I’m not one to try to write things that provoke people. If that were the case I would post everyday about the president or organized religion or the hypocrisy of mankind as a whole. Today I chose to write about something that is a pretty sensitive subject. I just thought I’d let you know before you thought you were going to be reading the same mediocre jokes you’re used to.
As everyone knows by now, there was a tragedy this past week in the small town of Purcell in Oklahoma. I will not go into the details as they are too morbid to be covered here. I will say that it involved someone killing a child. That is as detailed as I’ll get with it. There are some issues involved with this that I feel I have to talk about which are indicative of larger societal problems.
There seems to be a lot of people calling for the death of the murderer. Someone went so far as to bring a rope and a large bucket to the courthouse where the accused was getting arraigned. A one man lynch mob. That’s a well thought out plan. I have even heard so called Christians asking for this man’s death. Please understand that I am not defending a child molesting cannibal. I would just like to point out that no matter what happens to this guy, there is nothing that can be done to undo what he has already done. No one has ever been put to death and all pain and suffering caused by this person immediately was vanquished from the souls of his living victims. If that were the case Hitler’s death would have brought about immeasurable joy.
Some people say that capital punishment is this country’s only justice. For who? The family of the victim still lost a loved one and has to live forever with the knowledge of what happened. The murderer’s family now has to experience the same pain and suffering inflicted on the victim’s family by the murderer. The murderer is dead so he or she doesn’t have to think about what they did ever again. No one wins except those people with so much hate in their hearts that they would find some twisted solace in the death of a complete stranger. How does that make one different from someone who actually acted on that in the first place?
If people are looking for closure, closure comes from within. People who are religious may believe that their God offers them closure. Other people gain closure through time. There is no one way to attain closure. There also is no proof that the death of anything brings emotional closure.
I know that some people might respond with “The Bible says this…” or “the Bible explains that…” to try to defend their point of view, to which I can only respond by saying that I cannot refute statements made by people so blinded by their own beliefs they are unwilling to see any other possible truth. People whose greatest defense is their personal interpretation of something cannot be refuted. I can tell you that I believe that grass is purple and the sun is made of ice, and if I believe in that so passionately that I am unwilling to entertain any type of statement refuting that, you will never sway me because I am a self contained defense machine. It is dangerous that some people’s logic is too often the result of an ‘I believe it so it must be true’ thought process. Trying to make a point with someone like that is an exercise in futility. It’s the same reason I don’t try to make points to brick walls.
It also appalls me that parents of any child can openly discuss how much this man needs to die. People live by example and if a child grows up thinking that murder is the appropriate action to take when someone does something wrong, that’s disturbing. Be better parents and don’t teach your children hate and revenge and ‘justice’ by death. That only works in Chuck Norris movies.
If you really want to get all theological on me, remember this, the ten commandments proclaim that God said, “Thou shalt not kill.” There is no asterisk next to that stating that only applies to people who kill to fulfill some sick fantasy. No, that also applies to those people who want to kill murderers. Killing is killing. Plain and simple.
If people are set on putting someone to death for a crime, why is murder the big one? A lot of people only commit murder once. Yeah, it’s still wrong ,and I’m not defending murderers in the least, but if you really are set on murdering someone, why not those people whose victims are still alive? I’m not saying getting murdered doesn’t suck, but victims of murder don’t have to deal with what happened to them as opposed to someone who is raped or molested. If you want to have a go at someone, I would push for those people who abuse children or rape women. Aside from those things being, in my humble opinion, worse than murder, those actions usually aren’t stand alone events. You rarely hear of someone raping only one person or molesting one child. Usually these people are sick and demented individuals whose sick desires outweigh their self-control. These are the ones who are true threats to society.
In summation I do not think that capital punishment solves anything. It obviously isn’t a deterrent for these actions, as recently proven by the Purcell incident. It is a fact that it does cost more to murder someone than to keep them alive and in prison for life so there goes that argument. It won’t make anyone happy as there is no positive outcome to any situation such as this.
Then again, I might be wrong.
- Joel