Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker blogs on the legality of killing bin Laden. He concludes “Bin Laden didn’t get a trial and didn’t deserve one. But the number of people for whom that is true is small.” This thinking is seriously defective, because it obviously prejudges bin Laden and uses that prejudgment to deny him his rights. Besides, a trial isn’t only to protect the rights of bin Laden. It is to protect the rights of any accused person! It’s a social good. He should have had a trial as much for our sakes as his. Destroying his rights destroys ours and the rule of law. Obama (acting under the rubric of the State) has no more right to assassinate anyone than you and I as private persons do. His order to kill not only maintains the artificial rationale that killing by the State becomes a legal and moral act, but also it extends it, since this killing made not even a feeble attempt to uphold the rule of law.

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