Life-and-Death Considerations

Re “An Indecent Administration Rolls On,” Commentary, March 21: One of the perennial questions that bounces around high school and college history classes (and the occasional editorial page), particularly when studying ancient Rome, is whether or not a republic can survive without devolving into empire. Empires are seldom inconvenienced by the rule of law. They are ruled by imperial decree.

The emperor’s ultimate power is over life and death. At this moment, this may be an overstatement of the power wielded by President Bush and his administration. However, Bush’s activities in these issues -- abortion, war, the death penalty, even the signing of the Schiavo bill -- show a fascination with personal power in life-and-death issues.

It is not a question of what is decent, or even what is legal, but who has the power to decide. The Bush administration’s answer to that question is unequivocal. It seems that its answer to the perennial question is: No.

Wray Johnston

Burbank

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Mike Farrell’s well-crafted opinion reflects the views of anyone with even the smallest sense of reason and humanism. Decency and fairness are not doctrine, but a premier hallmark of the basic human soul. Given this, we are left to ask: Where is Washington’s soul?

The world is rightly perplexed at Washington’s insistence on a “culture of life” that capriciously promotes the death penalty. Were Washington an individual, the psychiatrist in charge would rightly diagnose severe and dangerous bipolar disorder.

Anthony Pereslete

Culver City

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Of course Farrell would be in favor of international reciprocal treaties on justice. As a person who does not want the death penalty, he would prefer that other countries make that decision for us.

Usually those who want an end to the death penalty do so no matter how heinous the crime and how compelling the evidence.

To me, some crimes simply cry out for the death penalty, they beg for the death penalty. The murder of young children by sexual predators is one of those.

Are those who prey on our society, especially the weak and innocent, receiving a pass from Farrell? I think so!

Harold Tuchel

Waterloo, Iowa

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It is time that America joins enlightened citizens in the rest of the civilized world that condemns the death penalty.

In the least, we need to declare a moratorium here in California, where a growing percentage of the population is starting to reject the death penalty.

There are many reasons to support a moratorium. Study after study has shown the death penalty to be grossly unfair: More than 100 people nationwide have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Race, place and poverty are the determining factors in who lives and who dies when it comes to California’s death penalty.

There are alternatives. Existing law in California provides for life without the possibility of parole. Several human rights and religious organizations advocate alternatives that include life sentences combined with restitution to the victim’s family and victim/offender reconciliation programs.

Dagmar M. Rios

Newport Beach

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Re “The Midnight Coup,” editorial, March 21: You correctly criticize the Bush administration for inserting itself into the Terri Schiavo case, pointing out how this overreach of power is a direct result of its apparent addiction to “the right to life.” Then, over on the Op-Ed page, there’s a commentary by Farrell correctly attacking the Bush administration for its apparent addiction to capital punishment.

The administration’s amazing ability to simultaneously champion two completely contradictory schools of thought is matched only by the American public’s amazing inability to ever question it.

Michael Schlesinger

Sherman Oaks