Well, although I don’t think we can ever thoroughly exhaust the topics of gay rights, it really is time for a chance of pace in the social issues department. This week’s topic of discussion: Capital Punishment (aka, the death penalty).
This is an extremely controversial topic, but it seems to get a bit drowned-out in all the noise from other social issues, such as gay rights and abortion. This is a very delicate subject, and there are many facets to it. Many argue such things as “eye for an eye” and justice, as well as what a civilized community should do, the right to life, the chance to repent before death, the mortal sin of murder, and many other things. It may take hours to explain them all, so I won’t even try.
Personally, I find the idea of capital punishment primitive. It doesn’t matter how “painless” and efficient the process becomes, it is, in it’s raw form, the most primitive legal act of our society. It goes by the “moral” that humans have upheld for centuries: “an eye for an eye.” It is one of those morals (like gay rights) that needs to be rethought. We may have rethought it on the lower levels: we constantly teach our children to never respond to violence with violence: always talk it out; always forgive. But when it comes to our harshest sentence, we are blatantly hypocritical.
Another thing worth mentioning is that this is one of the few social issues (if not the only social issue) where I concur with the Roman Catholic Church. Murder is a mortal sin, and that not only goes, of course, for the murderer himself, but for the executioner, who really is forced to murder by the job description. I do not doubt that most executioners kill more people than any murderers they have put to death. The emotional toll must be rather horrific, as well.
Also on the matter of mortal sin: those who are subjected to the death penalty never really get the chance to repent (even though I am agnostic, I still think that you really ought to have the chance to reconcile with yourself and the people whom you have hurt before the inevitable end: it gives a sense of finality to the whole matter). Sure, criminals end up on death row for years and years, but I don’t know if I would be able to come to any conclusion whilst berating my horrible demise day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and, in some cases, decade after decade.
Now this brings up the point of the sense of justice that the family of the victim often desires. I can understand their anguish, but what they really desire is nothing more than petty revenge (this is assuming that they really believe that the person who killed their relative truly deserves death). I cannot begin to think what it would be like to loose a family member at the hands of a murderer, but I would certainly hope that I would retain my current outlook if I do: which is that I need to be the better person and allow that person to reconcile with himself, the victim’s family, and their god (if they believe in one). I don’t think I could ever truly forgive that person for what they did, but I would hope that I would not stoop to their level by thinking that capital punishment would be a just compromise for the loss of my own family member.
Well, I think that’s about the sum of my beliefs (and it truly is a summary – if you want to argue on the subject then you may hear more), so let’s hear your beliefs. What do you think of capital punishment? Good or bad? Necessary or primitive? Just or unjust? Whatever you’ve got to say, let’s hear it.
For now, this is Aardvarki, signing out.