Changing My Mind Part 2 -The Death Penalty: A Good Idea in Theory, but Difficult to Execute

Back when I was young and knew everything, I didn’t need to think about the death penalty much.  It was in place, no one I knew thought it was controversial, or if they did, they didn’t say so out loud, and the US Justice System was fair and impartial (as evidenced by hundreds of movies and TV shows I watched as a kid).

I became aware of the controversies swirling around the death penalty as I grew older, but I had no philosophical objection to it.  Given the number and nature of the offenses calling for the death penalty in the first five books of the Old Testament, the Three Commandments * didn’t seem to prohibit it, either.  Of course we should only apply the death penalty where it was really, really justified.  Sure, there had been abuses and failures to apply it fairly, but those were exceptions, not the rule.

And then I was called for jury duty.

I’ve been called for jury duty three times and impaneled twice, both times for trials concerning minor altercations.  Seeing the process first-hand, even as applied to these minor matters, has made me blanch at the thought of making someone’s life depend on the less than perfect workings of the system.

I still have no philosophical objection to the death penalty.  Opponents of the death penalty claim it’s not an effective deterrent, and that too many people are sentenced to death unfairly.  They’re wrong about the deterrent factor.  Even a criminal sentenced to life in prison without parole can kill again; a prison employee, another prisoner, or a visitor.  A criminal put to death will never hurt anyone ever again.

However, they’re right about the fairness factor.  The US Justice System is fine as an ideal, but is administered by fallible humans.  The system needs to be able to correct its inevitable mistakes.  There’s no correcting a mistaken execution

If I were King of the World and did a little brainstorming with folks who knew the law, I might be able to come up with a system I could trust to put someone to death.  Until then, the only death penalty I can support is the one applied during the commission of a crime, the penalty known as justifiable homicide.

- Poppa

* The other Seven Commandments have been decriminalized and downgraded to Optional, Good Advice, and Opinion.

Changing My Mind, Part 1 – Religion: Mitigated or Unmitigated Evil?

It’s no great challenge to enumerate the evils committed in the name of religion.  Anyone with the slightest knowledge of history or current events can think of plenty of examples by themselves.  So lets move on.  Is there anything to mitigate the evil of religion?

Back when I was young and knew everything, I knew religion served no useful purpose. Potlucks and acts of charity were nice, but Rotary and Kiwanis could provide those and were, so far, crusade and jihad free.  I also knew only ignorant and thoughtless people clung to religion.  These were people who spent no time thinking about important stuff and big issues, who were religious only because their parents were.  I had to reconsider my position when I started to realize many religious people were far smarter, better educated, and more insightful than I’d ever be.

Still, it took me years to appreciate the beyond-potluck-and-charity positive side of religion.

Humans want structure.  We see patterns everywhere, in clouds and ink stains, in random occurrences.  Religion supplies the structure and meaning we want so badly and allows us to put our experiences and ourselves in a frame of reference.  Religion makes us feel like we matter and have a place in a world growing larger and more complex every year.  Religion gives us the means to control the uncontrollable and endure the unendurable.  Religion allows us to cope with and accept things that don’t seem to have a reason; the death of a loved one, an incurable disease, a train wreck, a killer storm, the slaughter of an innocent, a war.  It’s all free, free in the sense you don’t have to pay money for it unless you want to.  It’s portable and secure.  You can take it anywhere but no one can take it from you.

Powerful stuff.  No wonder religion is still going strong.

But there’s still that pesky evil…

- Poppa

Pizza π, Murderers Reciting Hamlet, and Kobe Wagyu Beef

Another fine weekend (not counting tearing my hair out over work most all of Saturday and Sunday). Friday night we walked over to the 2008 Taste of St. Louis and had some great ice cream.  Saturday we had pizza at a place called π (pizza Pi, get it?) on the U City Loop.  This is seriously the best pizza I’ve had so far in St. Louis.  Can’t wait to go back and try the deep dish.

  

π

Pizza π

Ira Glass at the Pageant

After pizza, we went across the street to the Pageant where we had tickets to see Ira Glass (our second NPR personality in as many weeks).  Ira was there to support Prison Performing Arts, a literacy and performing arts program serving incarcerated adults and children.

It was a little unsettling to be in the audience while murderers and pedophiles were reciting bits of Shakespeare.  Ira was great.  He’s a consummate storyteller.  I think the Prison Performing Arts people are providing a helpful and much-needed service.  More power to them.  The murderers and pedophiles are what they are.  One can only hope they’re now having a positive impact on those around them.  But the audience was going into paroxysms of delight merely because they were watching actual murderers talking about murdering people in Elizabethan English.  (It’s all very insightful and profound, you see…)  I mean, all I would have needed to do to get a standing ovation from that audience was bellow some lines from Hamlet.  Oh, and murder somebody.

Sunday we had brunch at Mosaic.  (mmmm… Kobe wagyu burger…)

- Poppa