I would say Compassion trumps common sense in this case.

ReformedAndDangerous on August 21, 2009 at 11:25 AM

exactly.

And that is precisely what the New Left in Europe, America, and the rest of the West has done to Megrahi: They have insulated him from personal responsiblity for his horrific terrorist act because he is an ally, a fellow anti-American.

That explanation is insufficient because we are still left wondering why the British Justice System releases so many petty and dangerous criminals on compassionate grounds including even scores of IRA terrorists (under the Good Friday Agreement) though the latter are not fellow anti-Americans but specifically anti-British.

The answer, I think, lies in your use of the two rather odd-sounding phrases “individual justice” and “equal justice under the law”. Why not just say justice? Al-Megrahi does not have some individual or personal responsibility to remain in jail or forego the appeals process. Even his personal suffering or lack thereof is entirely incidental, or should be.

It is the duty of the state to execute him (my preference) or at least keep him locked up for life – NOT because he has not been forgiven by the families of the victims, as commenters in the main thread seemed to think, but because of the transcendent order of justice which stands over and above the whole of society.

The Scottish/British legal and political class no longer believe in such an order and so don’t enforce it. It seems to me that a large number of American classical liberals/libertarians do not believe in it either (not to mention the left-liberals) and this may explain how Mohammed Atta’s lawyer kept him off death row with a sob story about the poor terrorist’s traumatic childhood. That shouldnot even have been a consideration for the jury.

David Cameron has many faults — he is certainly not what we in America would call “conservative” — but at least he understands the fundamental distinction between of the virtue of justice and the chimera of compassion.

I don’t think Call Me Dave would have done any differently had it been his decision. He’s an opportunist in official Opposition to Labour but destined to govern exactly like them once safely in office.

I’m almost sorry I wasn’t within range to snipe his murderous posterior on the way into the aircraft.

Hey. If he got 96 months for around 300 murders, I figure that one killing should get me about 3 months. And I’d do that in pretrial detention, so it’s not a big deal, anyway.

And it’d be worth it.

I’m sure William Wallace is praising the humanity of his ancestors….NOT. I’m not a necromancer, so I can’t say how he’d actually react, but if I were, that soi-disant “judge” would be worried about someone with a Claymore coming up and beheading him when he least expected it.

For Shame, Scotland. For Shame!

Or does anyone else think that Abdel Basset Ali al-Merahi having only three months to live makes him more likely, not less, to commit a suicide bombing — sorry, act of “martyrdom?”

Well, duh.

I’ve been saying it all day in HA comments:

Release a terrorist with nothing to live for to Libya. Now that’s a good idea.