Great post Daniel. You've touched on some issues I
wanted to address, but didn't for lack of time. You
wrote that it may be right to execute convicted
terrorists (and maybe other so-called political
prisoners). But, to be perfectly clear, support for
the death penalty in that instance is contingent upon
the failure of a life-sentance without possibility of
parole to take a criminal out of society. Even I
would support capital punishment in that specific
situation.

You correctly note that rights are denied to
criminals, often in proportion to their crimes. I
mentioned this in my comment, "Harm-preventing versus
Benefit-confering," when I noted that denial of the
righ of freedom and right of autonomy are central to
our justice system. Those rights can be ignored for a
set amount of time or indefinetly (in a life sentance)
depending on the nature of the crime. But the right
of living is, in my opinion, very different from one
of autonomy and freedom simply because the any neglect
of that right simultaneously and
permanently denies every other right possessed
by a human. Society when imprisoning someone is
collectively saying to the criminal, "We no longer
recognize your right of autonomy because you infringe
too much on the rights of others and by your captivity
for so many years such infringement will be prevented
and detered in the future." The key here is that the
right is still possessed by the criminal even though
he has lost the recognition of that right by his
community. When society executes someone, it is
denying the very existence of the right of
living (and concurrently every other right possessed
by that person).

Human rights are not something that are contingent
upon society. They are possessed by fact of our
humanity, not because we belong to a particularly
liberal civilization. The Founders knew that rights
weren't something bestowed by a government. In fact,
they were so concerned that strong government would
infringe upon rights that some of them insisted on a
Bill of Rights that limited government action. I
cannot emphasize enough that I am human and therefore
in possession of human rights. Were we to deny a
person's human rights we would in actuality be denying
their humanity. We would be saying to that person,
"You are no better than the beasts."