[xx-7] Death Penalty Blurb

As someone as capable or more-so than anyone else to engage in violence, I do not understand why we pretend to be better than people who kill while rallying around circumstances under which we feel "justified." Who isn't going to empathize with the idea of vengeance if someone close to them is killed? Why does that immediately have to make them a killer as well?

This is a dramatic and destructive dialogue. An eye for an eye leaves us all blind. Blind to the consequences of what we advocate. Blind to our own capacity to carry out atrocities. You'd think an individual genuinely concerned with social welfare and justice would cultivate an environment where things like this are exceedingly infrequent and moments to humble ourselves and reflect. This "kill kill kill" drumbeat undermines our humanity and morality.

Be pro-something. Advocate for things getting better. Instead of reducing ourselves to our basest desires. I'd be concerned with myself the day I'm sitting and watching someone suffer for hours. If you have that capacity, I feel pity. You allow yourself to be consumed in the wanton destruction killers wreak. They take over your mind and your capacity to decide that you can stand for more. You can do better.

Maybe it's because I just got done reading a lot of Chris Hedges, but peoples' knee-jerk reactions to advocate killing are both telling and terrifying. How long does it take to wrestle with the thought about what arguing on behalf of death means?

Violence begets violence. Standards get reduced. The dialogue forms around terms of vengeance, hatred, and spite. You become weak and petty. No one is pitying the murder, but if a lesson from world atrocities can be leaned on, we all have the capacity for evil. This is the point where you work in empathy. You consume yourself when you need to devour someone else.

The simple, almost throw-away, facts at this point. It's cheaper to keep them alive. It's racially biased. Rehabilitation can work. It's not a deterrent. We've killed innocent people. Why is their "accidental" death more palatable than to think of your own? You can measure society's morality in its hypocrisy, and what a vibrant example in some of these responses to this person's death.