'Killing Evil Doesn't Make Us Evil' by Maureen Dowd - NYT May 8, 2011 - puts forth the argument that there exists a special evil bar that once exceeded does away with the need for due process. Osama Bin Laden apparently met this bar.
So who else meets this bar? Well if I was a family member of a murder victim Id certainly feel the bar had been met - wouldn't you? So I could go ahead and kill the murderer. No?
Well how about Charlie Manson? A bullet straight through the swastika he carved on his face? No?
Getting closer?
How about the world leaders who invaded a sovereign nation looking for WMD's that didn't exist, in a country that had nothing to do with 911 - killing 100,000 innocent people and displacing another 1 million in the process? 100,000 is a lot of people. I imagine there are a lot of Iraqi families who feel that is about as evil as it gets. So they can go ahead and kill Bush and Cheney? No?
Executing a man after a fair trial does not make us evil. Killing an unharmed man, no matter how evil you feel he is, without following due process diminishes us all. We are Americans. We are supposed to believe that no matter what, we always behave in a civilized manner, with fairness and justice within the law. That we always respect the law and human rights - even for mass murders - without exception - and that we represent the best humanity has to offer in doing so.
So who else meets this bar? Well if I was a family member of a murder victim Id certainly feel the bar had been met - wouldn't you? So I could go ahead and kill the murderer. No?
Well how about Charlie Manson? A bullet straight through the swastika he carved on his face? No?
Getting closer?
How about the world leaders who invaded a sovereign nation looking for WMD's that didn't exist, in a country that had nothing to do with 911 - killing 100,000 innocent people and displacing another 1 million in the process? 100,000 is a lot of people. I imagine there are a lot of Iraqi families who feel that is about as evil as it gets. So they can go ahead and kill Bush and Cheney? No?
Executing a man after a fair trial does not make us evil. Killing an unharmed man, no matter how evil you feel he is, without following due process diminishes us all. We are Americans. We are supposed to believe that no matter what, we always behave in a civilized manner, with fairness and justice within the law. That we always respect the law and human rights - even for mass murders - without exception - and that we represent the best humanity has to offer in doing so.
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