Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mcnc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcnc!bch From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics Subject: Re: Bastille mentality alive and well in USA Message-ID: <2339@mcnc.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Nov-84 00:51:12 EST Article-I.D.: mcnc.2339 Posted: Wed Nov 7 00:51:12 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 8-Nov-84 07:21:13 EST References:Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes) Distribution: net Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service Lines: 27 Summary: In article moriarty@fluke.UUCP (The Napoleon of Crime) writes: >Well, folks, I can understand people waiting outside a prison where a man or >woman is about to be executed and holding a vigil because they object to >capital punishment. > >I can also understand people who would stand outside the same prison, also >holding vigil, to show their support of capital punishment (equal time & >all). > >But the behaviour of a mob outside of the place where a man was executed in >North Carolina (I think -- I was just catching the end of the news -- please >correct me if I'm wrong about the location) makes me wonder about the state >of the state. People were cheering and celebrating the criminals execution, >chanting, and, in general, acting like it was homecoming. One woman even >held a giant paper-mache hyperdermic needle aloft (used to represent the >method of execution) like some kind of team penant. Yup. It was North Carolina all right. The saddest part is there is some possibility that Velma Barfield's sentence might have been commuted had it not been in the middle of this down-and-dirty Senate race we've just been through. Well, there's little these days to testify to the sanity of the general populace in N.C. I think we're just a little burnt out... -- Byron C. Howes ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch