That said, if you read what I wrote more carefully, you will notice that I was not suggesting capital punishment is against the laws of the United States. I said that we will not be a civilized nation until capital punishment is no longer permitted — a state of affairs which can be accomplished through legislation in the states where it is currently legal. You are correct that the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the position in relevant cases that capital punishment does not violate the Eighth Amendment, but that really does not speak at all to the question of whether it is civilized, or not civilized. The Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the U.S. Constitution, but it is not the final arbiter of human standards of civilized behavior. Every modern industrialized nation in the world has abolished the death penalty. In fact, the U.S. stands alone with some of the worst human rights offenders in the world in still having the death penalty.

That may or may not move or impress you (in fact, I’m sure it does neither), but what is, unarguably, factual is that the U.S. Supreme Court has the power only to decide what is constitutionally lawful in the United States — not what is civilized.

Just because something is lawful doesn’t mean it’s civilized.

We are a nation of laws … it’s certainly a stretch to say we’re “uncivilized.”