A mentally ill barbarian named Breivik murders over 90 in Oslo. We of course have to endure not just the tragedy of the monstrosity but also the ridiculous media coverage that somehow a psychopath is automatically a right-wing Christian. Such analysis is matched in stupidity by the ravings of someone who needs to be sentenced to death:

"Muslims must be considered as wild animals," he writes in the manifesto, the authenticity of which was confirmed by his lawyer. "Do not blame the wild animals but rather the multiculturalist category A and B traitors who allowed these animals to enter our lands, and continue to facilitate them," Mr. Breivik writes, adding that "category A and B traitors" include politicians and journalists.

So the deranged lunatic bombs buildings and murders young people at a youth camp connected with the ruling party and which are unconnected with the media's preoccupation – his anti-Islamic positions. Nothing much makes sense in the entire story, but perhaps it is just the act of a lone madman. But there is little that is Christian about this man, and even less that is right-wing. But that is the media obsession. All white males who commit atrocities are right-wing Christian fanatics. Even an atheist like McVeigh who hated the government and had little love for religion is endlessly illustrated in this vein. One has to wonder at this psychopathic compulsion the media has in labeling white men as always 'right wing extremists'.

Murdering innocents is not 'conservative', nor is it an attitude of 'right wing extremists'. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, even Franco, not to mention Che, Castro, Amin, Pol Pot and Mao were all socialists-statists, murdering innocents to elevate the power of the state and destroy the individual, free-will, free-association, freedom of concience and morality. None of these attributes are 'right wing' or 'conservative'. In fact conservatism supports the opposite. Portraying Hitler as 'right wing' is as insipid as declaring that Castro is a religious right-wing extremist. Hitler in both practice and theology including very clear statements in Mein Kampf, was a Marxist-Socialist who married extreme Statism to military power. Stalinism was much the same in both ideology and implementation.

An extremist 'right wing' view would be anarcho-libertarianism, in which there is no government, no rules, no laws and the individual is free to do what he or she pleases. That is the only extremist right wing which could be connected to conservativism but even then the connection is tenuous. I don't know of any conservative thinker or believer who deigns to suggest that laws, boundaries, regulations and common good servicing by a government are unnecessary or unworthy. But the media apparently knows of many.

Breivik is exhibit A as to why there must be a death penalty. It is immoral not to have one. If you murder more than 1 person your life is forfeit. The state has no obligation to spend hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars [$35.000 per year per prisoner on average is what it costs to incarcerate someone], on a freak who murders 93 innocents. His life should be finished. Society has a moral duty to end the lives of mass-murderers.

It is often claimed that too many innocent people are put to death. In reality the case examples of an innocent frying for murder are very few. A system of review could be setup to ensure that the original court order of death is both logical, well supported and justified beyond a reasonable doubt. It could be a single judicial review by another judge or even a jury peer review to go over either the evidentiary exposition against the indicted murderer given by the court, or by a jury. Legal brains can devise a system to ensure that the state is not murdering innocents.

To paraphrase a statement from Deuteronomy, the land is polluted and defiled when you let a killer go free. Life imprisonment is not only expensive but immoral. The writers of Deuteronomy were correct. Society has the moral and legal obligation to demand the ultimate punishment for anyone who kills more than 1 person. You can't justify murdering more than one person. You also can't justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a useless incarcerated life. The death penalty is civilized and necessary.

A good debate on the death penalty can be found here.