Against the Absurd for Peace. Decree-Law 25564 on Minors and Terrorism

Never before has public opinion seemed so decisive regarding the need to apply measures against social violence, crisis and threats of destruction. Perhaps because televised street interviews and opinion polls imaginarily replace other more solid and constructive forms of democratic exercise, at a moment when democracy is being postponed in the name of any other "priority" — as if renouncing it from a certain point of view, now called pragmatic. Angry demands such as that for the death penalty, for example, thus become the expression of a majority tired of being tolerant. The physical elimination of the other takes on a prophylactic character in the face of the insecurities of a system incapable of guaranteeing respect for its own rules of the game. Demanding capital punishment in view of the possibility, for example, that those detained for terrorism might corrupt the police forces and escape, is a way of exorcising each person's fears regarding their own personal vulnerability. The promulgation of Decree Law 25564, as well as the enthusiastic reception of it, constitutes clear proof of this dangerous collective phenomenon. (Excerpt from the preface).