trying to grok

NO CLOSER TO AN ANSWER

Tammi has been thinking in the micro about something I often think about in the macro.

Makes me wonder....what makes people feel so strongly about capital punishment? Why do some cling desperately to the sanctity of life while others draw that line so firmly in the sand and say "If you cross this, you no longer deserve to live"?

I don't believe it's something that comes with age. Or that it's a learned belief. Mama and Daddy were liberals. Mama still is. I've been a conservative for as long as I've been aware of politics. Oh, they never talked about this stuff in front of us kids, in fact it was only in the past 10 or so years that I learned about my parents political leanings. No. No influence there at all.
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I woke up this morning wondering where does that come from? WHY do I feel so strongly about this? And why do others, those that go and picket executions for people they don't even know, believe just as strongly that they do NOT deserve to die? That there is nothing that one human being can do to another that warrants the loss of life?

I have wondered this and blogged about it before, about where we get our value systems and whether it's nature or nurture:

But where did it originate? Other people endured the hate and garbage in France, yet it didn't have the effect on them that it did on me. I must've already had the seeds of right-leaning ideas before I hit this point. But where did they come from?

I'd say both of my parents are fairly conservative, though we never talked about politics when I was growing up. I can't remember ever having a conversation about voting or foreign policy or anything of the sort. Did they somehow influence me in a subconscious way? Or was I born right of center and just viewed everything through that lens?

We talk about knee-jerk reactions, but isn't that just following your gut? The first blog I ever saw was U.S.S. Clueless and I immediately felt at home. Even before I had studied anything concrete about how the world works, I simply nodded my head in agreement and felt deep in my instincts that what Den Beste writes is true. No one had to teach me that; in fact, much of what we encounter in higher education these days should have persuaded me just the opposite. How was I not convinced?

I don't have any answers for Tammi. As for capital punishment, I said it before and I'll say it again.

I'm reminded again of the absolute horror my Swedish friend felt when she saw me clapping and cheering the day Timothy McVeigh was executed. But I feel the same now about Saddam as I did back then: If someone called me today and said they're short a hangman and could I come give 'em a hand, I'd say, "Give me a second to put my shoes on."

There are a few people out there that I'd have no problem putting my shoes on for. And when we're talking about child rapers, I'll just grab my flip-flops cuz it's faster.

Posted by Sarah at June 26, 2008 11:45 AM | TrackBack