To Rudd on Capital Punishment

Robert McLelland articulates Labor policy on capital punishment: Kevin Rudd rebukes him for insensitive timing, and suddenly John Howard is calling McLelland a "decent bloke" (whatever that is), and Rudd is overturning democratic policy in his haste to reassure us that the terrorist is, as we've been taught, a special kind of supervillain to whom standard punishments (and basic human rights) don't apply. This is just one example of the way complex moral and social questions are truncated or blurred in our current climate of political skirmishing. Supported by a mercenary groundswell, politicians engage each other in the lowlands of popular feeling, while moral and intellectual authorities inhabit the guerrilla territories. After 11 years, we are accustomed to the silencing of genuine debate; Rudd's ascendancy seemed to promise a new dialogue. However, while Howard certainly has the monopoly on moral myopia, Rudd consistently falls into political traps that have him pandering to ill-digested public sentiment rather than occupying the moral high-ground which Howard long ago left vacant.