Actually, I am claiming that killing a Jew because they are a Jew is absolutely wrong.

Quote Originally Posted by lugh
Exactly, the law is, bring drugs in and you die. It's a threat to deter/prevent drug smuggling. If someone breaks the law and it's not enforced, that undermines the laws level of deterrence.
What I said should be understood as, "the act of forbidding it in law should be the deterrence, not the punishment for breaking that law." Punishments ought not to be justified by how much they can deter. For there are any number of extremely harsh punishments which could deter us all from crime very well, but that does not change that the society is acting harshly and w/o regard to justice.