Remember this debacle in the lead-up to last year’s election? Robert McClelland was a bit too frank and unwavering in suggesting that Labor would take a clear and principled stand against the death penalty. Kevin Rudd then tripped over himself in an effort to hastily backpedal, and in his desperate drive to avoid saying anything that might set off a talk radio backlash, he stayed pathetically silent while Team Howard implied that Labor was betraying Australia by pleading for the lives of the Bali bombers.
Here’s a genuine leader showing how it should be done:
Dr Ramos-Horta says that despite the horrendous nature of the crime, he does not believe the death penalty was appropriate.
“I respect the laws of other countries that might have the death sentence, but we do not have the death sentence,” he said.
“I can only pray for the souls of those individuals who might be executed in Indonesia over the Bali bombings. They committed a horrible, cowardly crime. They deseve the severest punishment, but my country will oppose the death penalty.”
UPDATE: Jeremy at An Onymous Lefty notes that Helen Clark has joined Horta in expressing universal condemnation of capital punishment on behalf of her country. He is calling on Kevin Rudd to do the same – I don’t see Kevin having the courage of his convictions on this one.
Executing the Bali bombers is not adequate punishment, they should be doused in the blood of a pig and after they have been shot they bodies should be burnt and their ashes scattered in a cesspit.
Death may hold a certain attraction to them but sending them to meet Allah after they have been made “unclean” in terms of that faith’s dogma is the best way to make their fate a deterrent to other would be killers.
Given the ineffectiveness of general deterrence as a sentencing goal, the ineffectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent and the extreme commitment and distorted worldview that goes along with committing terrorist acts, that’s bound to be a winning strategy.
If you’re going to advocate that sort of barbaric retribution, at least be up-front enough to acknowledge that you’d be doing it to make yourself feel better. It’s going to have no positive impact on the likelihood of subsequent terrorism.
Actually Tobias a punishment along the lines that I suggest is not that barbaric at all. I am notsuggesting that their deaths should be made any slower or more painful. All I am suggesting is that their own religious dogma be invoked to deny them the comfort of a post mortem paradise by making them unfit for it by polluting them with the blood of a pig.
This short of thing has actually been done before and it proved to be quite an effective deterrent.
What would make me feel better would be to see such a reformation in Islam that it was no longer a threat to western civilisation, but in the absence of that I will have no trouble acknowledging that three dead terrorists will make the world a better place. I reject the touchy feely ,values neutral multiculturalism that you on the left seem to think is so hunky dory and I have no trouble supporting capital punishment as a valid response to some crimes. The Bali bombers are unrepentant, so there is no doubt about their guilt, they have certainly committed a crime of sufficient severity to justify death, so why do you want to keep them alive?