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his first official trip to Europe, George W. Bush chose the first
stop well. Meeting King Juan Carlos of Spain, Bush was greeted by
a king who is — as far as kings go — as laid back and self-deprecating
as the Texan himself. Spain's President Aznar, Europe's only popular
conservative leader, is known for being compassionate, a winning
underdog, and a devout Christian: a perfect first ally for Bush.
All that was missing was a royal barbecue and T-ball at the palace.
It was a soft landing.
The few hundred
collegians and aged socialists protesting Bush under the Madrid
sun, for a Seattle-esque buffet of causes, were, well, pathetic.
But then the Spanish have only had 25 years to practice free speech.
You'd never know that watching Spanish journalists hurl self-righteous
questions at America's overly-polite president about — of all things
— America's death penalty.
The president
answered the death-penalty questions deftly, reminding the Spanish
that in democracies, the popular will ultimately determines laws.
Even this was a daring answer in a country slowly handing over control
of its laws to an unelected European government.
Now, Americans
support the death penalty by about 75%. But even those of us troubled
by state execution know that we have nothing about which to be apologetic
to the Europeans.
There is good
reason why the European Union has imposed a constitutional prohibition
of capital punishment on its member states: overcompensation. Europe
just ended a century in which state-sponsored killing was both legitimized
by law and by the silence of the European people.
Throughout
Europe, President Bush is getting pummeled in the press for the
execution of Timothy McVeigh. The Vatican aside, however, no one
really thinks Europe cares about moral issues. Wasn't it just yesterday
that Europeans sat idle in the face of Balkan genocide until (once
again) America's boys saddled up?
President Bush
might well have told the smug reporters that America's record on
state-sponsored execution of its citizens is a tad bit better than
Europe's recent history, by, roughly, a million to one, without
even counting Russia. Spain, of all places, is hardly a place to
be self-righteous about opposition to the death penalty. Bullets
can still be plucked out of prison walls there.
Americans do
not have the same anxiety and fear of legally sanctioned state execution
because our history is not Europe's history. Surely it has been
proven that the governments and legal traditions of the European
continent are not to be trusted with state execution as a legal
option. And while Americans spilled their blood on the field of
Antietem or the back roads of Mississippi to end injustice and oppression
to fellow citizens, Europeans, including Britons, have proven that
such a motivation comes to them only as an afterthought.
For Americans,
the death penalty presents a moral question balanced against the
policy motive of deterrence and, for some, punishment. Even while
we debate it, few Americans have reason to fear the use of the death
penalty. Our confidence in the rule of law and the protection of
our civil rights is deeply embedded in our culture. Europe proved
in the last century that the rule of law and its civil codes are
as malleable as butter. For Europeans, elimination of legally sanctioned
execution is a matter of self-preservation.
And so, it
is better for everyone that the Europeans not resuscitate legally
sanctioned executions. Next time round, President Bush should tell
that to nosy European reporters.
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