By Edwin Cooney
"Everyone knows," declared Archie Bunker to his son-in-law Michael Stivic, "that capital punishment is a well-known detergent to crime."
Mike shoots back: "Capital punishment has never been a deterrent to crime.”
Of course, Archie was wrong and Mike was right. Three hundred eighty school shootings since the April 20th 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School is ample testimony that too many murderers are willing to give their lives so long as they obliterate the lives of their victims and ruin the lives of their friends and families.
What this does to those of us who have often smugly and righteously ridiculed the Archie Bunkers of this world is to amplify that we are no closer to ending the scourge of murder in our country or in any country in the whole wide world.
Christianity is no solution — just ask the Jews, Muslims, and early Protestants. Judaism is no solution. Just ask Palestinians and Muslims about Judaism's tolerance. Islam is no solution. Ask the Kurds of Eastern Turkey and beyond.
What turned me around on the usefulness of capital punishment was James McLendon's 1977 novel “Deathwork" in which one of the four inmates about to run into "Old Sparky" observed to the officer about to lead him to his death: “Legal murder is the only permanent solution humankind has come up with to solve its social dilemmas. There is no solution to hunger, racism, unhappiness, disease. The only solution to some death is more death.
"Adolf Hitler believed that humankind is naturally a fighting animal and that Germans must be superior to other nations in fighting and conquering in order to prevail.
“Never mind," says the Great Satan, whoever he or she may be. "Give me your life and you can have everything else. According to scripture, Satan offered exactly that to Jesus during Jesus's 40 days of temptation.”
So, what does that tell us about life?
Is absolutely all that we possess of any real value?
Is it ultimately for sale to the highest bidder??
Does it have any meaning once it's over?
If life is only due to a specific mixture of scientific happenstances, what meaning does it have above scientific curiosity?
What governs humankind's capacity for curiosity? I insist that curiosity is spiritual by nature. (Not until the recent development of artificial intelligence has any mechanical device demonstrated a capacity for curiosity!)
Back in the early 1990s, someone went into a San Francisco office building and shot his wife, a couple of her friends and himself. That was the precise moment I realized how pointless and meaningless capital punishment was and is.
So, I was right! All I have to say is: BIG DEAL!
Ultimately, what matters isn't whether we're right or wrong about the political and social issues we are faced with as human beings. What matters is how we use our rightness or wrongness regarding matters of principle. If we use our capacity to be right as a weapon, even as we preach righteousness, we're ultimately wrong.
What human beings all over the world need is a new paradigm regarding life and death. Is death the opposite of life or is life death a continuance of life? I suggest that death is a continuance of life since death cannot exist without life!
At birth, we're invariably indoctrinated to fear death, yet we've learned about the world as explorers, scientists, astronauts, hikers, and swimmers despite death’s presence as a possibility in these ventures. Death, like any other force, is dangerous when it becomes a weapon. However, death can and has yielded when it is is merely a possibility in essential ventures.
Opposition to capital punishment is not wrong until it's weaponized. However, it may be said to be weaponized when it is used to outlaw the legitimate use of guns which, for the most part, has practical uses. (Note: assault weapons are an exception to the normal classification of a gun.)
Almost all of us defy death until its immediate appearance endangers the lives of those who matter to us the most.
When death threatens the well-being of those we love the most, we endorse death by being willing to wear it forever!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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