And the rats show their noses... (A Bedside Story)

Whenever a government body makes a decision that is so utterly just
that only the morally despicable can object, those few launch into
self-important screeds against justice itself.

Case in point: this week's Supreme Court decision barring capital
punishment of juvenile offenders. As the majority decision points
out, society draws the line for adulthood at 18. While under 18, an
individual cannot legally purchase or engage in morally questionable
luxury excesses (cigarettes, alchol, gambling), vote, or speak for
themselves before the state in a legal setting. Nonetheless, before
this week, that state could execute them for crimes committed before
18. Moreover, a majority of states had decided that juvenile capital
punishment was such an indefensible practice that it was not allowed
into their lawbooks. Finally, the winds of international opinion have
been blowing against the practice for years.

But the Journal href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006361">disagrees.
Sure, they say that they would be opposed to juvenile capital
punishment; that their opposition to the ruling stems only from its
indefensible logic. But it is their own tortured logic that proves
otherwise.

Take their claim that a national consensus does not exist:

His evidence for this "consensus" is that of the 38 states that permit
capital punishment, 18 have laws prohibiting the execution of
murderers under the age of 18. As we do the math, that's a minority of
47% of those states. The dozen states that have no death penalty offer
no views about special immunity for juveniles--and all 12 permit 16-
and 17-year-olds to be treated as adults when charged with non-capital
offenses.

Watch the logic flop like a fish. By limiting the scope only to those
states that have the death penalty, he is 'able' to disprove the
consensus. What a great manipulation of statistics! Realistically,
though, he's saying that the views of the 12 states that already
outlaw the death penalty do not matter. Nevermind that they
automatically outlaw the practice; to the author, they have removed
themselves from the death penalty debate by choosing a side he doesn't
agree with.

The author later moves on to express his distaste for the use of
foreign opinion to discredit a domestic practice - he even calls up
the Convention on the Rights of the Child (a treaty the U.S. has not
ratified, leaving it in a category only with Somalia). But isn't that
what the U.S. is trying to do in its quest to spread democracy?
Moreover, doesn't that quest itself require the U.S. to set a moral
example - not behave in an unjust manner?

The author's other argument rests on abortion - which I've long
supposed to be the innate hypocricy of the capital punishment debate.
Being 'Pro-Life' should essentially apply to all life. But for many
people it only applies to babies in the womb. Once you poke your head
out, you're fair game. Maybe they should change their identification
to being pro-prenatal-life, or pro-womb-life. At least then they'd be
accurate.