For the Europeans, no matter how many lives you snuff out, no matter what degree of contempt you show for the right to life of innocent men, women and children, no matter what depravities you are prepared to visit upon human dignity, your “right to life” is guaranteed.

The European Commission, Europe’s new unelected ‘nobility,’ has condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein as “barbaric.” But we should not be fooled. The accusation of barbarism is not so much directed at Iraq, but at the United States for maintaining the death penalty.

Now perhaps Europe’s history of instigating the slaughter, in the space of half a century in two World Wars, of more people than were slaughtered in just about the whole history of mankind, gives them some special insight into the meaning of the “right to life.” So let’s see what their rationale is for adopting this absolute “right to life.”

In Europe, the “right to life” protects even the vilest killer of children from losing his own “right to life.” This is because the “right to life” is said to be "an inalienable attribute of human beings" having "supreme value in the international hierarchy of human rights," and as such should be "unanimously guaranteed in legally binding standards at universal and regional levels." So says the Explanatory Report to Protocol 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Protocol 13 abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances, even "in time of war or of imminent threat of war." Although this absolute prohibition was in contemplation for several years, it is interesting to note that it was adopted in February 2002, and made available for signature to member states of the Council of Europe in May 2002 – just 8 months after the terror attacks in the United States on September 11th, 2001 – a case of the Europeans displaying their 'higher sense of humanity?'

In fact, this Protocol simply signaled to the terrorist killers of innocent people that no matter how many lives they snuff out, no matter what degree of contempt they show for the “right to life” of innocent men, women and children, no matter what depravities they are prepared to visit upon human dignity, their “right to life” is guaranteed. They, the terror mongers, need show no regard for the "inalienable attribute of human beings," the "supreme value in the international hierarchy of human rights." Their “right to life” will be accorded absolute immunity from interference. They can play god, or is it Allah, with the “right to life” of anyone they please.

The only consequence will be some small inconvenience to their “right to liberty.” But even then, they will still have in their arsenal a full panoply of other 'rights' – their 'right' not to be 'hurt,' their 'right' to practice the religion or ideology which gave rise to their atrocities, their 'right' to humane treatment, their 'right' to observe their religious customs and holidays, their 'right' not to be 'offended' in their beliefs and customs, their 'right' to eat food that does not offend their sensibilities, not to mention their full array of 'rights' to legal representation, a fair trial, 'civil liberties,' and whatever other 'rights' their apologists can think up for them.

But the most grotesque, the most depraved, and the most hideous 'right' they are 'awarded' for snuffing out the “right to life” of hundreds, even thousands, of innocent human beings, is their 'right' to require the rest of us to pay for their continued existence, and to pay for the 'rights' they become eligible to assert and exercise by killing innocent people. Even those who have had their lives snuffed out by such vermin are compelled to pay for the continued existence of that vermin by way of taxes on their death. The children of the victims are compelled to pay for the upkeep of the killers of their parents.

So where do the advocates of this absolute “right to life” claim it comes from? What gives one person a 'right' to extinguish the “right to life” of another person without jeopardizing his own “right to life?” Even more perplexing, where does a 'right' come from which compels the victim to pay to maintain the life of his killer?

According to the Europeans, it comes from "the evolution that has occurred in several member states of the Council of Europe [which] expresses a general tendency in favour of abolition of the death penalty." It even goes further. It asserts that the "member states of the Council of Europe" are "convinced that everyone's right to life is a basic value in a democratic society and that the abolition of the death penalty is essential for the protection of this right and for the full recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings."

So the authority to deprive people of their freedom to exact retribution against those who snuff out the lives of their loved ones comes from an "evolution" of a "general tendency," and of someone being "convinced" that the “right to life” is "a basic value in a democratic society." Wow!!!!

Now that is a classic case of what the philosopher Alf Ross called "banging on the table." A twisted, distorted, and depraved kind of logic that asserts simply that "we are convinced" that we are right because we detect a kind of "evolution" of a "general tendency." That, for them, is sufficient to assert an authority to compel the victims to pay for the continued existence of even the vilest criminal who rapes a child, tortures that child, inflicts the most unspeakable humiliations and pain on that child, then kills that innocent child, and discards the limp little body in some ditch as though it were an empty beer can.

That is what such twisted European minds conceive of as 'justice,' and it is 'justice' because their superior intellects, and more highly tuned consciences, say it is 'justice.'

To accord vile killers a 'right' to absolute sanctity of their “right to life,” while they show contempt for the “right to life” of even innocent children, and then to compel the parents of that innocent child to pay for that vile killer's continued existence, and to pay for that killer to exercise all the other 'rights' he is accorded for killing a child, is an affront to "the inherent dignity of all human beings," not a "recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings."

Another pathetic argument for the abolition of the death penalty in Europe is that it is somehow "cowardly" to execute someone who is defenseless and in prison. The fact that such scum could abduct say a defenseless child, incarcerate that child, and then perform the most vile and grotesque physical and mental humiliations on that child before snuffing out its life, doesn't seem to bother such people. They are more concerned with the 'rights' of that vile killer. And they would be happy to see the victims of such scum be locked up for refusing to finance the continued existence of the killer who extinguished the life of their innocent and defenseless child.

Now this "general tendency" in Europe to abolish the death penalty is not shared by the majority of ordinary people in many European countries, the people who are the victims of the scum who can now extinguish the “right to life” of others with impunity. But governments and the courts in Europe have contempt for the people. Europe’s new ‘nobility’ believe they are vested with absolute wisdom.

And that absolute wisdom, they think, gives them an authority to deprive people of the freedom to exact retribution against those who snuff out the lives of their loved ones. In short, this new ‘nobility’ thinks it’s superior intellect and conscience gives it some ‘right’ to take “civil liberties” with the freedom of others.

So I congratulate the Iraqi’s for treating the views of this new European ‘nobility’ with the contempt they deserve.