i would never visit any country that has a large muslim population...

The number of Muslims in Brussels—where roughly half of the number of Muslims in Belgium currently live—has reached 300,000, which means that the self-styled "Capital of Europe" is now one of the most Islamic cities in Europe.

In 2013, Muslims made up approximately 26% of the population of metropolitan Brussels, followed by Rotterdam (25%), Amsterdam (24%), Antwerp (17%), The Hague (14%) and Utrecht (13%), according to a panoply of research.
In February, Members of the Belgian Parliament introduced a bill that would limit the power of Muslim extremists who win elected office at the local or national levels and isolate themselves from the political mainstream.

The move came after members of the newly established Islam Party vowed to implement Islamic Sharia law in Belgium.

Makes me want to live there.

That's not because of the Muslims, that's just because you're racist.

i would never visit any country that has a large muslim population...

No, I think he prefers not to have his head chopped off.

That's not because of the Muslims, that's just because you're racist.

I apologize for calling you a racist. It's very bad of me. Sorry.

We have way less trouble with our Muslim population than you with your Mexican population.
And Sharia Law isn't about to get voted any time soon.

it is what it is, we all have our likes and dislikes... i don't think your racist for not wanting to visit America, just not what you want to do...

Let's just say I have more reasons not to visit.

how would you know what the Mexicans are like if you've never been around them? most are a very polite and hardworking people... the main problem is that there a quite a few that come here in an illegal fashion, rather than coming here in the way the law allows...

I have been around Mexicans, worked with them. True, lots of Mexicans are hard workers and they work with a smile, reasons bosses hire them, even illegally. But don't tell me you don't also have gangs of ruthless Mexicans, and they get younger every year.

how would you know what the Mexicans are like if you've never been around them? most are a very polite and hardworking people... the main problem is that there a quite a few that come here in an illegal fashion, rather than coming here in the way the law allows...

SassyEuro stated >>>
Oh please.. Blacks commit black on black crimes & more crimes than any other group. And they are not entering prisons & learning from a FEW OLD WHITE serial killers.

All the Liberals that were against the death penalty is the ONLY reason those guys ^^^^ were given 'back to back life sentences"

* More white males receive the death penalty, despite that fact that WHITES are the MINORITY in prison *
( All death penalty stats, including the NAACP says this- NOT a secret)

IF states still had the death penalty, IF blacks didn't commit so many crimes & repeatedly. The prisons wouldn't have been overflowing in the first place
Prisons would of remained a revolving door in a much more financially affordable way as well as so as society, victims, families having a sense of justice.

It is the white killers fault
It is the white politicians fault
It is the white private prison owners fault.

What next? It is a battle flag's fault for flying near a prison, and all the black repeat offenders started suffering from genetic memory flashbacks?

* I'm not going out on a limb here am I ? You made this about race .... geez, turn off MSNBC for a week *

Conservatives and death penalty

Perhaps some readers were startled by a reference in a George Will column (LJS, April 14) to '��the conservative case against the death penalty.'��

Yes, it's true.

Some conservatives have turned against the death penalty, and there'��s evidence that tide is growing stronger.
In fact, at the renowned Conservative Political Action Conference this year there was even a booth for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

Nebraskans who oppose the penalty should take note. In a red state like Nebraska, it'��s the conservative arguments that hold the most potential to change the minds of state senators.

An effort to repeal the death penalty is a perennial in the Legislature. The bill introduced this year by Sen. Ernie Chambers is out of committee and will be debated on the floor in coming weeks.

For some conservatives, opposition to the death penalty is part of their general mistrust of government. Edward Crane, founder of the CATO Institute, put it this way, '��My own view on capital punishment is that it is morally justified but that the government is often so inept and corrupt that innocent people might die as a result. Thus, I personally oppose capital punishment.'��

That view has become more mainstream in conservative circles because DNA technology has shown that some of the murderers facing death sentences in the United States actually are innocent.

Mary Kate Cary, a speechwriter for former President George H.W. Bush, said, '��It'��s becoming harder to justify the death penalty in the face of evidence that our system is flawed. - For years, people like me thought that being tough on crime meant supporting the death penalty. Times have changed, and it'��s time for conservatives to get on the right side of the death penalty argument. One can oppose the death penalty and still be in favor of a tough, affordable, accurate and fair criminal justice system.'��

Nebraskans in recent years have seen repeated examples of how the criminal justice system can deliver a flawed result, ranging from the convictions overturned in the Beatrice Six cases to the murder charges in the Murdock case that were dropped after it turned out blood evidence was planted by a crime scene investigator, who later was convicted of planting evidence.

Another conservative argument against the death penalty is cost. It’s cheaper to keep murderers in prison without parole than it is to pay for the seemingly endless appeals that are required to reduce error and bias in administering the death penalty.

Republicans in the Legislature should take note. They can vote for repeal of the death penalty without turning in their conservative credentials.

Death Penalty Fails to Meet Conservative Standards

In a recent Greensboro News & Record op-ed, Marshall Hurley, a long-time Republican in North Carolina, questioned giving the state authority to carry out executions when the current practice of capital punishment fails to meet conservative standards and risks innocent lives. He stated:
For those who believe in the virtue of limited government and criticize roundly when government does not work well, capital punishment does not meet fundamental conservative standards. Not only is it applied arbitrarily, but our judicial system cannot even figure out how to examine it properly. Forty-seven judges reviewing a single case over more than a dozen years may assure some that justice is served; to others, it evinces an appeals process in disarray, a game of such utter complexity that nothing is certain except delay and dismay. No one is well served - not families of victims, not law enforcement and certainly not the judicial system.
. . .
North Carolina conservatives, liberals and everyone in between should question whether our state government should authorize execution of people when we know, to a moral certainty, that some of them are innocent. There is no principled justification for any conservative to place limits on government power in all other areas, but grant it the power to kill, knowing it will make mistakes.

(Greensboro News & Record, July 27, 2003)

Agreed, most Mexicans are good people. They work hard and help out when you need it. I wouldn't trade my Mexican neighbors for any one.
The difference is our cultures blend together. We accept theirs and they accept ours. We celebrate "Cinco de Mayo" with them and they celebrate "4th of July" with us. We get along very well.
You must be getting only the liberal news there.

we have gangs of every race/country here... from black to Japanese...

the biggest/worst are not even Mexican, but from central American peoples like Honduran and Guatemalan... the Mexican mafia is pretty big, but they are a step up from street gangs

Stop beating on the Americans Roo!

That's true. I'd rather get my head chopped off by Mexican mafia on the U.S-Mexico border than a Colombian necktie

From a link tomato provided ^^^ >>>

As of 2013, the prison system contains some 2.3 million individuals. This process costs the US Federal government $55 Billion per year. 10% of these prisons are controlled fully by corporate entities. Between 1990 and 2010 the number of privately operated prisons in the U.S. increased 1600%. Private prisons have increased both in numbers and individuals incarcerated within them.

tomato posted >>>
this is just sick tho, profiting off people suffering is just sick. granted there are some people that do belong in prison, but this is just ridiculous. people arrested for drug offenses should not be sittin in prison. unless you committed some kind of heinous crime while on the drug. way i feel its your body, you should be able to decide that you ingest. the fact that like 70% of people in prison are there for drug offenses is sickening.

germanchocolate replied >>>
Not as sickening as the systematic release of rapists and child abusers to make room for the drug offending middlemen. There are points of origin for cocaine and heroin that aren't in the US which means every bit of it in the US was grown processed packaged and imported from abroad by a cartel in another country. The people incarcerated here are for the most part the people who make small sales to users. None of them control the source, no matter how much they trafficked or profited.
What I fail to understand is how any educated elected or appointed official can't see that these people can make much more of a contribution to society and the IRS if they were working legally on the outside vs costing us billions to feed and house in jails. Plus the fact that they are basically selling in effect a good number of our countries workforce into slavery and paying for it.