"The piece of claptrap most outstanding in my mind at this point is the claim I heard on TV over the weekend that the execution of T.M. encourages violence. The execution of an individual who killed 168 people in cold blood encourages violence??"

It may sound ridiculous, and clear against common sense. But it seems pretty clear in general that places where capital punishment continues to be the rule are in fact more violent, and that places where it has been abolished tend to be less so. Commonsense isn't always right.

Timothy McVeigh was a strong believer in vengeance being justified, that was why he blew up that building and killed all those people. His thinking wasn't really so far out of line with his compadres was it?

Admittedly in this case there is a rather drastic disagreement about what might constitute an appropriate target, and what an appropriate thing that needed avenging; but the essential point - that vengeance is justified, and that if innocent people get wasted in the process, that's a shame, but it's "collateral damage" - well, isn't that pretty standard politico-military thinking?