By Judge Andrew Napolitano
EXCERPT:
Abraham Lincoln was the first head of state in world history to target civilians militarily and the first to engage in the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians of his own country. Franklin D. Roosevelt slaughtered thousands of innocent helpless German civilians at the end of World War II by carpet-bombing German cities, rather than targeting the German military. Harry Truman slaughtered many thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
All these murders were met with popular approval, as the targets had been demonized by the machinery of government – just like the “terrorists” Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden have killed.
But demonization of human targets and popular approval of their murders cannot turn an immoral act into a moral one. An act is moral when it is consistent with the Natural Law. According to the Declaration of Independence, under the Natural Law, all persons are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The right to live is the foremost natural right and the great divine gift to all persons – not just Americans.
No person may morally be targeted for death by government for any reason unless it is presently necessary to stop that person from actively killing an innocent. In the cases cited above, the presidential killings were done to terrify political opponents, as the civilian targets were helpless. And the killers were lauded as heroes.
