means twenty years. The average life expectancy in prison is twenty years, therfore that creep would be eligable for parole in seven years, on life sentence. Even on the rare case where the judge imposes "life without parole" I for one do not feel obligated as a taxpayer to feed, clothe and shelter this maggot for the next thirty or forty years. All the while he is sitting around at my expense writting books and making paintings to sell.

My point in mentioning the death penalty earlier was to say that the EU has dictating powers over the individual countries as to say "Well you have this, or you do that, so you cannot belong to our organization." The death penalty is one thing that is keeping Turkey out of the EU at this time. I was using the death penalty as an example as to how the EU meddles in the affairs of an indvidual country. I never intended to start a debate over the death penalty. However it does seem to have lit up the board.

Now can we all get back to picking on the EU, and should anyone want to start a forum about the death penalty that can be done on the Non Spain thread.

My sincere apology MM for veering so far off track.

Yes, you're right, the US did not found it. My mistake. It's a group of nations there was an agreement:

"The name "United Nations", coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was first used in the "Declaration by United Nations" of 1 January 1942."

It's just the name, the concept, the place, the goals and the design of its bodies which the US planned. The members became part of it freely.

And it's a pitty that the US has to pay for 22% while the EU is only paying 29,51% of the total budget knowing that we've got no international debt and we encourage our governments to develop enviromental policies.

As for our national policy I don't think it "dictates" anything. Firstly because that term is a clear allusion to a non-democratic regime and secondly because EU States have more independence than US States.

What I've noticed is a tendency from the US Government to criticise any EU movement in our internal issues. Some people here say it's fear for a growing competitor; we'd break your monopoly, etc. I'd say that would be a big mistake for we're their best allies (for obvious reasons), at least, that's my feeling.

Amleth: I am curious as to just what monopoly you are talking about. As far as an allie is concerened, most of Europe is a good allie to the US. With the notable exception of France. Few if any Americans would trust a Frenchman as far as we could throw him. Chirac has made it clear that whichever way the US wants to go in the UN he will go in the opposite direction deliberatly.

Our view of the EU is that it meddles in the affairs of the individual countries to much and proclaims that in order to belong to the EU certain laws that each country must change. When the US constitution was being drafted the founding fathers wanted as much authority as possible to be left to the individual states as opposed to the federal level. The EU wants as much authority as possible at their level, and that is the reason the EU will not last over the long haul. One example of this is the real estate capital gains tax. I read an article that the EU was on to Spain that in your tax laws, one did not have to pay tax when a property was sold if the gains were then reinvested in another property. That is the way it is here in the US. The EU wants Spain to change that so that every time one sells his home he pays capital gains tax on the profit from selling his own home, even if he purchases another home right away. This would remove some incentive to upgrade ones standard of living. The EU also dictates trade policy over the individual countries. Yet the EU nor the UN, did not have anything to say to France and Germany when they were violating international trade sanctions by trading with Saddam Hussein. That was one of Chirac and Shroeder's big complaints over the invasion of Iraq. Although neither admitted so publicly. Both countries were making big money trading with Iraq in clear violation of trade sanctions, yet the EU had nothing to say about the matter. By the way, look at both of their economies now that Hussein is in prison where he belongs.That alone should tell you how much they were profiting by doing business with a tyrant.

You are right, any American that has studied the EU does not have a very favorable opinion of the EU. For the most part it is viewed as a thinly veiled mouth piece for France to be telling the rest of Europe what to do and how to do. It is going to interesting to see how the French vote turns out.

So you're saying that France and Germany opposed a war, fought by the US for economic reasons, for economic reasons? Well whatever the reason, they were right in doing so as the US presented no proof for the claimed reasons to attack the country and a vast majority of their own citizens, as most europeans, were stronly against it.

(about the death penalty issue still: yeah, you would probably rather be a crime victim in Arizona than in Sweden; in Sweden you'd be much lonelier which you notice by looking at any crime statistics. )

I've not been on the board for 2-3 months and the first time back - the same people are arguing - the same old arguements - ....
and the few cool voices of reason are the same ones as always.

Sueco- Please don't assume to know what the vast majority of American citizens want. I tend to doubt you feel the pulse of America from Stockholm.
If you were right I think Kerry would have won the US election, don't you ?

Puna, as the thread indicates, the initial content of this discussion was the EU Constitution. Somehow, it went off topic as most political discussion do.

But, getting back on the topic, Fernando, I have also been reading that there is also a strong likelyhood that the Dutch, also an incipient supporter of the EU, may not vote for the constitution.

I guess my question then becomes, why have a constitution if there are other treaties already in place that act as a center of policy?

ColinK, I was referring to the opinion of the vast majority of germans and frenchmen.