Don's Tuesday column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   11/06/2012

Some cry; some cheer—I got a good idea who

That good idea is based on the most in-depth analysis of polling I have ever completed. That good idea suggests very strongly that those us who gather tonight at the Hampton Inn on Adobe Road, starting at 6 PM, will be doing the cheering. Readers, Republicans and Tea Party Patriots are invited to show up, enjoy some refreshments, camaraderie, and fellowship, and celebrate. I foresee a solid win for the Romney/Ryan ticket in the popular vote as well as a 300+/- electoral vote. More on the results next week.

I advised voters to choose “No” on all ballot propositions except for Prop 32. A “Yes” vote on 32 is essential if California is to ever break the corrupt process of public employee unions helping themselves to your wallet via the taxes that pay employees wages, from which forced union dues are extracted, including vast sums for political campaigns. That’s about a $70,000,000 deluge of your money to persuade you to send more to the Sacramento beast.

While you may draw fair, informed, different conclusions on the other initiatives, I must draw particular attention to the attempt to overturn the death penalty; vote “No” on 34. It is part of a misguided effort to eliminate the death penalty altogether, using phony arguments over the costs to carry out the death sentence on a limited number of murderers. Those supposedly excessive costs only exist because defense attorneys file endless, frivolous appeals, seeking soft-hearted-and-headed judges who secretly oppose killing the killers, but allow the lawyers to do their bidding, and make their preferred arguments. California Supreme Court justices were thrown out of office for substituting their anti-death views for the will of the voters.

Commuting death sentences to “life without parole” is only the first step in their campaign to reduce all sentences for all crimes—witness the attempts to water down “3 strikes.” Such commutations are offered as a way to relieve us all of our collective guilt and responsibility for state-sanctioned killing. In reality, however, the worst-of-the-worst murderers that earn the death sentence will not stop killing when no longer on death row; many of them will eventually kill other inmates, prison guards, and even extend their murderous intentions outside the prison walls to those they wish to “rub out.” Letting killers live condemns others to die, period.

Furthermore, those related to victims murdered in heinous fashion deserve to be able to have that day when the killer of their loved ones is no longer on this earth as a matter of ultimate justice. The only guarantee they have of never having to face such depraved animals again is to execute them.

Finally, I wrote in 2006 and 2011 of decades-long research into the deterrent effect of the death penalty. “My ‘proof’ that the death penalty works as a deterrent is the simple statistical record of murder rates during decades when the death penalty was or wasn’t enforced. Executions came to a virtual halt from the mid-1960s until 1980…(D)uring that same period, the murder rate (homicides per 100,000) actually doubled. Annual murders topped out at over 23,000 in 1980. Executions resumed and the murder rate then fell over the next 20 years, ending a little higher in 2000 than it was in 1965. During the time executions fell from 56 to none, murders per year increased from about 10,000 to over 23,000. Literally tens of thousands of lives are preserved when killers have a reasonable chance of being executed—that’s real deterrence proven over 50 years. (1/23/2006)”

No one will be shocked to find my adamant support for Governor Romney and Congressman Paul Ryan. I could have devoted the last 3 months of columns to the Romney vs. Obama issue and still not exhausted the subject. Go to “Polecat News and Views” under “Blogs” at the Daily News site (DonPolson.Blogspot.com) for all things related to the election under the label “2012.” I believe our long economic nightmare will begin to fade with Mitt Romney’s election.

Those throwing their ideological brickbats will probably never relent. I tried to put each sentence of a recent writer’s anti-Romney screed into “true or false” categories. Aside from a few statements of fact or truth, the balance of the dozens of sentences and statements were all one or another version of falsehoods, misstatements and lies, entirely unworthy of individually refuting.

Here are some indisputably true statements about President Obama’s now-revealed handling of the entire tragic, preventable terrorist attacks by Islamic jihadists on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya (look up at my blog under the “Libya” label): President Obama’s high-level administration figures (collectively lumped together as “Obama”), the people he’s responsible for and directly works with, failed utterly, miserably and irresponsibly to provide the security that our civilian representatives deserved and asked for. They placed the delusion of “normalcy” with Libyans over American lives.

In spite of almost deadly attacks leading up to September 11, clear reports of Al Qaeda camps and training in Benghazi, and specific, urgent requests for heightened security, Obama failed to provide (he even reduced) security. Obama failed to come to the aid of our people under attack; assignment of available military assets was declined. Subsequently, Obama has prevaricated, manipulated and lied to the American people and the press about the attacks. Were Obama to be reelected, these same patterns will, without any doubt, result in more Americans suffering and dying at Islamic terrorist hands. God forbid!