Capital Punishment

[angus]

I don't support capital punishment for anyone under any circumstances.  But I do support majority rule, legislative policy, and judicial restraint.  So, since only about 20% of all Republicans and about 35% of Democrats and others want to abolish capital punishment, I won't begin ranting about its practice.  This seems less likely to be abolished, in our lifetimes, even than abortion.  We are the most populist nation in the world by some measures.  It's the reason Elian Gonzales had to go back to cuba, and it's the reason that we still practice capital punishment.  That's just the way it is.

[angus]

Willingness to kill shows the 'courage of your convictions', in otherwords shows you mean what you say.  Domestically this means killing criminals - personally, I can think of worse fates than being executed.  Internationally, this means killing the enemy.  To preserve ones life, property, and security either at home or abroad requires a willingess to shed blood.  If you aren't capable of this, your enemies will rightly see you as weak and attack.  

I think one latent assumption in the question is that we separate the nameless, faceless nuking a hundred thousand people, or sending in the marines with big guns and tanks, from the up-close and controlled personal killing of a man by a physician in front of witnesses.