I seem to go through a range of
emotions and conversations when I’m drinking. The emotions usually range
anywhere between utter depression and complete delirium; it’s a wide scale.
Conversation topics appear on an even wider scale; just yesterday for instance
we were discussing the Woolwich murders until one of my friends decided the
conversation was too dark and proceeded to discuss the cleavage of the girl on
another table.
But before the boob banter, we were
having a very serious discussion, with very different opinions. The argument
was whether or not the death penalty should be brought back, an extremely
sensitive and controversial topic, but a topic that is hot on the minds of many
people since that stomach wrenching day in South London just a few weeks ago.
There were many reasons for, including the lack of space in prisons, making
examples of serious offenders in order to prevent future scenarios from
happening etc. There were also arguments against, such as the possibility of
false convictions, death being an easy way out, moving against society’s
progress and so on.
This argument could go on for days,
and there would rarely be a solution wherein everybody involved in the
discussion comes to a rational agreement either way. At the end of the
conversation, it came down to two for, and three against. I was one of the
people against the death penalty, and it is for one simple reason. Forgetting
my beliefs that no one has the right to murder, even if that person has murdered,
I do not believe that any human being should have the right to take another’s
life. Forgetting the possible economic benefits, forgetting every other factor,
it comes down to one thing.
I would like to tell you a story.
Once Upon a Time, a mother gave
birth to an innocent child. This child was born without philosophy or morals,
and had only simple needs; water, food, shelter and love. The mother watched
her child grow, she fed him when he was hungry, she cuddled him when he was
sad, and taught him right and wrong, the best that any human being can. The
child learned actions, he learned to make sounds and he learned how to smile
and laugh.
The child grew, the child went to
school and the child experienced friendships, love, happiness, sadness, bliss
and disgust. He stayed close to his mother, but became independent; he
developed his own beliefs, interpreted ideas in his own way and came to his own
conclusions about right and wrong. Whether his interpretations were correct or
not, his mother supported his right to free speech and opinion. Whether she
liked it or not, he was growing up.
The child eventually became a man, a
man with his own responsibilities, a man who was independent, looked after
himself and remembered his childhood. The man would remember the woman who
would cuddle him when he was sad, feed him when he was hungry and tried to
teach him right from wrong the best that she could. The man developed extreme
beliefs, he began making his own decisions on what he interpreted was right and
wrong. The man became sucked into a cesspool of extremism and hatred; the man
became an evil, horrid, vile beast that isn’t fit to suck the scum from the
bottom of a festering swamp.
The man decapitated another human
being, a human being with thoughts, emotions, who at one point was the same
blank canvass. The man killed one of his own species, one of his own kind in
the most brutal and barbarous way imaginable. The man even had the audacity to
brag and justify what he had done, with the blood still thick on his hands. The
man had become an evil product of an evil belief.
But he still had a mother; a mother
who cared for him and a mother who loved him unconditionally. To that mother,
he was still the blank canvass, he was still the ball of light that she brought
into the world, and he was still her child. Now imagine that mother watching
her child take someone’s life, and then watch another man kill her child
because of it. Imagine you are that mother, or father. Could you watch your
child die? Could you support an idea in which that is a possibility?
The man is evil. The man deserves to
be punished and punished severely. The man deserves to spend the remainder of
his life giving back to the community, giving back to the society whose laws he
betrayed and the families whose lives he has affected forever. The man does not
deserve to die. This man may be a despicable murderer, and just another scumbag
to us, but think about what that man is to his mother.
If that man was your child, would
you support the death penalty?
Thank
you for reading.
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