This too shall eventually pass

It is interesting to see how the basic tenets of civilized life, in the United States, often lag behind the rest of the industrialized world.

In some areas, such as the death penalty, our nation actually is behind the curve in relation to many so-called Third World countries.

Most all the executions in the world last year occurred in only four nations -- China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States. China had by far the most executions, although no official number is reported -- it no doubt is in the thousands. The United States ranked fifth in the world with 52, behind China, Iran 388, Iraq 120 and Saudi Arabia 69.

The number of executions in the United States went up in 2010 from 37 in 2008 and 42 in 2007. Almost half of the executions in this country in 2010, a total of 24, occurred in Texas.

As Newsweek writer Anna Quindlen said of the capital punishment totals worldwide, "you are known by the company you keep."

During the last three decades, the number of nations outlawing the death penalty has risen from 16 to 137. No European nation still retains the death penalty.

There are so many reasons to be opposed to the death penalty but, in our view, none is as compelling as to compare the list of nations that keep it to those who don't.

Let's just go with a representative list of 10 nations that have abolished the death penalty -- Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and Venezuela.

Now, let's look at a list of 10 that administer the death penalty -- Afghanistan, China, Congo, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

Essentially, that's about all one needs to know about the death penalty.

Amazingly, the United States was the only nation in North America, Central America or South America to impose the death penalty in 2010.

But there is more.

The second most obvious reason to oppose capital punishment relates to the inequities of its administration. It almost seems at random as to who actually is put to death in our society as payment for crime.

There appears to be minimal rationality behind which prosecutors seek the extreme punishment and which juries mete it out.

If there are any common denominators, they relate primarily to wealth and race.

Statistics show that 90 percent of those executed could not afford an attorney.

"One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in our society," Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once wrote.

One study in Georgia, for instance, showed that a capital punishment sentence is 4.3 times more likely to be imposed if the victim of murder is white rather than black.

Until there is a more equitable income and racial basis for its administration, which seems highly unlikely by any imagining, the imposition of the death sentence is a stain on our entire society.

Of course, another reason for opposition is that the death sentence essentially is illogical, as pointed out by Quindlen -- "Americans still live in one of the few countries that kill people to make clear what a terrible thing killing people is."

And there is the fallacy of deterrent, which shows the 13 states in America without the death penalty (New Mexico joined the list in 2009) have a significantly lower murder rate than the 38 which implement it.

Finally, there is strength of the moral argument, which is eloquently stated by Catholic Bishop Howard Hubbard:

"The death penalty is an affront to the human dignity of both those on whom it is inflicted and those in whose name it is employed. A state-sanctioned penalty of death makes the individual on whom it is inflicted a means to an end -- a means of satisfying a desire for revenge. Human persons, because of their absolute and unconditional value, should never be used as a means...capital punishment is a particularly egregious violation of our dignity as citizens because it is our government, acting on behalf of each of us in this representative democracy, involved in the business of killing."

Yes, the United States often lags behind other societies in the implementation of progressive reform. Capital punishment is one of the most glaring examples. We know that one day we will join the greater world community in banning this immoral and inequitable method of punishment. As with the case of other areas in which we haven't yet seen the light, this too shall eventually pass.