As Rhakesh wrote I agree to, that it was a brilliant piece of writing that Yoshie sent to us a few hours ago. A great piece of writing.
When I was an adolescent I was against the death penalty. When I first moved to the left I shifted my views and felt that executing right wing monsters, such as Hitler was ok. I think with the example of Nelson Mandela, that I realized that one could do something else even with the vilest apartheid scum. And certainly we have seen something like that with the "truth and reconciliation commission" in South Africa. At any rate, I have moved away from being for the death penalty in special circumstances. Though I cannot be sure that if the right arose to commit crimes on the scale of genocide I could still keep that view. But it is clear enough to me that abolishing capital punishment in the present circumstances in the U.S. would be a blow struck for social justice. regards, Doyle Saylor