Letters to the Editor
bostonMA
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 22
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The Death Penalty
[Read the article: Who would Antonin Scalia torture?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I want to first note that I would rather see this discussion on problems with lethal injection be an academic one, because the death penalty should be abolished for all crimes. Although there are many criminals the world would be better off without, the fact of the matter remains that the death penalty is administered arbitrarily in our society, disproportionately to the poor and mentally ill, by a government and justice system prone to error and even the occasional deliberate conviction of the innocent. It is also expensive in comparison to lifelong incarceration. Rather than risk adding to the 23 innocent individuals we now believe have been wrongly put to death in recent decades, I would argue that the death penalty is fundamentally incompatible with the values of a society that claims to be free and should be abandoned.
Euthanasia has been legal in the Netherlands since 2002, and the US system for lethal injection should look at their methods for answers on how the ending of life might be done with humanity. The basic mechanisms used do seem similar, but it's worth noting that the Dutch have also created an effective barbituate cocktail for individuals seeking to die with dignity by their own hand, a choice for self-determination that many of us may one day wish we had. It's clear that they have thought about how to do this effectively and painlessly.
From what I know, the Dutch system for actively administered euthanasia begins with the same sedative sodium thiopental intravenously administered to induce a coma. I am not aware if the dose differs, although the professionalism of administration most likely would. After this has taken effect, Pancuronium is administered to stop the breathing and cause death. I am not clear if a level of consciousness (LOC) or other brain activity monitor is used to verify that the person is actually out entirely after the sedative is given, although this would seem to be a simple solution to avoiding the risk of any pain perception with the administration of the terminal drugs. The use of an LOC device would be a reasonable way to mitigate the risk of pain with lethal injection, although it would certainly be better to avoid the risk of executing the innocent entirely.
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Coercing democracy
[Read the article: Most Dems no better than Bush on Pakistan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of President Bush's more appalling flights of fancy in the foreign policy arena is his belief that democratically elected governments will somehow be more inclined than incumbent authoritarians to support U.S. policy objectives that are wildly unpopular with their own electorates.
This is a powerful statement that is rarely - if ever - heard in discussions of US foreign policy. It strikes right at the core fallacy in Bush's ideology, and yet because we are taught to believe "democracy = good and just", policies and uses of force wrapped in this premise go unchallenged. In our society there is almost a religious reverence for democracy as some kind of noble end unto itself. Bush has used this to advance an agenda that is at best utopian, and perhaps simply a guise for dismantling nations of his choosing to spread US influence and domination. How often have we heard of the necessity that Iraq have a functional democratically elected government as a measure of our success? At what price must this come?
Let us not forget that Ahmadinejad was democratically elected in Iran in 2005, and yet this administration has been dangerously close to attacking the country to replace him. Is that a just correction of some kind of failure of democracy? What of Chavez in Venezuela? Bush has said that "every time people are given a choice, they choose freedom." How does he reconcile this statement with results like these throughout history?
Even if we all agreed that democracy represented a righteous ideal for man's relationship with government, another question remains: Why is it the role of the United States to advance democracy across the globe?
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Fear is only one tactic
[Read the article: GOP to voters: Be afraid, be very afraid]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not surprising that fear is being used to sell this field of candidates. It represents one of several favorite tactics of the neoconservative movement that has become dominant under the current president.
This use of fear in the campaign is just a continuation of the fear used to sell the war, the fear used to continue the war, and the fear used to justify radical expansions of executive power. Fear is also the justification for an ominous change to a fundamental principle in our foreign policy: the shifting from a just war doctrine to one of preemptive war.
Fear transcends these candidates. It's one tool in the arsenal of the broader movement used to shape public opinion. Think of the calls to patriotism that silenced dissent in the run up to war. Think of the policies that went unchallenged because our president claimed a religious conviction for his actions. Even the call to spread values that many judge to be positive to the human environment, like democracy, have now brought public support for aggressive military actions to meet these ends throughout the globe.
Fear. Patriotism. Religious conviction. Democratic values. These four tools have been applied to the collective conscience so that we now accept the United States as an aggressor nation and willingly relinquish individual freedoms as demanded by our government.