Conservative and libertarian opponents of the death penalty enjoy a logical consistency liberal opponents do not, at least on one point. The Right is skeptical about government's competence. So when they say that they don't trust the government to implement the death penalty unerringly, it makes sense.

But when liberals make this case it's a huge contradiction. The history of liberal technocrats' screwing things up is long, rich, and deep. This Solyndra mess is just a tiny footnote to that epic tale. And yet, despite all evidence, progressive technocrats and "empiricists" insist that they have the brains and the know-how not only to manage wildly complex phenomena involving literally billions of variable and millions of individual actors but to predict behavior and events years from now. But when it comes to the infinitely more discrete task of determining the guilt of a murderer, they suddenly say, "It's impossible to be sure! We can never be certain!"

-Jonah Goldberg, G-File, 23 Sept 2011