Say Yes to the Death Penalty Vol 45

If muffin-top is no longer just a food group, you must be a Boomer !

Boomers seem to be very short sighted these days. Few take the long view anymore. Personally, I think it is due to the speed of life we now see all around us. My 86 year old father-in-law just got a smart phone as a birthday present, and he is taking “how to” classes, in the retirement community where he lives, even thought most of the apps are of no use to him.

I asked him why he even had a smart phone, when he really had no need for the technology. He pulled out his iPAD and Kindle reader, and pointed out the fact that he did not buy any of these things – they were all given to him by his kids. What else do you give Boomer parents who have everything they need, and lots of stuff they don’t ? Perhaps giving technology to the very young and very old will have benefits we can not see yet, like less dementia !

The point is we are all living in a world that is moving faster all the time. Boomers, especially home bound women who are now entering the workplace, are confusing their vision of the future, or better said, only contemplate a future 5 minutes out. As a result, we have lost the trait of our species to think long term. Everything seems to about today. Worse, everything gets blown out of proportion for about 5 minutes, then we move on to the next thing. Remember Syria. This scattergun approach to choice is disturbing because it diminishes the usual menu of thinking about issues so that we arrive at responsible outcomes. Since this blog is about Boomers recapturing our reputation from its current drug induced, debt offloading, “fuck you, its only about me” , inequality loving, fad following obese selves, being short-sighted only leads us to more problems, not solutions.

My example for today is the death penalty. When Clayton Lockett, the Oklahoma murderer on death row, was executed, the drugs did not work as planned, and he had a heart attack while the authorities were trying to kill him humanly. This lead to all types of outrage, with everyone calling for investigations and stays. I call this the power of one, where a very small portion of the population can get things cancelled or changed. I know we get the politicians we deserve, and that as a cohort we are basically ungovernable, but lets not lose sight of why we have the death penalty.

While I am not a religious person, I am a moral man. The difference ? This is a longer conversation worth having, but for now, I believe that we do have a soul, and the soul reincarnates. I do believe that no-one knows how this works, and I mistrust groups who not only preach that they know, but also charge for the privilege of getting a reserved seat into the next life.

This soul gets born, socialized, and matures. The issue is when the soul gets damaged beyond repair. Child molesters, serial killers, to name a few examples of a narrow band of damaged people, forfeit their rights as humans. As an aside, some experts have postulated that no-one is born damaged, that all evil is a learned response, thus killing someone who was abused as a child, and then repeats the learned behaviour, deserves a chance to get un-learned. The trouble is that at a certain point, people who can perform certain acts, who either have the ability to kill in cold blood, or molest an innocent, they are damaged beyond repair. Ending their soul is required morally. Let the soul start over.

Also, when people try to make the humane argument that locking someone up for 50 years versus ending their lives now, I fall on the ending now side, the option that is much more humane. Really, what gets accomplished putting a convict into a max prison for a long time ? Remember, we are talking about the small slice of humanity who don’t respect the rest of us. Unless you want to punish them by inflicting prison, then you make my argument for me – who is being more humane ?

Yes, there will be some miscarriages of justice, whereby an innocent man is wrongly killed. With the advent of DNA sampling, that will help limit this from happening. If a few slip through, and remember we are only talking about a slim slice of the population well, so be it. We kill each other every day, so why stop at the prison door ?

Economically, the idea that my taxes go to feed and house a serial killer for the rest of their life is abhorrent. I believe that studies now show that to keep a convict on death row now costs more, in the various court definitions of a humane existence, than it costs to educate a child. This use of scarce assets is counter-productive. N’uff said.

Victims rights also should count for something. The sentence for raping a child can be 10 years. Imagine the victim never being able to get over the event, and having to wonder about the convict getting out at some point. Could you move on from what must be a daily worry. How do you heal from that ?

This should not be a liberal versus conservative fight. Politically, our elected officials bend to lots of court challenges today, the latest being that the convict is, in some way, mentally retarded, so his/her execution should be stayed. Of course their soul is impaired – who in their right mind does things that get to them sent to death row ? Can’t we all agree that society is better off if we humanly cull the criminally insane from the herd ?

No one is perfect, and we Boomers accept that, understanding that as hard as we try, mistakes will occur, and people will be effected. Limits need to be set, but we can not live in a consequence-free society. So, stop reacting to the latest news flash, and ponder who you want to be, and what kind of society you want to live in when you grow up ?

Next on Boomers – wtf !, why you should stop trusting your gut. Look at the results !