Failure to Kill

SteynonLine ^ | October 16, 2026 | Barbara Kay

[Twotone]

The U.S. is one of the few western countries where execution remains the punishment for heinous crimes. About sixty percent of the states and the federal government have retained it, but roughly two-thirds of executions since 1976 – when new death penalty laws were affirmed by the Supreme Court – have occurred in six states: Texas, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Like euthanasia enthusiasts, death penalty abolitionists argue for their cause as a matter of "human rights." I have no use for that sanctimonious bundling. The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights deliberately avoided condemnation of the death penalty, except in the case of juveniles, pregnant women and the elderly.

All human rights are contingent on boundaries of one kind or another. The human right to life is like the human right to freedom of speech. Just as some forms of speech are incitement to violence and prohibited, some violence is so terrible in motivation or victim numbers or in grotesque accompanying torture that the person who commits it forfeits his or her own human right to life.

Those who insist that there is some inherent right to life for everyone, even depraved monsters who can never be rehabilitated, are simply lazy thinkers who can't be bothered to do the hard work of moral triage to find the red line between long imprisonment and death.

---

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: execution; firingsquad

[Rummyfan]

Those who insist that there is some inherent right to life for everyone, even depraved monsters who can never be rehabilitated, are simply lazy thinkers who can't be bothered to do the hard work of moral triage to find the red line between long imprisonment and death.

Indeed.

[oldplayer]

For Freepers who might find the article in the “too long, didn’t read” category, this author wrote a reasoned and coherent piece in support of the death penalty. It was not an emotional appeal for vengeance, but a thoughtful discussion. The part regarding livestreaming is still well thought out, even in now moot.

[TStro]

Have to love Mark Steyn
Problem with death penalty is it takes WAY too long to carry it out in most cases