Seems he’s got a touch of buyer’s remorse:

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens drew a round of applause Friday night in Chattanooga when he suggested that the recently-euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Bells had probably experienced a more humane death than those who die on death row.

“I had checked the procedure they used to kill the horse,” Justice Stevens said, expressing surprise to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that many believe is cruel to humans.

Yet just three weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky’s use of that cocktail on death row did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Stevens concurred with the court’s decision, but conceded his opinion would “generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol, but also about the justification for the death penalty itself.”

Justice Stevens talked about the lethal injection case and other recent Supreme Court decisions as he addressed an audience of legal professionals at the Chattanooga Convention Center during the last evening of the 68th conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Justice Stevens presides over the 6th Circuit in his position on the Supreme Court.

Stashiu is right about the way to handle the strike code. However, at this point, that bug has been around so long I think we’ve grown attached to it. It’s like an old uncle that everyone just tolerates.

If you use the strike button, it will place and (take out the spaces) before and after the word you’re trying to strike-through, showing a strike-through in the preview. You have to use the word (strike) instead of just the (s) to get it into the comment. For example, take becomes take. You just have to remember it for this site because it’s always done that.

There are other prohibitions against stealing property, but I believe you are correct that the Commandment is especially against kidnapping as its position implies it is a capital offense, whereas one who steals money need only give it back.

Another Drew,

Having said that, I think that though our government is not perfect, it is much farther along the scale towards “just” than those which you refer to historically.

Agreed.

What weaknesses in the checks & balances handed down by the founders bother you? Which need to be strengthened?

1. no practical check on the Supreme Court, which can churn out bad decisions much faster than amendments can be passed to fix them.

2. not the Founders’ fault, but the Senate should not be elected directly – that’s redundant to what the House is for – but should represent the states as originally designed to prevent the slow and steady devolution of power to the feds. Centralized power is easier to corrupt, and offers little in the way of counter-examples (a.o.t. 50 petri dishes that can be compared to each other).

3. States should raise their own taxes to pay to the feds (feds can keep the right to tax the people directly only when the states welsh on their debts, to avoid a repeat of that same prob as occurred under the Articles of Confederation).

As you can see, I prefer small, decentralized govt. I’m Canadian, btw, so apologies if I got anything wrong.

Which are the governments that you refer to as “…done by pavers of the road to hell govts…” ?
I would like to be able to discuss apples, not oranges.

Any govt that commits genocide or just general “silencing” thru murder of its internal opponents. This is much less a prob in a democracy, agreed, but neither can we guarantee it won’t happen, either. And when it does happen – even if only once in a lifetime – the total bad could pass the total good real quick.

I suspect it would not happen in the US under its current constitution (provided that the courts don’t reinterpret that to meaninglessness as some of Justices try to do) but as a risk/reward proposition, I lean towards the side of (even possibly unnecessary) caution.

Wish I could be more specific than that. I like to think I can usually defend my args with much greater precision, but in this case I acknowledge that I can’t. Then again, I can’t really shoot it down with any precision either cuz it’s so nebulous.

Patterico,

My “pavers of the road to hell” phrase was meant to have strikeout thru it but didn’t, tho it had showed up that way on the preview. You might wish to note the bug to your hosting/comment service.

BTW, when the Decalogue says “Do not steal”–it wasn’t talking about stealing material property. It was talking about kidnapping.