Number 12 The Death Penalty

I wanted to say a little more about my stance on the death penalty.

Many people have lived under different influences for the bulk of their years , me included, and we all would like to think that our upbringing was of the greatest. We would like to think that our fathers and mothers would never intentionally lead us wrong but as we grow up and move out on our own we must start making decisions for ourselves. We begin experiencing the consequences of our decisions. We then discover that the things our parents taught us don't quite work favorably in the new worlds that we find ourselves entering. We come to many crossroads while on our journeys and discover that there are many more stop signs and yield signs that we were not taught how to negotiate, or perhaps we just had our ears closed.

I do not think that most parents intentionally teach their children wrong, but I think that ,unintentionally, most parents do, including me.

I do not remember ever having conversations at home with the family concerning ethics. We never talked about our purpose in life or what our responsibilities as a citizen was. We learned most of our ethics from going to church and school and just plain ole observation. Oh! lets not forget the TV.

How many people grew up this way? Most families probably were about the same.

I am not implying that my family life was hard. My father was more the bread winner and the disciplinarian. I don't remember him ever playing with me or my brother or sister. My mother on the other hand, was the greatest. We all knew she loved us. She had a humorous side, a compassionate side, and she always greeted people with a smile and respect, the basic common sense lesson 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. I think that if everyone could live their daily lives in this way the world would be so very much better off.

I suppose all of my life experiences has something to do with my views on the death penalty. I am against the death penalty but I do not judge others that are in favor of it.

I know that under certain circumstances I would kill another person that caused me great fear for my life or the life of some other innocent person, especially a friend or family member. I'm not sure that this is justifiable. I feel as though I would feel good about saving innocent lives but I also think I would for the rest of my life toil with my act of killing. I don't think I could ever find peace of mind again.

I hope I'm not killing you kind people for reading my blogs. My wife would love editing all of my writings.

Finton