Here's the quick synopsis of why I'm writing right now - I got an update on my phone saying that pederal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev. I googled it, clicked a couple links, read about it, and now I'm here. Doing the same will likely get you caught up to speed. But I'm not here to talk about that news - I'm here to talk about what I think about the death penalty. In my first post of 2014, ten posts I'd like to write this year, I said that I'd like to give some takes on difficult conversations - abortion, religion, and euthanasia were the three I mentioned in the post, and I guess I'm writing about this ahead of schedule.
I'm not sure how I feel about the death penalty in general, let alone in this case. There are religious reasons for and against it, there are moral reasons for and against it, there are financial and societal reasons for and against it, but perhaps the one reason that has stuck out the most to me came from psychology - you can't learn from your mistakes if you're dead. Seems a little tongue-in-cheek at first, but it's still true. An argument that I envision one could make against this is that some people don't deserve the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. That's an argument, yes, but to me, it just feels that the death penalty is too final, too ultimate. And I know that's the exact point of it, that what someone did is beyond any ramifications in this life.
I've never believed in much, except for some kind of latent, universal force that is always hanging around and strikes at the most opportune moment. At the end of this point, I'm planning on saying something to the effect that there's no wrong or right answer to this. Then I realized that House had something very similar. Turns out this quote is in the episode "One Day, One Room." Perhaps you've heard of it. House sedated his patient after she asked him if his life sucked. He had no answer, and then went to Cameron (who told him to say his life has been good), Foreman (who told him to say his life sucked), and Chase (who told him to keep her asleep). Then Chase said "There's no wrong answer. Because there's no right answer." I felt like telling that scene because of this latent, universal force that I occasionally believe in.
After that digression...there's still a part of me that never wants to see or hear about Dzhokar Tsarnaev again, and that's probably never going to happen. I still remember how it felt to watch TV at 4:00 a.m. and be afraid for everyone I knew in Watertown, and I still remember sitting in class the next morning having panic attacks because I wasn't watching the news. I remember being afraid to live and being aware of what that felt like in the moment. I never want to experience any of it again. And I feel that an ultimate punishment is exactly what would remedy that. But then I think about the fact that this kid has a family and people who care about him, and people who would be devastated by this. Maybe he lost the right to have his family care about him, but this is something that I'm just so torn on. I think this would be different if this wasn't Boston, if it wasn't Watertown. But it is, and that means home, and I'm not sure I want to walk the streets of Boston and Watertown and know that he's alive. I'm not sure about any of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment