Well, Mr Cooke, We'd all love to see the plan....

Mr. Cooke-

My friend, you're wrong; while capitol punishment is/was routinely practiced by totalitarian governments, many non-totalitarian governments also practice it. Stalin taxed his citizens; is America totalitarian because it taxes? Put another way: Hitler was a successful advocate for gun control; are Democratic proponents of gun control fascist? You might not like execution, but it is far from totalitarian.

The way you’ve framed your argument creates a false-dichotomy of either siding with the shooter, Chief of Police in Saigon Lt. Col. Nugyen Loan, or a version of jurisprudence sans sang. Coy rhetoric is no substitute for logical thrust.

Further, due process is an American value and one of our core beliefs. This is precisely the reason that Americans were so repulsed by Eddie Adams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from 1969. The suggestion that America might be fighting to sustain a rotten government horrified and awakened main-stream Americans (you might check for a correlation between items like Adam’s photo and the growth in non-student activism).

We can all forgive a filched wallet or even a black eye, but it’s neither humane nor compassionate to ask a rape victim to forgive her violator; H.L. Mencken, far more eloquently than I, once noted, “But when the injury is serious, Christianity is adjourned and even saints reach for their sidearms.”

Iraqis should not suffer Saddam to live. Islamic law formulates such a proclamation with the simple, elegant dictum: “his blood is forfeit.” When you murder a village, either with a rifle or with a phone call, you’ve placed yourself outside the law’s protection. Saddam will hang for his evil deeds and both Democrats and Republicans can raise a glass to the final, sickeningly-justified snap of a tyrant’s neck. More importantly, so can his victims.