But you do that in the form of a Constitutional Amendment, as with women's suffrage, etc.

And, that's not what this is about at all. This is not politics, or at least it sholdn't be. It is about application of the law. Wait -- is that what the left wanted? That the Supreme Court should be a political branch of government? Or is it that you just want the Supreme Court to practice liberal politics?

No, what this case is about is an argument that "lethal injection is a cruel and unusual form of capital punishment" which is plainly nuts compared to Utah's firing squad, or electrocution, or the gas chamber or any number of methods of carrying out death penalties.

This is really a perfect illustration of the left's conufusion and the mess that they are prone to make in legal affairs. Like abortion? It goes, "Well, the policy ought to be that every woman should have the right to be able to choose that opition for herself. But since only states like New York and Massachusetts were even getting close to some people's idea of full abortion rights, in comes the Supreme Court and decides it as a matter of their own policy." Breathtakingly dumb, and outside all semblance of any judicial restraint.

And so this case; the left says, "The real policy ought to be no captial punishment, so let's claim that lethal injections are cruel and painful."

I did not say that execution by firing squad or hanging was cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. What I intended for you to understand was that when the Founding Fathers passed the Eighth Amendment, capital punishment was clearly well known to them. Their English brethren had likewise banned "cruel and unusual punishments" and had done away with things like drawing and quartering, etc. The new Americans did the same, with what was clearly no intent to ban all capital punishment. Especially when "treason," the only Constitutionally-defined crime, was just one of many crimes of the day that were punishable by death.

My point, in other words, was that there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States, as it was written and as it has been understood ever since, that would bar capital punishment by a state government. And, there is no Constitutional reason to presume that "lethal injection" -- a method of execution that would have been almost unthinkably gentle by the standards of the criminal justice system of 1789 -- is now "cruel and unusual" when hanging was not Constitutionally barred, and methods such as firing squads, electrocution and the gas chamber have all been utilized as Consitutional methods of execution, without the Supreme Court's holding that those methods were "cruel" or "unusual."

There is simply no comparative basis by which someone could seriously argue that lethal injection is "cruel and unusual," unless the precept was that ALL death sentences are cruel and unusual. And we know that the Founders did not believe that all death sentences were cruel and unusual.

Now, if someone wants to make the argument that what we need is a Constitutional amendment, which would declare that all capital punishment is cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment, that might be an acceptable form of the kind of legal reform that the Salon readership apparently wants.

Just don't blame Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito for your collective failures in political motivation to pass a Constitutional amendment. The Constitution is clear; not all death penalties are "cruel and unusual." Justice Scalia is merely applying that law. Salon probably doesn't like that result. Too bad. The Salonistas might like it if the SCOTUS were composed entirely of ACLU liberals whom they could trust to legislate their preferred results form the bench. But if you do that you end up with bad, unworkable law (i.e., Roe v. Wade), and a diminishment in the power of the legislature as well as the general respect for the Court as a non-partisan institution.

Just admit it, Salon. What you all want the Court to do is to outlaw all capital punishment from the bench, by judicial fiat. You think that if what is arguably the most benign method execution ever devised is declared to be "cruel and unusual," then you all think that you might have a good chance to outlaw all of capital punishment. It is an argument that is not particularly clever, and which is intellectually dishonest.

Anonymous, I actually think "Salonistas" is a kind of gentle categorization for the particular demographic involved. I use the term "Salon readership" just as often. And I think I use the term "Salonista" less than I see the Salon readership use the terms "Repukes", "Rethugs" and all of the other epithets for my party.

Paul in KY, thanks for helping me make my point. Yes, the Founders wanted their new nation to bar, as had mother England, some of the extreme and ancient forms of execution that were felt to be "cruel and unusual." But as you acknowledge, the Founders did not presume to ban all capital punishment. What you propose is an interesting and an acceptable argument to me -- you are saying that lethal injection is cruel and unusual in a way that the Founders would reject. Maybe so. If that be the case, then perhaps we should go back to hanging, which the Founders could not have regarded as cruel and unusual since it was the method of execution that was known to them.

You see, I don't mind this argument as long as it is structured in a Constitutionally sensible way.