They did not charge the individual in possession with any offense but they did impound my car and held it for ransom. They said I was lucky to get it back for only $1200.

The worst part is that I, the owner of the car was 30 miles away and have never even met the passenger with the pot.

First, if the prosecutor decides the accused should die if found guilty, then that prosecutor, all appellant judges, and any victims choosing to agree with him should be required to do the actual killing.

Second, the death should not be calm and gentle, as in lethal injection. It should be slow, painful, violent, and bloody as in stoning, or beating with a bat, or something equally horrific. Members of the court could better satisfy their blood lust, and one would think the overall quality of “closure” for the victims would improve greatly. And maybe people like Ann Coulter, who is convinced Troy Davis was guilty, would be willing to pay a hefty entrance fee to participate and throw a few stones or swing the bat a couple times. The proceeds could be applied to pay down the national debt.

Of course I’m not really advocating any of this. We live in a very sick world and I fear state-sanctioned executions would become a national bloodsport. But I bet if this was how executions were actually carried out, those currently in favor of capital punishment would would be compelled to reexamine their beliefs if they had to do their own dirty work.

But the real point is this: the State has no more right to take a morally innocent human life (i.e., that of a wrongly convicted person) on the basis of mere judicial guilt than on the basis of, say, disability, or old age, or terminal illness, or still being in the womb.

So, when can we expect liberal America and the UN, which recently called for a moratorium on the death penalty by a margin far too large to be put down to mere Western cultural imperialism, to act against those evils, too?

Nor is it coherent for a country to have nuclear weapons (which likewise have absolutely no deterrent value, but that is not quite the present point) but not capital punishment. The solution to that incoherence is not the restoration or retention of capital punishment.

Could you elaborate? Sounds to me like they were completely within their rights with everything they did. Most particularly with shooting at government assholes who invaded their property with intent to murder.

This is hardly the time for wimpy, limp-wristed defenses. The government is evil and must be opposed with every fiber of our beings!