How often do people walking down the street, especially those listening to their I-pod, take a moment and say hello to a stranger? Never. Nowadays everyone is scared of one another. We hear of so many atrocities in the news that we can’t even trust our own shadows and people live in a state of anxiety and anger. As I walk down the streets, I notice people with their long faces carrying their bad moods with them everywhere they go. I can’t help to wonder... are we becoming a society full of angry and unhappy people? It seems as if more people everyday are adapting to these new societal norms and nothing good can come out of adapting to a more violent society. Violence is producing its final and most lethal effect. It has become such the normality that we are no longer greatly impacted by it and have therefore lost our ability to recognize its presence.
Violence seems to be very prominent in every aspect of our lives. We are exposed to it both in our everyday reality and through the media. Although the media attempts to portray our daily reality, it is no a secret that it rather presents an inaccurate and incomplete representation. When we turn to the news, we hear about homicides, sexual abuse assaults, robberies, and many other typical representations of violence. But, do we ever hear about the violence provoked and committed by and within our own system? We hear about violence in the streets and violence in other countries, but our most deathly assault, is always unspoken of; the assault of killing someone against their will and taking pride on their suffering. Yes, I speak of the death penalty. How can we allow our government to spend more than $2.16 million to kill a human being?
How can President Bush demand people in other countries to stop killing each other, when he is responsible for so much of the killing happening within our own nation? He proclaims an ideology of peace to other countries, but he acts upon the ideology of “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” on his own nation. Have we forgotten that it is not through revenge that people learn their lesson? Have we given up on the idea of forgive and forget? What about the valuable lesson of putting up the second cheek after someone hits your first one? He claims to be a religious person, but I often ask my self if a religious person would use war as a the vehicle for their ulterior motives. I certainly don't think that the leader of a nation should set the example of violence as the right answer. Now, just as he did in Texas, he is driving people to think that since the leader of our nation believes in death penalty, as it is now a societal norm, perhaps it is the right thing to do. People are getting convinced that violent means are the solution to many problems.
I will never forget what I heard on the radio the day after the Virginia Tech shooting. A lady said “if kids were able to bring a gun to school, less children would die in the case of a school shooting, because someone would shoot the aggressor before he can possibly hurt more people.” I was shocked. It seems as if people have become oblivious to the sad reality of this violent world. How can we get rid of violence if society teaches us that violence is the answer? We need to look beyond the easy way out and realize that fighting back with violence will bring nothing less but more violence.
Any attempt to physically hurt a human life is a violent crime, regardless if it comes from the aggressor, the victim, or any person who wants to take revenge. Violence is never the answer. Perhaps I have a bias opinion because of my background. In Colombia we do not have “pena de muerte,” death penalty. We are not worthy of deciding whether someone’s life is worth living or not. We have no right to judge what makes someone’s life more worthy to live than that of someone else’s. We all commit mistakes, and therefore we all should have an equal chance to redeem our selves and our actions. No one should be deprived of that chance just because our president feels like it.
Please watch this wonderful film called The Life of David Gale that will make you think differently about the death penalty. It is not worth to carry under our belts the weight of revenge just because our government wants us to. We have the right to say no.
If you like to know more about the Death Penalty and its abolition please check out this organization. They fight for human rights and take particular interest in cases of people who are on death row. Please read about the particular story of Troy Anthony Davis, who is an innocent victim of our flawed system.
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