Blimey.

Let's leave aside the fact that many people (including the UN observer at the trial) consider Al Megrahi's conviction to be a serious miscarriage of justice...Even if Al Megrahi is a mass-murderer, the fact remains that he is dying. It is long-standing policy in Scotland to exercise the prerogative of mercy when possible; in general, if an imprisoned criminal is terminally ill, a request for release (for hospice care, basically) is usually granted unless they are believed to be a danger to the public.

That's because the justice system isn't solely about punishment. It's about respect for the greater good of society, which is better served by rehabilitation and reconciliation than by revenge. We do not make ourselves better people by exercising a gruesome revenge on the bodies of our vanquished foes. Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, did exactly the right thing in sending Al Megrahi home to die.

And..

Well, let's pan across the political landscape and look at another current cause celebre that provides a window into the darker corners of the American psyche; the issue of healthcare reform...
And yet we hear rhetoric about death panels, idiotic allegations that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he lived in the UK and was dependent on the NHS (this just in: Stephen Hawking is British and, er, alive because of the NHS), and so on. What's going on?

What's noticable is that the "debate" isn't about the need for healthcare, or about actual medical issues. It's about ideology, and outlook ...

Near as I can work it out from over here (caveat: I've spent somewhere between four and eight months of my life in the USA - this doesn't make me an expert) there is a small but significant proportion of the US population who hate the poor and want them to die.