Speaking of equivalence: as a justification for interfering with another society, are you really comparing executing retarded people tried and convicted of a capital crime with a regime that shoveled a third of a million innocent people into mass graves and killed entire villages with nerve gas? Never mind. I'm probably misinterpreting that one, too.

No, I'm comparing the reality of what we do to the image we have of ourselves, and the image we attempt to project to the world as justification of our superior virtue.

If we were a little more serious about across-the-board application of justice in the human rights department, including holding the people we like to the same standards as the people we don't like, it would be a little less difficult to appear to be the saints we say we are to the rest of the world.

Teach by example, that kind of thing.

Is an atrocity an atrocity by virtue of its nature, or is there a number involved beyond which one must pass for it to be atrocious enough? Is using the state's force and authority to kill a convicted killer who hasn't the mental equipment to know what's going on, or heaven help us, to kill a person wrongly convicted who knows he's innocent, not atrocious? Can we even admit that we have a problem here, or would that be an admission of "weakness"?

Authority does not issue forth from perfection, although maybe hanging out with the "God is on our side" crowd has given some people in power that impression. (That would be on both sides of the conflict.) Authority issues forth from the willingness to look at what's wrong and to attempt to do the right thing, regardless of who is doing wrong. Especially if it's one's self.