This week, Amnesty International declared that the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment constitutes a violation of human rights.

According to a recent CNN poll, 78 percent of all Americans disagree with Amnesty International.

That sounds about right.

This is a prime example of how 78 percent of all Americans can be completely wrong.

The debate over the death penalty has gone on for years now. It is a subject that divides Americans along distinctive moral lines.

We have all heard the arguments for and against the death penalty.

Neither side of this issue is going to convince the other side that they should change their minds based on arguments of morality.

Maybe the majority of Americans are right. Maybe the death penalty is actually an effective measure in the war on crime. Maybe it isn’t cruel. It certainly isn’t unusual in the sense that it doesn’t happen very often.

It seems to work pretty well in Iraq.

You don’t see very many dictatorships, right- or left-wing, without the death penalty. It adds to the totalitarian mystique.

Those countries without a death penalty don’t have a lot to show for themselves, either.

Most European countries have no death penalty, and violent crimes occur in those countries at just a fraction of the rate that they occur in America.

But that is surely just a coincidence.

Perhaps they can catch up with the U.S. one day and start offing their convicted felons as well.

Maybe it just takes a more advanced citizenry to hang around outside of a prison and cheer and wave frying pans when the lights flicker.

As usual, we lag behind more advanced nations and proudly defend our God-given rights as Americans to act like savages.

The reason most Americans support the death penalty is we are too lazy and ignorant to come up with a more effective solution.

Americans like having the death penalty because it makes them feel good to see criminals killed. It makes them feel safe, as if there is tangible proof of justice in the world.

This is simple delusion, it isn’t an effective deterrent.

Our country’s reliance on the death penalty is becoming as much of an embarrassment to us near the end of the 20th century as our reliance on slavery was in the last century.

America needs to grow up.