Questions About The Death Penalty

Is the death penalty wrong?

If it’s wrong, does that mean God was wrong when He commanded it in the Old Testament?

Or is the death penalty right?

And was Jesus therefore wrong when he said “Turn the other cheek”?

Or is it wrong on a personal, vengeful level and right on a legal, law-enforcing level?

Should the state even base laws on religion?

Should religions be selling-out their beliefs by getting caught up in the fundamentally compromised world of politics?

Is it right to accept that, in a country with the death penalty, innocent people will mistakenly be executed?

Is is right to accept that, in a country without the death penalty, guilty-as-hell serial killers and rapists may go free and strike again?

At what point does someone become responsible for their own actions?

And if someone’s not altogether responsible for their own actions, through mental illness for example, should they ever be executed?

Even if they’ve done something truly abhorrant?

If you’re pro-life, are you therefore anti-death penalty?

If not, why not? Innocents are still dying.

If you’re pro-life, are you therefore anti-war?

If not, why not? Innocents are still dying, many of them babies.

Is it a numbers game? Acceptable losses, collateral damage?

What ratio of innocent victim to legitimate target are you therefore willing to accept?

If you’re pro-choice, are you therefore pro-war and pro-death penalty?

If not, is it therefore because it’s unacceptable to kill a human but not a fetus?

When does a fetus become a human?

When does life begin?

Is there a soul?

When does the soul become joined to the human body?

If there isn’t a soul, how do you know?

What about the times scientists have been wrong?

If there is a soul, how do you know?

What about the times priests have been wrong?

Don’t women have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies?

Don’t children have the right to be born?

Is abortion always wrong?

Even when birth would threaten the mother?

Even if the child would have no quality of life?

Even if the mother was raped?

Assuming you had the means, would you adopt a child if it meant preventing an abortion?

How many innocent people have to be executed before it’s accepted that the death penalty is seriously flawed?

How many guilty people have to reoffend, and how much more has to be spent on prisons and law enforcement, before it’s accepted that a more extreme deterrant is called for?

Does it matter if the death penalty disproportionately affects the poor and ethnic minorities?

What do you think about the poor and ethnic minorities in general?

Would you press the button to execute someone?

Would you let someone else?

Why?

Would you press the button to execute someone if there was reasonable doubt?

Would you let someone else?

Why?

Would you watch?

Why? Why not?

What’s worthy of execution? What isn’t? Where do you draw the line?

Would you vote for someone you disagreed with over the death penalty?

The death penalty provojes a thousand and one questions, weaving around other contentious issues, becoming a shibboleth for where you stand politically. The subject will be debated and insults will be thrown and politicians will make capital from it for years to come.

None of which helps Troy Davis, or his family, as of 11:08pm, Eastern Time, on September 21st 2011.

It was Peace Day.

The 9-11 Decade: Who gets to define the next ten years?

I don’t have anything new to offer with regard to September 11th; no insight that hasn’t already been made over the last ten years, no epiphany to give meaning to the whole situation. I wasn’t directly affected by it – I’m not American, I didn’t witness it with my own two eyes – and I guess I’m not really qualified to comment.

And yet, in another sense, I’m a child of 9-11; we all are, ever since the 21st century started on that autumn day ten years ago. We’ve all been shaped by it, whether we acknowledge that or not, and now we’re a decade down the road, a decade into a storyline that few of us would claim to understand. Maybe trying to comprehend things in those terms is a mistake – the politics that defined the aftermath soon became a nightmare, let’s not let them overshadow what happened before.

“Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin’ the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here.”

What did happen? Initial reports were jumbled and confused – I remember hearing that something was happening in America, either Washington DC or New York, but I was at work and the internet had suddenly slowed to a crawl. We heard rumours and half-truths of calamities – people were agreed that something had happened to the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, but stories began to circulate about the White House and the Empire State Building. In spite of this, the truth began to coalesce and images emerged – the now iconic pictures of the WTC burning, the collapse of the towers, shellshocked survivors running down empty streets covered in dust, firefighters heading in the opposite direction to everyone else.

“I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher,
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire.”

It was the firefighters of New York City who became the heroes of 9-11. The political aftermath has a legacy of ambiguity and moral difficulties, but no-one’s about to argue with the the praise directed at those who run towards the fire to save others. The heroism of so many carried with it a terrible cost, one that’s difficult to even imagine in peacetime. I remember an awards ceremony being televised here in Britain, a commemoration of men, woman and children who had served their communities or overcome terrible odds. Alongside a host of celebrities presenting these awards were two NY firemen, who walked onto the stage to immediately receive a standing ovation. And I remember the tears streaming down my face, because no matter what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan or Guantanmo Bay, nothing could take away the heroism and the sacrifice of the emergency services at the World Trade Centre. That should be 9-11’s legacy – it isn’t, and it won’t be, but it should.

“Without your sweet kiss
my soul is lost, my friend
Now tell me how do I begin again?”

But ten years is a long time to be defined by anything. Some people are calling the years since 9-11 a lost decade, and you can see where they’re coming from. Those planes slamming into those towers feel like an interuption to history, like we were heading one way, then we all got diverted by something so utterly unexpected that it left the world in a state of shock that it’s still trying to overcome. After all, America wasn’t attacked by the military might of a rival nation, but a terrorist cell using hijacked planes and wire cutters. There’s something enormous about that, that the 21st century could be redefined by, what, nineteen hijackers plus Osama bin Laden as their organisation’s figurehead? Let that sink in – twenty people, and most of us would be hardpressed to name the majority of them.

And now that’s occured to me, I don’t want to live in a world defined by people like that. That sounds petulant, reading it back, but it’s not, it’s really just common sense. I don’t want to live in a world created by anonymous terrorists; who would?

I want to live in a world where we commemorate the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, who brought down the plane before it could reach another target.

I want to live in a world where we remember the names of those who died helping others.

I want to live in a world where someone like bin Laden becomes a historical footnote, but we tell the story about how Rick Rescorla made sure over 2,000 employees of Morgan Stanley were safely evacuated from the World Trade Centre.

I want to live in a world where we learn from those who spent countless hours working at Ground Zero to either rescue survivors or grant some dignity to those who died.

And I want to live in a world where we’d rather rise up than drag ourselves down.

God bless America. I ❤ NY.

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Some New York Memories

So I wake up this morning and check my Twitter feed, and it turns out that Kyrgyzstan is demolishing its equivalant of the Statue of Liberty due to a ‘curse’ that has led to the social instability faced by the country over the years. And I guess yesterday’s post on slavery already had me edging towards a subject I’ve been meaning to write for a while – ladies and gentlemen, I give you Matt’s New York Memories!

I’ve been to New York twice, in 2002 and 2008, and it’s always been an amazing experience. That’s partly because it doesn’t seem quite real; half of it is a bustling, chaotic 24/7 city made up of cops, business people, street sweepers and waitresses, while the other half is a film set, pregnant with possibility. Bumping into Kevin Bacon, glimpsing Spider-Man crawling up a building – these are equally likely possibilities. After all, I saw Jimi Hendrix.

Well, no, I didn’t. My friend Andy and I were wandering in the vicinity of Madison Square Garden when we came across a busker tuning his guitar. He had a touch of Hendrix about him, effortless cool in the shadow of the metropolis; this, we decided, would be the most awesome busking since the first minstrel picked up his lute. We could wait for him to finish tuning, clearly it would be worth it.

And so we waited, and waited, and waited, and it become clear that Pseudo Hendrix wasn’t gonna play. Maybe the cosmos wasn’t correctly alligned. Maybe he just thought we were waiting to mug him.

My second visit to New York was with my sister, and she got to fulfill an ambition by going on a Harlem Gospel tour. Initially I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, my sole experience of Harlem being based on the opening sequence from Shaft. This was unfounded, the area having gone through a period of gentrification in the nineties, and we attended a church service. It was a strange experience, a mix of the familiar and elements that, while not wrong left me a little uncomfortable. That said, what struck me most was the church’s committment to social action and ensuring that young people had the opportunity to receive a decent education. Faith needs to have a genuine, positive impact on local communities; I’m glad that we, as annoying tourists, got to see that.

Then there was the Statue of Liberty. In some ways this is the spiritual heart of New York, a physical and historical icon. Sadly the crown was closed following the 9/11 attacks, but this was compensated for by a happy accident. We under-estimated the sheer size of the city and the time it would take to visit some of the major attractions, finding ourselves on Liberty Island as the day drew to a close. We caught the last ferry back as the sun went down, and as we turned to face the city, we saw the iconic skyline before us, lights blinking into life, Manhatten at night showing off. It was a breathtaking moment, a sight I’d seen in countless films, but this was for real. None of my photographs were any good, but they wouldn’t have captured the epic feeling anyway.

This was in 2002, only a year or so after the destruction of the World Trade Center, and as we disembarked the ferry and made our way back to our hotel, we stumbled upon Ground Zero. The church used as a refuge for the emergency services on the days immediately following the attacks was still covered with flags, messages of support from throughout the world. Among them all was a St. George’s flag, placed there by supporters of West Bromwich Albion, the football team Andy supports. While it’s probably not all that unlikely, it seemed like a coincidence at the time, and so we found a pen and added our signatures to it – it just seemed like the right thing to do.

I ❤ NY.

Independence Day 2011: Four Reasons to Love America

It’s the Fourth of July, and despite the fact that the whole thing is about my country losing a war I thought I’d commemorate anyway. Truth is, I like America, even though it’s fashionable not to, and so here are four reasons to love America (because it’s the Fourth – no-one can say I’m not inventive):

1. Mythic Landscapes
I’m not just talking about deserts, mountains and forests, although America has all these in abundance. I’m thinking of vast open roads, rickety amusement parks on the horizon, strange roadside attractions and museums. To non-Americans, there’s something about the States that feels like the backdrop to a fantasy movie, a magic-realism novel waiting to happen.

2. Park Rangers
I have a lot of respect for the US National Park Service, mainly because of one man – a park ranger at Alcatraz, whose passion for the job, and communicating it to visitors, was tangible. It may have been bordering on geeky but that’s fine by me. Anyone who can take a vast knowledge of history and nature and convey that to others is a bit of a hero to me.

3. Superman
Superman is quintessentially American; an immigrant fleeing disaster who finds a home in the US, a farmboy who becomes a great hero, an example of the American Dream’s importance countered by Lex Luthor’s embodiment of the same Dream’s failings. Superman is a character that emerged from a very specific setting, and while I think he’s a universal symbol of heroism, I don’t think he can be divorced from the corn fields and skyscrapers of his American home.

4. Flags
In 2002, my friend Andy and I were in New York and we paid the obligatory visit to Ground Zero. It was only a year or so after the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the church used as a refuge for the emergency services on the days immediately following the attacks was still covered with flags, messages of support from throughout the world. Amongst them all was a St. George’s flag, placed there by supporters of West Bromwich Albion, the football team Andy supports. While it’s probably not all that unlikely, it seemed like a coincidence at the time, and so we found a pen and added our signatures to it – it just seemed like the right thing to do.

That’s one of the moments that will stick with me from my trips to New York – the stories of the victims of that day, the heroism of those who ran into the buildings to save innocent lives, the flags of all those who wanted to stand by them in the tragedy. Forget the politics, I try to remember the people; the people and all those flags. God bless America.

Travellers Show and Tell Blog Carnival

One of my posts is featured in the Travellers Show and Tell Blog Carnival over at Mental Mosaic – check it out for posts on California, Norway and ancient American ruins…