Amnesty International Goes Jihad

Moral equivalancy grips the handwringers at AI:
http://www.slate.com/id/2244802/. Unlike Hitchens, I've never been a big fan of the forward thinkers at AI. It tends to bug me a little when they place the US and the Irans of the world on equal footing due to the death penalty. That's in the same realm as equating Rosie O'Donnell to Gemma Atkinson due to each being (technically) a woman.

I read and listen to passionate voices here in the United States calling for an end to the death penalty. They think it is demeaning to the ideas of the country and is not equally enforced, citing bad defense and greater numbers of minorities on death row being executed. Most (the honest ones) will also indicate that virtually all of those sitting in the death house went above and beyond the call of duty in earning a trip there--absolutely heinous criminals. I'd be willing to let go of the death penalty if there was a certainty that those sentenced to life without parole were assured of staying behind bars but there isn't any way of knowing if a future Supreme Court will not strike that designation down as cruel and unusual, thereby freeing a future Kenneth Wayne McDuff to go out and brutally torture and murder another innocent citizen. All that said, the death penalty has proven to be wildly expensive and inefficient to prosecute--it's a lot less expensive in all respects to lock 'em away. Just make sure they stay locked.