Capital Punishment Wishy-Washy-ness

Capital punishment comes out of old Bible thought, justice in which it is decided that if one takes an eye, that person should give up and eye, likewise, if one kills, that person should give up their life. Yet, God said, thou shalt not kill. Which is the true answer to a bad situation where one person lies dead and another found guilty of his murder?

Laws that allow capital punishment in special legal cases make many people uncomfortable because the Ten Commandments are very explicit. One of the cases where it should be possible is if the guilty person requests it as a relief from the life of murderous crime they live. If we outlaw it for them, then it should always be outlawed.

Why don’t we? Jesus offered up the rule that we should turn our cheek when someone offends us. So, shouldn’t we forgive the person who kills someone? My answer is, yes, we should forgive them, but what about my safety? Won’t I be killed next? The best answer is to solve the problem that caused the murder in the first place.

As a society, I don’t believe that we know how to prevent murder, but we are finding ways to make it less likely. Recent studies have shown that jail parolees are less likely to return to jail if they are provided with life skills--information about money management, how to do job searches, entry level starts in a job, etc. The government now recognizes that people have learning disabilities and provides additional help to pass school tests, get reading literacy, job skills, and more than this, laws protect people with learning disabilities from discrimination. Another thing that helps is teaching mothers to talk to their children early in their life, before birth even, because even if the child is born with a learning disability, these children then have progressed more by the time they enter school, and every little bit of help may prevent a murder. One last thing to be thankful for is that ObamaCare as it is called, has added coverage for mental health benefits, which aids everyone from the slow learner, to the divorcing parents, to people with mental health problems find better tools for making decisions and preventing emotions from boiling out of control and thereby causing murder.

While I can understand in some societies, humans might not be able to afford housing, treating, and feeding criminals that they will never allow back into society, and capital punishment is an easy solution, perhaps this easy solution prevents the deeper solutions. If humans continue to look beneath the surface of problems, perhaps one day we will all live in a society where murder and killing never exist.

I am often called wishy-washy because I like to be able to see both sides of a question. I can say, yes, today, we might need capital punishment and we might need abortion because we as a society haven’t solved the problems yet. But if it were my hand on the decision--pulling the electric switch or injecting the person with poison, I would choose to follow God’s commandment, thou shalt not kill. Unless the person tried to kill me and I decided I needed to protect myself.