Apropos of nothing, opinion on the Breivik trial (sentenced to a mere 21 years with some possibility of extension, if you haven't heard):
Of course I think he ought to be killed. The thing is, Norway has no need to reinstate the death penalty just for him, then repeal it (like with Vidkun Quisling after the war; the Norwegian government in exile had reintroduced the death penalty in response to the occupation, then repealed it after executing him and several other collaborators).
Instead, Norway should've granted his request to be court-martialed, then the military authorities should've given him the status of an unlawful combatant and executed him for a war crime. Problem solved, and given the unusual nature of his request, it shouldn't create much of a precedent.
(Timothy McVeigh also wanted to be tried as an enemy combatant, and I think that the same should've been done in his case - grant the request, but change the status to 'unlawful combatant' as he didn't carry weapons openly, and then he could be executed without a civillian court.)
Assuming it is important to Norwegians' self-image that they are a state without a death penalty, it's not clear to me what compensatory benefits could be derived from executing Breivik. Appeasing foreign and domestic bubbas would definitely not be a plus for the typical Norwegian.
In line with the results of the poll here, a thread for discussing politics. Incidentally, folks, I think downvoting the option you disagree with in a poll is generally considered poor form.
1.) Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
2.) Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
3.) A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
4.) In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.
If anybody thinks the rules should be dropped here, now that we're no longer conducting a test - I already dropped the upvoting/downvoting limits I tried, unsuccessfully, to put in - let me know. The first rule is the only one I think is strictly necessary.
Debiasing attempt: If you haven't yet read Politics is the Mindkiller, you should.