"Get off the Earth."
- Sam Loyd
A lot of people seem to be upset about the Earth again. It's like every decade or so the zeitgeist suddenly becomes concerned with the state of the environment. In the 70s it was called "Conservation." Cartoon heroes did battle with polluters. Dr. Seuss wrote The Lorax. Then in the early 90s it was called "Ecological." People started celebrating Earth Day again. Captain Planet aired on TV. Now, it's called "Green" and was seemingly kickstarted by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Everyone out of the blue is suddenly worried about the environment.
Everyone but me.
Don't get me wrong. I take the whole environment thing very seriously. It's terrible the mess we are making of the eco-system. It's awful all the species we have driven to extinction through our short-sighted pursuit of profits. It's terrifying to think of all the destruction that will be loosed as the Earth tries to regain some kind of balance. Between melting ice-caps and mega-tsunamis the Earth is going to swiftly become an unhospitable place for us to live.
And that's why I'm not worried.
If you speak to me on the real you'll recognize that this is a drum I've been beating for years now: we need to get off the Earth. Seriously, there is like an entire universe out there, y'savvy? It is crucial to our development that we leave the home planet behind. If the Earth is the mother, after all, then this entire time we have as a a species still been living in our mom's house. (Take it from me -- I've lived my whole life in my mom's house.) In these terms, the past is prologue (as are the present and the foreseeable future) for a history that has not even begun yet.
And why not? It's not like we don't have the technology. What we lack is the desire. In the 50s space was exciting. Then we went up to the moon, sent a few probes a little further, and decided the whole thing was dead and worthless. My pal Attila says it best: "Why would I want to go into space? The Earth has everything I need!" It is exactly this mentality that is keeping us here. That's why I do not fear the damage we are doing to our home-world; why rather then bemoan it I almost embrace it. Only when the Earth is so fucked that we can't live here anymore will we have the drive necessary to leave it.
And it's not like we're ever going to leave for good. The Amish, for instance, will always be on Earth. But with the bulk of us gone? The Earth will heal itself. Christ, the bio-sphere survived a massive asteroid collision and a fierce nuclear winter. I'm sure it can survive some non-biodegradable landfills and a pinch of smog. When we are no longer tied to the surface of a planet for our development -- when industry is off-world; when a ever-growing population now has an infinite space to fill -- the bio-sphere will not only recover from our damage, it will probably continue to thrive and grow.
The first polluters, remember, were anaerobic single-celled organisms who forever destroyed their own eco-system and permanently altered the Earth with their main waste product, an extremely toxic and reactive chemical. What was it called?
Oxygen.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
A Prayer For Closure
(2008 Intro: I wrote this like five-plus years ago, during early 2003. Looking back I like it a lot, though it was really painful to write. As I recall I was drunk for the whole second half of it.)
“Those who come together for no good reason will part for the same.”
— Chuang Tzu
This is it. No Great American Novel, no scribbled sheet of pseudonyms, no hope to get the point across. Just this. Cheap catharsis and a prayer for closure. None of this story is true.
The basement. My basement. Our basement. The floor is strewn with boxes packed with abandoned plans, forgotten dreams and trash held onto for far too long. The end, if such a thing exists, is waiting for me down there. I see it in my mind’s eye, the entire arc of betrayal and lost promises playing before me like a video in fast-forward. This is how it’s been since it began to end, like I read the script in advance, seeing the future unfold, knowing all the moves beforehand. Knowing the final outcome. And acting anyway. Moving towards the end.
It’s almost over now. The end is nearly upon us. The final stretch of the journey is always the toughest, after you’ve used up all your will and resolve and strength on the miles previous but have a distance yet ahead of you. We’d managed to drive each other crazy, and like frightened and wounded animals we’d begun blindly striking at each other’s weak spots, hoping to deliver the blow that would permanently sever the bond, free us from this path we’d gone down together.
She’s in the basement, of course. Emptying the washer of laundry she’d left soaking there while she was… out. I take a very deep breath and step downstairs. “I’d hoped to save this for when you were ready to leave,” I say, my voice struggling to remain cold and detached. I try and remain unemotional in any confrontation, and this is hardly every confrontation. “But my sister wants to take me to dinner and I don’t have time to wait for you to get your act together.” She tenses slightly at the barb; she has already moved out of this house behind my back and this is just a last-minute sweep for her precious stuff. It’s been a long journey, peeling through layers of deceit like rotten onion, knowing what I would find at the center and begging that please God I’d be wrong this time. The downside to expecting the worst is that there is little more than a grim satisfaction at being proven right. It’s been a long journey, and the most painful one I’ve found myself on, but the terminus is in sight and it’s just a matter of soldiering through a few more miles. By this time I’ve come downstairs and am standing face to face with her.
“The thing is,” I’d said, sitting on the edge of the bare mattress in my old room, my old life, “I’ve kind of been in love with you all this time, and I don’t think I can do the friendship thing anymore.”
I am always performing, even when there’s no one around. I’ve always felt that my life was a third-generation carbon copy of Shakespearean tragedy, and I never hesitate to lift from fiction to enhance my own epic. “It’s the ‘Michael to Fredo’ speech,” I say. “You know how it goes.” The Godfather trilogy had been one of our shared things, maybe. There was so much I obviously never knew, and now there was no point in bothering to try.
“Sweetie—” she starts to say.
“Shut up,” I say, knowing how it hurts her to be told to shut up, furious that she would still call me that after all the confession and revelation upstairs not five minutes earlier. I clench my teeth until it hurts and then continue. “You know how it goes.” Clear throat. “You’re nothing to me now. You’re not a friend, you’re not a lover, you’re not family. You are nothing.” Now comes the finale. I grab her head by the sides, pull it to mine and kiss her violently on the lips. When I let her go she shakes her head and scrunches up her face with bewilderment. Is it possible she doesn’t know, she doesn’t get it? I thought it was a bit too derivative and obvious, but if the point was lost then… then nothing. This was never about her. She never even existed. We’d been two vessels, lost at sea, that had drifted together and thought that it meant something. We’d learned. My time was up here anyway. Finish playing the part and move on. New roles, more challenging, await me.
“I loved you once,” I snarl and head upstairs, already doubting that I ever did.
My sister is waiting on the front porch. “How’d it go?” she asks. My sister is very concerned for me, as is everyone, but not comfortable expressing any emotion, even the emotion of concern.
“With any luck,” I joke through tearing eyes, “I’ve just written myself into her permanent pantheon.” Through the corner of my eye I see her upstairs now, on the phone with someone. Him? Why does it even matter? The end came, the end went, and this is the beginning of something else. The king is dead, long live the king.
But nothing ever ends. Life doesn’t follow the flow of fiction, where all questions wind up answered and all conflicts resolved. Happily ever after, anything ever after, is a downright fraud. Even trying to pattern life after fiction like I had just done offers no true control over the reins of fate. Just easier to make myths about. All the dirt we pile on our ghosts only holds them at bay, and nothing, not even this cheap catharsis, can work a true exorcism. Pray as you might for closure, it never comes.
I light a cigarette and exit stage left, leaving the house and a very large part of me behind when I go.
— Chuang Tzu
This is it. No Great American Novel, no scribbled sheet of pseudonyms, no hope to get the point across. Just this. Cheap catharsis and a prayer for closure. None of this story is true.
The basement. My basement. Our basement. The floor is strewn with boxes packed with abandoned plans, forgotten dreams and trash held onto for far too long. The end, if such a thing exists, is waiting for me down there. I see it in my mind’s eye, the entire arc of betrayal and lost promises playing before me like a video in fast-forward. This is how it’s been since it began to end, like I read the script in advance, seeing the future unfold, knowing all the moves beforehand. Knowing the final outcome. And acting anyway. Moving towards the end.
It’s almost over now. The end is nearly upon us. The final stretch of the journey is always the toughest, after you’ve used up all your will and resolve and strength on the miles previous but have a distance yet ahead of you. We’d managed to drive each other crazy, and like frightened and wounded animals we’d begun blindly striking at each other’s weak spots, hoping to deliver the blow that would permanently sever the bond, free us from this path we’d gone down together.
She’s in the basement, of course. Emptying the washer of laundry she’d left soaking there while she was… out. I take a very deep breath and step downstairs. “I’d hoped to save this for when you were ready to leave,” I say, my voice struggling to remain cold and detached. I try and remain unemotional in any confrontation, and this is hardly every confrontation. “But my sister wants to take me to dinner and I don’t have time to wait for you to get your act together.” She tenses slightly at the barb; she has already moved out of this house behind my back and this is just a last-minute sweep for her precious stuff. It’s been a long journey, peeling through layers of deceit like rotten onion, knowing what I would find at the center and begging that please God I’d be wrong this time. The downside to expecting the worst is that there is little more than a grim satisfaction at being proven right. It’s been a long journey, and the most painful one I’ve found myself on, but the terminus is in sight and it’s just a matter of soldiering through a few more miles. By this time I’ve come downstairs and am standing face to face with her.
“The thing is,” I’d said, sitting on the edge of the bare mattress in my old room, my old life, “I’ve kind of been in love with you all this time, and I don’t think I can do the friendship thing anymore.”
I am always performing, even when there’s no one around. I’ve always felt that my life was a third-generation carbon copy of Shakespearean tragedy, and I never hesitate to lift from fiction to enhance my own epic. “It’s the ‘Michael to Fredo’ speech,” I say. “You know how it goes.” The Godfather trilogy had been one of our shared things, maybe. There was so much I obviously never knew, and now there was no point in bothering to try.
“Sweetie—” she starts to say.
“Shut up,” I say, knowing how it hurts her to be told to shut up, furious that she would still call me that after all the confession and revelation upstairs not five minutes earlier. I clench my teeth until it hurts and then continue. “You know how it goes.” Clear throat. “You’re nothing to me now. You’re not a friend, you’re not a lover, you’re not family. You are nothing.” Now comes the finale. I grab her head by the sides, pull it to mine and kiss her violently on the lips. When I let her go she shakes her head and scrunches up her face with bewilderment. Is it possible she doesn’t know, she doesn’t get it? I thought it was a bit too derivative and obvious, but if the point was lost then… then nothing. This was never about her. She never even existed. We’d been two vessels, lost at sea, that had drifted together and thought that it meant something. We’d learned. My time was up here anyway. Finish playing the part and move on. New roles, more challenging, await me.
“I loved you once,” I snarl and head upstairs, already doubting that I ever did.
My sister is waiting on the front porch. “How’d it go?” she asks. My sister is very concerned for me, as is everyone, but not comfortable expressing any emotion, even the emotion of concern.
“With any luck,” I joke through tearing eyes, “I’ve just written myself into her permanent pantheon.” Through the corner of my eye I see her upstairs now, on the phone with someone. Him? Why does it even matter? The end came, the end went, and this is the beginning of something else. The king is dead, long live the king.
But nothing ever ends. Life doesn’t follow the flow of fiction, where all questions wind up answered and all conflicts resolved. Happily ever after, anything ever after, is a downright fraud. Even trying to pattern life after fiction like I had just done offers no true control over the reins of fate. Just easier to make myths about. All the dirt we pile on our ghosts only holds them at bay, and nothing, not even this cheap catharsis, can work a true exorcism. Pray as you might for closure, it never comes.
I light a cigarette and exit stage left, leaving the house and a very large part of me behind when I go.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Marriage Essay
"What are they complaining about? I just wish that the next time my girlfriend asks me when I'm going to put the ring on her I could say, 'I'd love to, honey, but you know it's against the law..."
- from some comedy album Doug played me
I don't think that the government should be able to say whether or not gay people can get married for the very simple reason that I don't believe that government should be able to say anything at all about marriage. That's not the government's place. It'd be like legislating on hair-cuts. Marriage is an entirely personal thing. Or, rather, marriage is actually an archaic institution that dates back to the days when people were considered property, but if we are going to keep it relevant in these so-called modern times it should be an entirely personal matter and completely up to the discretion and choice of the individuals involved. Same sex, different-sex, as many spouses as you want, whatever. It's a personal matter.
Now, my personal opinion on this personal matter is that marriage is for tools. I don't mean to imply that if you get married, you're a tool. I will come directly out and say that if you get married, you're a tool. Sorry. But that's just my opinion, and seemingly my opinion alone. I would hate to see it made into a law. Wouldn't you? Probably. You tool. I'm getting sidetracked again. My point is that this is two thousand and eight, for fuck's sake. Why is gay people getting married even an issue? Civilization as we know it is teetering on the brink of collapse, the center cannot hold and the barbarians are due at the gates. This is what we have to devote our time to? How about rocket ships?
Let me say it again, rocket ships. We should be building giant rocket ships so I can get on one and leave all you idiots behind. Or super-heroes. Wouldn't the world be cooler if we had super-heroes? All I'm saying is, think about it.
- from some comedy album Doug played me
I don't think that the government should be able to say whether or not gay people can get married for the very simple reason that I don't believe that government should be able to say anything at all about marriage. That's not the government's place. It'd be like legislating on hair-cuts. Marriage is an entirely personal thing. Or, rather, marriage is actually an archaic institution that dates back to the days when people were considered property, but if we are going to keep it relevant in these so-called modern times it should be an entirely personal matter and completely up to the discretion and choice of the individuals involved. Same sex, different-sex, as many spouses as you want, whatever. It's a personal matter.
Now, my personal opinion on this personal matter is that marriage is for tools. I don't mean to imply that if you get married, you're a tool. I will come directly out and say that if you get married, you're a tool. Sorry. But that's just my opinion, and seemingly my opinion alone. I would hate to see it made into a law. Wouldn't you? Probably. You tool. I'm getting sidetracked again. My point is that this is two thousand and eight, for fuck's sake. Why is gay people getting married even an issue? Civilization as we know it is teetering on the brink of collapse, the center cannot hold and the barbarians are due at the gates. This is what we have to devote our time to? How about rocket ships?
Let me say it again, rocket ships. We should be building giant rocket ships so I can get on one and leave all you idiots behind. Or super-heroes. Wouldn't the world be cooler if we had super-heroes? All I'm saying is, think about it.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Capital Punishment Paper
(For this class I was taking, June 2005:)
The system of capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been with humanity probably since the first days of civilization. Certainly every civilization has historically had some method of condemning its citizens to death and executing that sentence, be it the Chinese tearing the condemned apart with five horses or the infamous guillotine of the French Revolution. Perhaps it is related to the similarly-ancient practice of human sacrifice, the ritual killing of people in an attempt to appease supernatural forces. While of course the death penalty is not intended to appease supernatural forces but equally abstract concepts such as “the law” or “society,” the end result is the same. As of 2004 the United States ranked as the nation with the fourth-highest number of executions, beat out only by other nations known for their civility and enlightenment: Vietnam, Iran, and China (at number one with a whopping 3400 reported executions in 2004.) There are many people that believe that this ancient establishment of capital punishment is still necessary in this day and age, but a growing minority of people disagree, believing that for various reasons the death penalty is ethically or morally wrong. I am one of this minority.
Why? Quite simply because I believe killing is wrong. If killing is wrong then it of course follows quite logically that it is wrong to kill. In logic this is called a tautology. I cannot argue why I believe killing is wrong, since this is based entirely on my own opinion. For all I know everyone else is right and killing is okay in some circumstances, though everyone’s inability to agree on what exactly those “some circumstances” would be doesn’t do much to convince me. More to the point, if there is no universal right or wrong then in the absence of an absolute external moral code I can only go by my own personal feeling that killing is wrong.
Is there a benefit in executing criminals versus keeping them alive and imprisoned? In a short-sighted sense it certainly appears so, which explains why our short-sighted ancestors always permitted capital punishment and indeed many short-sighted advocates still support it. But in actuality it frequently costs more to execute someone than to keep them alive (using “humane” methods like the electric chair – whacking someone with an axe is of course still pretty cheap) so in a purely literal manner it seems the least cost would be to allow criminals to live. Does this benefit society? I would argue that yes, it does, since a society with no death penalty has no blood on its hands, or at least less blood, and also no one has to be put in the unfortunate position of being executioner.
If we are ever going to reach a point where killing is not permissible in any shape or form we must agree not to kill or to permit killing ourselves. Especially given that innocent people do get convicted of capital crimes and some are even wrongfully executed -- if the end-goal is a society where innocent people do not have to fear wrongful death, a system where innocent people are wrongly put to death is clearly not a well-thought-out answer.
According to many traditions ranging from Buddhism to quantum physics, there is no fundamental difference between self and other, observer and observed. Labor leader Eugene Debs once memorably said "…while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Personally I do not want to live in a society where I can be put to death by the state for any reason. Obviously I would expect any such reason to be spurious because I have no intention of committing any severe crimes but even if I did I would want to be given a chance to redeem myself. Kant (amongst others) argued that we must only endorse rules we would allow to be universal -- if I want to be forgiven I must be willing to forgive.
Worse, the death penalty seems to be aimed at the worst parts of human mentality -- bloodlust, thirst for vengeance, emotion over rationality, etc. -- and is based off of the mistaken idea that two wrongs make a right. Two wrongs do not make a right, they make two wrongs. To do evil in the name of fighting evil is still doing evil. The most famous counter-argument is usually put as such: "What if someone killed your mother, wouldn't you want to see them dead?" To which I would have to answer that yes, I probably would like to see that person dead, but the whole purpose of society is that it is supposed to be driven by higher impulses than my own irrational and emotional responses to situations. For that matter, there are many people I would personally like to see dead and even a few people out there who would love to see me dead, but none of these personal opinions can or should be used as a justification for the irreversible taking of human life.
Another common argument put forth by pro-death advocates is "They (the capital criminals) lost the right to be human by the severity of their crimes." Says who? Who could possibly make that call? Who wants that kind of responsibility, and who could take it without being corrupted by it? Executions on trumped-up charges have been a favorite way of getting rid of those who are politically inconvenient or in disfavor since the dawn of civilization. (Recall what happened to Jesus or the many wives of Henry VIII if you doubt this assertion.) To my mind this is a greater evil than any evil a system of capital punishment could or does prevent and the only way to remove it is to forbid the state the power to decide life or death.
A third argument dismisses my own hard-line “killing is wrong” stance with an off-hand "It's all fine and good to say killing is never justified, but what about in the real world?" The problem with this is that objectively speaking there is no real world. The real world is what you perceive it as and what you create it to be. As long as you keep justifying killing as a solution to problems there will always be at least one person in the world who believes killing is justified. I believe killing is not a justifiable solution to any problem, not even in the defense of my own life. I cannot stop the universe from killing me -- rather, my death is so near to being inevitable that for all intents and purposes I must consider it such – all I can control is whether I live my life with a clean conscience and without getting blood on my hands.
But my own personal favorite argument for the death penalty, perhaps because it is the one I favored when I was pro-capital punishment as a teenager, is “Rabid dogs need to be put down." This seems like a pretty succinct case until you realize that we are not discussing rabid dogs, we are discussing human beings. More to the point, the reason rabid dogs need to be put down is because there is no way to cure them. If there were a way to cure them it would certainly be unethical to choose killing them over curing them. The antisocial behavior characterized by capital crimes can be cured in humans and if it is only at a small percentage right now that is arguably due to insufficient attempts at cure over punishment.
In conclusion, here is a counter-ethical question: you are provided with solid proof that your existence is making the world an overall worse place for everyone else and that your immediate removal would make things better for everyone else. As a result the state (or similar sovereign body) plans to execute you. Do you concede and go to your death like the lamb to the slaughter? Remember, it has been proven to you that your death will benefit everyone else. Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, right? Greatest good for the greatest number, right? Will you go along? Many people take a laid-back attitude about the idea of other people having their rights and their lives deprived of them by a corrupt and inefficient system of "justice," because as long as it's someone else, it's okay – but is this the mentality of a civilized and ethical person or is this the mentality of a child?
The system of capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been with humanity probably since the first days of civilization. Certainly every civilization has historically had some method of condemning its citizens to death and executing that sentence, be it the Chinese tearing the condemned apart with five horses or the infamous guillotine of the French Revolution. Perhaps it is related to the similarly-ancient practice of human sacrifice, the ritual killing of people in an attempt to appease supernatural forces. While of course the death penalty is not intended to appease supernatural forces but equally abstract concepts such as “the law” or “society,” the end result is the same. As of 2004 the United States ranked as the nation with the fourth-highest number of executions, beat out only by other nations known for their civility and enlightenment: Vietnam, Iran, and China (at number one with a whopping 3400 reported executions in 2004.) There are many people that believe that this ancient establishment of capital punishment is still necessary in this day and age, but a growing minority of people disagree, believing that for various reasons the death penalty is ethically or morally wrong. I am one of this minority.
Why? Quite simply because I believe killing is wrong. If killing is wrong then it of course follows quite logically that it is wrong to kill. In logic this is called a tautology. I cannot argue why I believe killing is wrong, since this is based entirely on my own opinion. For all I know everyone else is right and killing is okay in some circumstances, though everyone’s inability to agree on what exactly those “some circumstances” would be doesn’t do much to convince me. More to the point, if there is no universal right or wrong then in the absence of an absolute external moral code I can only go by my own personal feeling that killing is wrong.
Is there a benefit in executing criminals versus keeping them alive and imprisoned? In a short-sighted sense it certainly appears so, which explains why our short-sighted ancestors always permitted capital punishment and indeed many short-sighted advocates still support it. But in actuality it frequently costs more to execute someone than to keep them alive (using “humane” methods like the electric chair – whacking someone with an axe is of course still pretty cheap) so in a purely literal manner it seems the least cost would be to allow criminals to live. Does this benefit society? I would argue that yes, it does, since a society with no death penalty has no blood on its hands, or at least less blood, and also no one has to be put in the unfortunate position of being executioner.
If we are ever going to reach a point where killing is not permissible in any shape or form we must agree not to kill or to permit killing ourselves. Especially given that innocent people do get convicted of capital crimes and some are even wrongfully executed -- if the end-goal is a society where innocent people do not have to fear wrongful death, a system where innocent people are wrongly put to death is clearly not a well-thought-out answer.
According to many traditions ranging from Buddhism to quantum physics, there is no fundamental difference between self and other, observer and observed. Labor leader Eugene Debs once memorably said "…while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." Personally I do not want to live in a society where I can be put to death by the state for any reason. Obviously I would expect any such reason to be spurious because I have no intention of committing any severe crimes but even if I did I would want to be given a chance to redeem myself. Kant (amongst others) argued that we must only endorse rules we would allow to be universal -- if I want to be forgiven I must be willing to forgive.
Worse, the death penalty seems to be aimed at the worst parts of human mentality -- bloodlust, thirst for vengeance, emotion over rationality, etc. -- and is based off of the mistaken idea that two wrongs make a right. Two wrongs do not make a right, they make two wrongs. To do evil in the name of fighting evil is still doing evil. The most famous counter-argument is usually put as such: "What if someone killed your mother, wouldn't you want to see them dead?" To which I would have to answer that yes, I probably would like to see that person dead, but the whole purpose of society is that it is supposed to be driven by higher impulses than my own irrational and emotional responses to situations. For that matter, there are many people I would personally like to see dead and even a few people out there who would love to see me dead, but none of these personal opinions can or should be used as a justification for the irreversible taking of human life.
Another common argument put forth by pro-death advocates is "They (the capital criminals) lost the right to be human by the severity of their crimes." Says who? Who could possibly make that call? Who wants that kind of responsibility, and who could take it without being corrupted by it? Executions on trumped-up charges have been a favorite way of getting rid of those who are politically inconvenient or in disfavor since the dawn of civilization. (Recall what happened to Jesus or the many wives of Henry VIII if you doubt this assertion.) To my mind this is a greater evil than any evil a system of capital punishment could or does prevent and the only way to remove it is to forbid the state the power to decide life or death.
A third argument dismisses my own hard-line “killing is wrong” stance with an off-hand "It's all fine and good to say killing is never justified, but what about in the real world?" The problem with this is that objectively speaking there is no real world. The real world is what you perceive it as and what you create it to be. As long as you keep justifying killing as a solution to problems there will always be at least one person in the world who believes killing is justified. I believe killing is not a justifiable solution to any problem, not even in the defense of my own life. I cannot stop the universe from killing me -- rather, my death is so near to being inevitable that for all intents and purposes I must consider it such – all I can control is whether I live my life with a clean conscience and without getting blood on my hands.
But my own personal favorite argument for the death penalty, perhaps because it is the one I favored when I was pro-capital punishment as a teenager, is “Rabid dogs need to be put down." This seems like a pretty succinct case until you realize that we are not discussing rabid dogs, we are discussing human beings. More to the point, the reason rabid dogs need to be put down is because there is no way to cure them. If there were a way to cure them it would certainly be unethical to choose killing them over curing them. The antisocial behavior characterized by capital crimes can be cured in humans and if it is only at a small percentage right now that is arguably due to insufficient attempts at cure over punishment.
In conclusion, here is a counter-ethical question: you are provided with solid proof that your existence is making the world an overall worse place for everyone else and that your immediate removal would make things better for everyone else. As a result the state (or similar sovereign body) plans to execute you. Do you concede and go to your death like the lamb to the slaughter? Remember, it has been proven to you that your death will benefit everyone else. Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, right? Greatest good for the greatest number, right? Will you go along? Many people take a laid-back attitude about the idea of other people having their rights and their lives deprived of them by a corrupt and inefficient system of "justice," because as long as it's someone else, it's okay – but is this the mentality of a civilized and ethical person or is this the mentality of a child?
Sunday, October 12, 2008
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