Benefits of the Death Penalty

Here is a clinching argument in favor of the death penalty: Jose Medellin, recently executed for raping and killing 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman.

Simply put, there was no other just response to the crime. Anything less would have been a profound miscarriage of justice: The kind that disheartens the good people of a society, and gives courage to the criminals and to those who "deconstruct" outdated notions like law, morality, justice, the notion that some crimes are heinous....

When these concepts are thoroughly deconstructed in the public mind, the result is a civilization without confidence in its own value system, or in the idea of objective truth. I think it is fair to say that the ruling classes of Europe are rife with this malady.

Which is why I add that the execution of this man had an incidental benefit, beyond its obvious justice: It was a slap in the face to the ideas of those who undermine the notion that there is such a thing as justice.

There's something satisfying about irritating all the right people, and Jose Medellin's execution irritated exactly the sort of "deconstructed people" described above. Persons of exactly this type representing Mexico, where Medellin became a bit of a folk hero, appealed through the International Court of Justice.

I was deeply satisfied to hear that the State of Texas responded to this appeal in a fashion which, while couched in the usual legal niceties, amounted to offering Medellin's apologists a fork, a knife, and a plate containing their Texas-sized undershorts.

God Bless the People, Governor, and Spirit of Texas.