Yes. No. Yes. No. Maybe. Sometimes. Crap.

[jchrisobrien]

Call it the astrological influence of being a Libra cusp (concerned with balance), call it weighing both sides of the issues, or call it plain on wishy washy, but I have a profoundly hard time coming down on one side of the fence or the other for a lot of the big moral issues out there.  The Tookie Williams execution is the latest example of this.  If you don't know, just plug tookie williams in google and read about him yourself, you can make up your own mind as to whether he is repentant or not. 

I was raised Roman Catholic, so I was taught that killing was wrong, be it during war, murder, execution, or abortion.  Later I learned about exemptions during wartime, and taking a life while defending your self, and a thousand other shades of grey.  I've seen the hypocrisy of people who are pro-choice but anti-death penalty, and those who say life is sacred unless you are a murderer.  I hear the arguments on either side, and I sway to and for depending on the eloquence of the speaker or the precision of their logic.

It's more than frustrating, it's weak.  Your beliefs define your character, and if you're beliefs change with the wind, what does that say about you?  I believe that people are organic: they grow and change over time, and once your learn something that doesn't mean you are committed to that belief for the rest of your life.  Change should occur after you wrestle with an issue, hold up your beliefs to a spotlight, kick the tires and see how they hold. 
Buy the car because you like it, not because the salesman made you like it.

I am a vortex of thoughts and opinions.  Murder is the worst thing you can do to someone. Forgivness is a sign of civilization.  People have to take responsibility for their actions, and suffer the consequences if that applies.  People can change.  Some people never change.  You can come from a horrible background and neighborhood and better yourself.  You can come from a cultured, civilized background and be an amoral prick who justifies their vile behavior through philosophy or a thousand shades of grey.  People will say anything to save their life.  You can't force someone to change.

If it's inhumane to kill someone who has killed another, what do you do to them?  How should they pay for their crime?  How many years of your life should you sacrifice to pay for the years you took from another?  Can you ever really pay for that crime, and if you can't, why bother incarcerating them in the first place?  I am told there are plenty of studies that say that the death penalty is not a deterrent.  By that token, people are going to kill or rape or steal regardless of what you do.  What is our response to that? 

These kind of question quickly spiral out of the micro view and into the macro.  They become questions of culture, of society.  People wouldn't steal if they weren't poor.  Any society that grows has rules, and needs ways of punishing people who break those rules.  All kinds of words on all sides of the argument again.  Drowning in a sea of emotion and logic.

If I really buckle down and think about it, I can come up with answers that satify me.  It's good when things happen that make you question your beliefs, and even better if you can be consistant about them in the end. 

Comments

[plankton.livejournal.com]

i also have a tendency to be stuck in a million shades of grey far too often, but i don't feel that way when it comes to the death penalty. repentence and forgiveness have nothing to do with the question, the system is demonstratably biased and corrupt so the death penalty can't exist. if humans judgement and justice were infallible then we would have to consider if something is gained from killing someone who kills someone else (i still feel like more is lost from society than gained), but since this isn't the case i see it as distraction to the core reason it should be abolished.

that said, if someone killed someone that i love i wouldn't be surprised if i wished they were dead, but i don't think people who are in such a terrible mindstate should be dictating what is law. i can't support it as a state-sanctioned policy, nor can i understand those who do.

[water-childe.livejournal.com]

Call it the astrological influence of being a Libra cusp (concerned with balance), call it weighing both sides of the issues, or call it plain on wishy washy, but I have a profoundly hard time coming down on one side of the fence or the other for a lot of the big moral issues out there.

While my astrology is different (Pisces, with a ridiculous number of other 'water' influences in my different houses, along with 'Scorpio' being my rising sign. Whimsical and dreamy because of being a Pisces, yes? But the Scorpio part makes me stubborn, often forceful, and a bit of a showboat.)
I think I share your problem. I'm pro-choice. I hate hate hate the idea of taking a potential human life. I believe that women should have access to abortion, but that they should (hopefully) think of it as an option they they will never have to use. A necessary evil. I do think that the vast majority of advocates of pro-choice do think that way. I've personally spoken to more then a few pro-life advocates (Operation Rescue) who act like anyone who is pro-choice honestly relishes the idea of killing an unborn child! As far as the dealth penalty goes, I'm a little more for it then against it, but I'm far from 100% comfortable with the idea. I do believe that in some cases, people can repent, and change for the better, even when they have committed horrific crimes. But I honestly believe that our prison system is not set up to really rehabilitate anyone. I think that before we sentance anyone else to death, the entire nation needs some serious prison reform. I'm very aware and very uncomfortable with the fact that statistically, our country seems more willing to sentence people to death if they are non-whites, then otherwise. I sometimes wonder if what it really all boils down to, is that in many cases, you either pay with your wallet (and jailtime) or you pay with your life.
Also, not to cloud the issue, while murder is a terrible crime, rape continues to be treated like it's not that big a deal, at least as far as our court system is concerned. It might sound extreme, but I've thought it through, on repeated occations since I was 15. If I was given a choice between death and rape? I'll take death. Really.

[pyrric.livejournal.com]

I've seen the hypocrisy of people who are pro-choice but anti-death penalty

I'm pro-choice and anti-death-penalty. Do you think I'm a hypocrite?

[spriggan.livejournal.com]

I heard/read that the deal cincher for most people was that Tookie never confessed to the murders, so never really apologized for them. Yet, he was willing to spend the rest of his life in jail doing good. (My comments are based on the assumption that he is doing good with his anti-gang work in jail.) While I can see the desire to not forgive a man who won't admit to murders he has committed, why not concentrate more on reaping the benefits of the good work he is now doing? Is blame and vengenance so important? Would one have to _forgive_ Tookie to do this, or could it just be a matter of practicality? It's interesting that you put it as a sign of civilization; what is more important to civilization, that we are all forgiving, or that we can accept the gray areas and do what's best for our fellow people?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_perihelion_/]

what if sin isn't so much an indicator of right from wrong as it is a measure of the burden someone takes on their soul by performing certain acts? then a person's soul, and their character, can become overburdened by too many small acts selfishness, cruelty and vice or by just a few acts of outright evil. leaving that person broken or as morally rotten as spoiled meat.

I also believe that a change of heart isn’t sufficient recompense for great sin. It has to be affirmed by some kind of repentant action. and that the sole purpose of that penance is to help lift the burden being carried by one's soul. it is not for redemption or forgiveness in the material world. (and any expectation that it would do so, certainly calls the veracity repentance into question.)

however, there are circumstances under which doing wrong is necessary either for the greater good or just to achieve goals deemed worth the price. (self-defense being one of those cases.) nonetheless, this does not relieve the person of the onerous, the burden, the blackening of their soul, brought on by their actions.

this applies to societies as well as individuals. every time society decides to incarcerate or kill someone, it is taking on the burden of doing harm to someone (irrespective of the good that might be doing society as a whole) to further their own agenda. and one can never lose sight of the fact each and every such act darkens one's soul.

not that I don't believe in incarceration or the death penalty. I just think people should be honest with themselves as to what they are doing, why they are doing it and the price inherent in their choices.

Just another response

[flutterby369.livejournal.com]

"It's more than frustrating, it's weak. Your beliefs define your character, and if you're beliefs change with the wind, what does that say about you?"

Well, as you stated above, people and times change, as well as your beliefs. It depends on what "truths" you find out for yourself and how you value those tidbits. My beliefs and wants in many things are not important and mainly "bashed" by mainstream society, but that does not bother me in the least. Yes, many of my beliefs have changed, for I have changed greatly and have been shown many things. It more or less depends on the person who is changing their beliefs. Are they doing it because it is "P.C." to do it, or is it because they really want to? Every action has a reaction, be it "good" or "bad". Everything will be complained about, no matter how "good" it is for mankind and the such.

It pleases me to hear that you had a moment of questioning in your beliefs and found yourself through it. You are still learning grasshopper, and this crazy life has more in store for you.

It takes a strong person to make a stand. It takes a stronger person to stand by their decision.

[sinspired.livejournal.com]

Regardless of the rights and responsibilities of society to provied a fair and just system of deterrent and punishment, and, indeed, a moral framework for crime, the fact remains that it was Mr. William's decision to kill 4 people in the commission of two robberys in a state and at a time when he knew or SHOULD have known that he could die for that crime. Despite his protestations of innocence, despite his reform, the fact is, he made a choice, and has paid for it.

There are three types of people arguing against this:
Those who, despite the evidence, are convinced he was railroaded.
Those who, despite his guilt, believe he was reformed.
Those who, despite his choices, believe we should not kill under any circumstances.

His responsibility was to be a person who did not commit these acts, or, at the very least, in our court system full of holes, a person who can create reasonable doubt that he committed these acts. He was neither.

The states do not rush to these executions. They give ample and repeated options to stay and/or stop an execution for those who have some legitimate means of it.

This is probably the problem. If there was no chance of weasling out of a punishment like this, it would act as a deterrent. But the founders made many tough choices (some wrong, ask any child of former slaves about the "3/5 compromise"), and this was one of them... That it is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished. So our entire system is built around it.

So, I have some sympathy I can find those who maintain his innocence based on some sort of evidence... To the rest I say, he will reap his rewards later, be they good or bad.

[nepenthedreams]

I have a really hard time with the death penalty, not being really sure what I think.

On Tookie...I obviously would have pardoned him. I beileve in redemption.
However, one might argue that if his punishment had been enacted immediately, he wouldn't have been able to redeem himself. It's an interesting moral question - what could all those dead people done (for good or evil) if they had been allowed to live? But for the same question, what could the murdered people have done had they been allowed to live?

I just take this question as one that is beyond me.

[jasonlizard.livejournal.com]

So what about the hypocrisy of being pro-life and pro-death penalty? I'd rather call it conceit than hypocrisy, but that's just my take one it. Not that that has much to do with the price of tea in China...

Any living, thinking, conscious human being who has made certain decisions needs to be held accountable to those decisions. Unfortuantely, the law of the jungle doesn't really apply in the strictest sense and those people aren't always selected out. Rather, we live in a complex society which chooses to better serve justice and that's where the complications begin.

I think killing criminals is often too merciful. If you really want to punish someone, lock them up and never let them out. If you're sadistic, let them out when they're 60 or 70 and have completely lost touch with society and are at their weakest and let society beat the crap out of them.

However, how do we justify that we keep our criminals in better conditions than our poor. We spend more than $60,000 per prisoner per year yet it seems that neither the prospect of jail or death is enough to deter crime. I suppose then you have to either blame society for producing criminals or blame politicians for making so many criminals from society? If drugs weren't illegal, would Tookie Williams be alive today? The money wouldn't have been there so would the gang? If we didn't have other racial issues in this country would the economies of our inner cities have collapsed creating this vacuum into which we've lost at least a generation if not more?

The problem with rules is that they don't often solve problems, they only bound them.