What Do Feelings Have To Do With It?

The DC sniper (another murderer on a rampage whose ties to radical Islam have been carefully ignored) is scheduled for execution tonight at 9.

Pray for his death-bed repentance and for his soul; it is just that he lose his life, but burning in hell is not a thing one wishes on any soul.

WaPo includes as part of its coverage the helpful information that executions don't bring "closure" to victims' families. It's not an uninteresting story in itself. But one knows it is meant as an argument against the death penalty.

Which would be fine --as I've stated here previously, I'm not a believer that a system which aggressively denies its powers are in any way derived from the natural law can simultaneously assert a right to take life. (On what ground?) My objection is that this is a further cheapening of our discourse on the topic.

The premise of this article is that the death penalty stands or falls on the victims' survivors' feelings. If it brings them closure, we keep it; but if it turns out not to be much help, we let it go. Does no one see that if a man lives or dies by your, my --or anyone's-- feelings, we are not living under the rule of law, but in a tyranny of the majority?

$5 and my undying admiration to anyone who can discuss the death penalty from the perspective of justice and without stooping to emotional manipulation.