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November 06, 2006
Would Blair kill Hitler?
I wonder if there's any crime, any depravity that would justify the death penalty in the eyes of Western liberals.
My curiosity is piqued by this report out of Britain.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday he opposed the death penalty for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that his trial had reminded the world of the deposed leader's brutality.
Asked about Saddam's sentence at his monthly press conference, Blair noted that Britain opposed the death penalty, "whether it's Saddam or anyone else." But he said the trial "gives us a chance to see again what the past in Iraq was, the brutality, the tyranny, the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the wars."
Couple of things. First, note Blair's substitution of his opinion for that of his fellow Brits; in the finest tradition of monarchs, "l'etat, c'est moi!"
The article notes that, according to the prime minister, "Britain opposes the death penalty, 'whether it's Saddam or anyone else.' "
Really? Britain opposes the noose for Saddam and all other mass murderers? Would John Bull decry the execution of Adolf Hitler?
I have a hard time believing that the average Englishman "opposes the death penalty for Saddam or anyone else."
But setting aside for the moment Blair's egomaniacal tendencies, how can liberals be so doctrinaire when it comes to capital punishment? We're not talking about the hypothetical member of the underclass, led to the death chamber after a lifetime of oppression under the jackboot of the ruling class.
Nor are we discussing a man wrongfully accused, betrayed by a corrupt legal system.
The issue before us is the punishment of monsters most foul, of evil incarnate, of men who have killed and ordered others to kill countless innocents in pursuit of power, treasure, and conquest, usually with unimaginable cruelty.
These men inspire their followers to commit terrible crimes, even when imprisoned, and their baneful influence is dispelled only when they have been executed, their bones crushed, their ashes scattered in some anonymous location, denying their minions the benefit of a shrine at which they may worship.
But, in the pursuit of absolute consistency, men like Tony Blair refuse to moderate their opposition to capital punishment, deny the need for free nations to rid the world of genocidal dictators, and instead pride themselves on their staunch adherence to an internal moral compass unmoved by the Magnetic North of justice, a justice that demands that millions shall not rot in their graves whilst the killers continue to rant and rave, to inspire more madness, death and destruction while tenderly cared for by the wardens of the West, fed, clothed, medicated and counseled by the finest diseased minds the Left can provide them (Ramsey Clark, anyone?).
To answer my question, no, Tony Blair wouldn't kill Hitler, and that says something quite pitiful about the man, and his fellow travelers.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 6, 2006 01:02 PM
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