"Please do not paint us all with the same brush"

Personally I don't, but the world doesn't work like that.

Until the US shows the world that it can negotiate with people it doesn't share a point of view with, can accept violence is not the answer to many of the domestic and international issues facing it, then there is a danger of the demonisation of all US citizens regardless of their viewpoint. The moral immaturity of the boy with the biggest gun in the playground is what scares people around the world.

The death penalty is so difficult for US citizens to deal with because they live in a moral vacuum when it comes to violence. They may well dislike the idea of judicial murder, but cannot vote against it because to admit that violence may not be an answer to the question of how to punish people means that so many of the principles they live when it comes to violent conduct and intent are also morally questionable.

The US could learn from the mistakes of other empires, but without strong moral leadership from either religious or secular sources there is not much chance of that happening. The crime if this is they will condem their children to pay for their lack of moral fibre for tens, if not hundreds of years to come.