Today two men died. In a perfect world they would have died as old men in the comfort of their home, surrounded by friends, and family after living a long fulfilling and honest life. Unfortunately the demise of these two men was a decision that was taken out of their hands.It was a decision made by a jury, and upheld by a court. An Execution of two men who some felt were so wrong in their crimes (Proven or not) deserved the ultimate punishment. So on September 21st 2011 we took the live's of two men, one was a white supremacist who dragged an innocent black man down the rode with his truck, the other was a black man who was allegedly responsible for the death of an off duty police officer. As I try to find the right words to type onto this bland screen, their deaths are complete. The sky is still blue, and tea party republicans are still stupid. But for the first time in all of my years on this earth, I have to question if we as living beings have lost our souls.
Death is a cold pill to swallow, and it is with this understanding that I harbor a deep seated fear for those who can willingly take a life and feel nothing. These are the people who register no pain knowing that they have taken something that they themselves were given. Life in its simplest form is a gift, no one in this world had a choice to be born, it is something that happened because of circumstances, and what I hope in most cases was love. We enter this world with a clean slate and the opportunity to not just exist, but matter. So when that one person has the ability to steal another's chance to make an impact on this world, they play the role of a GOD. We state to the universe that we understand our limitations, but despite all of our flaws we will still be the judge and jury of someone else's life.
We condemn murder, and promote morals, but then murder those who we feel should never be forgiven. In the very next breath we preach Christianity and tell our children how important it is to forgive people. Our news papers are flooded with redemption stories, and unlike other creatures living on this earth, we have been given the ability to think critically. But when it comes to something as simple as death, we seem to jump onto the middle of an invisible fence. Some of us feeling justified in deciding weather a man or a woman deserves to live or die; while another faction feels that this is something we should have no power over. And within these two groups, there used to be a minority of people who felt so strongly about their ability to dictate someones life, that they cheered the death of those they felt deserved it. But as the years progress this kind of toxic thinking seems to be spreading across America. It makes me wonder, have we become the generation of the bloodthirsty?
The numbers do not lie, and since 1976 we have executed 1267 people. In the justice system we call it execution, when we do it for Oil, or foreign policy we call it war, but when it is done in the streets we call it murder, as if there is a big difference. A life taken no matter what you call it, is a life that can never be returned, and for every man or woman that we "Execute" we take one step further away from our own humanity. We become drunk, and show too much Hubris. We rob someone of the chance to reform their lives. There are people who have been put to death, and I am sure that years later we will find out that they were innocent all along, there are also those who without a shadow of a doubt were one hundred percent guilty of their crimes, but because we could not look beyond our own sense of justice, we never gave them a chance to change.
Troy Davis is just one example of a possibly innocent man who lost his life. There have been hundreds of men and women who have lost their lives, and for too long we sat back and done nothing. Do not let the frustration and the pain from tonight become a blazing fire that dies out once the next sensation stirs into the media. We as human beings have no right to play God, let us find a way to save these lives before we take it from them, and in the process lose our souls.
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