Killing as death penalty is not self defense. It is the killing of an often broken, poor(can’t afford a lawyer) and unfortunate individual whose life has been on a downward spiral. For every hard-bitten killer how many are like that?
Don’t forget all the actually innocent people in the US executed – some we find out about later, other we may never find out about. Sort of reminds me of Jesus and his execution.
At any rate it is found that the death penalty either increases the murder rate in the states that institute it, or has no effect on lowering the murder rate. The message society gets from the death penalty is — if you don’t like someone, kill 'em. And we Americans are very famous for that. Shoot first and ask questions later. Don’t mess with Texas. Any Hatfield (or Iraqi or Muslim-looking person) will do.
Just as war in Iraq was not self-defense because we knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. What were the motives? Many and varied…some good…some misguided…some more cynical. Either way, many, many innocents were killed and life is still chaotic.
I for one was totally against the war in Iraq, and also Desert Storm, which also needlessly killed a tremendous number of people…many who had Saddam Hussein’s gun at their backs, forcing them to line up along the border. One Iraqi-American guy was just there in Iraq visiting his grandmother when he was conscripted and forced into that line up – he even waved his University of Chicago sweatshirt. All killed and mowed down. I REALLY can’t understand why Americans are not totally ashamed of that. Except we are a kill, kill, kill people, starting with Native Americans. It’s just who we are.
Many of the supposedly anti-abortion people in America are actually pretty much pro-death in nearly every other area of their lives. It’s very easy to be anti-abortion, when it’s no skin off one’s nose. Most anti-abortion people are also anti tax and anti-environment; they are against helping save the lives of the children once they are born, and also against helping reduce miscarriages caused by environmental harms. In other words, they are NOT really pro-life by any stretch of the imagination, and I for one suspect they are not really anti-abortion, but just use that issue to support their de facto pro-death political candidates’ other nefarious agenda, and/or to feel self-satisfied.
One of the first things they do is deny local pollution causes miscarriages and other harms, and I’m sure there will be those denying the findings of this report: The Toll from Coal (since that is the response here re env regs) – see
catf.us/resources/publications/view/138 .
They also deny climate change and all its harms and killing of people. They think it’s a hoax to control people, since few are willing to lift their fingers to turn off lights not in use or the myriad of other things we can and should be doing out of the goodness of our hearts that not only saves us money, but also saves lives by reducing local, regional (acid rain), and global env harms.
So if the gov wants to inspire us to do the right thing by, say, taking away the subsidies and tax-breaks from coal, oil and gas, people yell out “they’re putting us in chains,” bec they are (let’s face it) addicted to these harmful substances, as Bush rightly said before leaving office.
My son is vegan - his concerns may not even register on your radar if you’re a meat-eater.
Good for him. Eating low on the food chain is not only good for one’s health and reduces killing of animals (and St. Francis said those who would treat animals badly would also treat their fellow men badly), it also reduces environmental harms that kill and harm people, and allows many more people to get a healthy diet from the same amount of land and resources used. It could help solve the world hunger problem. We do have some Catholic vegans right here on CAF, but they are not many (see
forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=90 ).
I just want you to know that I have NEVER considered Americans to be Christian. At first as a small kid I thought they were just being hypocrits – going to church on Sunday, then promptly forgetting what they heard on Monday. However, as a teen I began to realize they are not hypocrits, they are very true to their religion – Americanism. And now in old age I well understand the roots of this Americanism religion. It is in the 18 c. Enlightenment anti-gov, anti-Church philosophies which developed in Europe and perhaps for good reason at the time (due to increasing socio-political complexity and unreasonable and excessive oppression by the gov and the Church), but were taken over to a much higher degree here in the U.S. and have been taken to an extreme blind ally of world destruction. Many Americans are incapable of thinking outside the anti-gov, anti-Church Enlightenment box, even though the sciences and social sciences have long left behind the mistaken aspects of Enlightenment thinking.
