There’s are a couple points I just couldn’t get into for space reasons alone in my syndicated column on the death penalty. A while back I wrote a piece for the magazine about how conservatives are (too) inclined to use progressive arguments for abstract ends. Partly, I think, thanks to the influence of neoconservatism on the movement, conservatives are often eager to rely on purely empirical and utilitarian arguments. Here’s how I put it in the piece:

Consider, for example, the debate about same-sex marriage. Among those already convinced that same-sex marriage should be illegal, invocations of the Bible and natural law are common. But these arguments are useless when it comes to persuading the secular-minded. That’s why Maggie Gallagher, Stanley Kurtz, and others consistently invoke not God’s law but the laws of regression analysis and standard deviation (“deviation” in a strictly statistical sense, of course). These are useful arguments, and it’s good that someone is making them. But the implied assumption seems to be that if numbers and charts demonstrated that same-sex marriages were better for kids than “traditional” ones, conservatives–or at least many of them–would throw in the towel. Indeed, so steeped are we in progressive assumptions that “traditional” has become a category to be tested and prodded like any other. One can imagine some study with towers of numbers falling in neat columns. One of these appears under the heading “traditional” and stands alongside a dozen others. Whichever category scores the highest, wins.

Well the death penalty seems to be a good case in point. And, ironically, it is the liberal who has the rhetorical and metaphysical upper hand in most debates. Death penalty opponents tend to argue that it’s simply wrong as a matter of first principles for the state to take a life. I think they’re wrong. But they make the argument forcefully and with philosophical conviction. Conservatives tend, however, to argue from the empirical side, emphasizing the death penalty as a deterrent. It’s good for the collective, it makes utilitarian sense etc (see my column for more). It’s very rare, save as a matter of vengeance and passion, that conservatives will make the case for the death penalty as a matter of justice and justice alone. I favor the death penalty because I believe some people are beyond redemption (in this life) and because some acts so violate the moral order that death is the only just response. To me, it affirms the sanctity of life rather than violates it.

Update: From a reader:

Completely agree with your last. In fact, that used to be the Catholic position, before social liberalism infected the Church and bent first principles towards a reductionist end.
My mid-60’s Catholic school instruction taught that the death penalty could be justified, on the basis that the premeditated, premature taking of innocent human life was so disruptive of the natural order that only God was competent to judge the consequence. Therefore, dispatching the perpetrator for that judgment forthwith was the only appropriate response.