Death Penalty for Everybody!

What the hell is with the right wing and their fascination with the death penalty? I realize Tierney's column is part tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely... it is more a mask for him to slip it past his editors so he doesn't come off as too harsh. After listing capital punishment as option "D" for the Sasser worm creator, Tierney says:

I'm tempted to say that the correct answer is D, and not just because of the man-years I've spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives. I'm almost convinced by Steven Landsburg's cost-benefit analysis showing that the spreaders of computer viruses and worms are more logical candidates for capital punishment than murderers are.

Really... I wonder if Tierney would be willing to make the test for capital punishment on a cost-benefit analysis scale for all? Would he endorse Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski to get the chair?

I see his logic, but I also see practical difficulties. For one thing, many hackers live in places where capital punishment is illegal. For another, most of them are teenage boys, a group that has never been known for fearing death. They're probably more afraid of going five years without computer games.

Practical difficulties. You know, kinda like how torture has the "practical difficulties" of 1) it is utterly barbaric, and 2) it doesn't really work.

Not something I am keen to joke about, particularly when it covers up an insidious underlying message...