Cruel and Unusual?

(AP) -- The drugs used to execute prisoners in the United States sometimes fail to work as planned, causing slow and painful deaths that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes.

Now, I have a large amount of compassion. But at the same time, I am particular in who gets this compassion. I always mourn for the victim, not the attacker. We live in a society of law. These laws are in place to discourage or otherwise prevent a citizen's rights and livelihoods from being violated. These rights are a creation of mankind since there is no such thing as a natural right. What right does a gazelle have to life when hunted by the lion? What right does a man have to life while being battered by ruthless waves in the middle of the ocean?

None. These rights are nothing more than another human invention. We hairless apes have adopted tools in order to survive. Without tools, we would perish. But tools need not be a hammer or a spear. They can also be ideology, law and principle. These things are created for the benefit of civilized life. Even the belief that those laws and ideals are unchangeable are nothing more than assurances to keep the masses at ease.

So, just as man has given society its rules, should man not be able to apply them only to people who obey these rules? You can't have it both ways. You should not be able to violate the right to life given by the people and its government or an individual or individuals and then claim that same right.

By rejecting the laws of civilized society, you have made a choice to enact in a barbaric, uncivilized manner. And when a man is stripped of his civility, he is no longer a civilized man. He is instead nothing but a hairless ape. An animal. And all animals that pose a threat to civilized man should be eradicated.