“The purpose of our lives is to be happy”
The Dalai Lama
And then when Saddam was finally found, Bush calls for his execution. The same President Bush who described himself as a Christian. When Christ witnessed a woman being executed by stoning he said “let he who has committed no sin cast the first stone”, in other words executing people is wrong. Christ’s words. Therefore Bush is not a Christian. Therefore President Bush is a liar. The most powerful man on the planet is a proven liar, and therefore cannot be automatically trusted.
And in any case, is execution a satisfactory punishment for extremely evil people? Which is a worse punishment, being executed or being forced to live out the rest of one’s life without any possibility for release from prison? If execution is worse, why do murderers commit suicide in prison? Execution can be the soft option in any case.
The best option of course is to prevent crimes occurring in the future. Is the purpose of capital punishment to demonstrate a prospect so scary that nobody commits serious crimes? If this is so, then it doesn’t work. If this line of reasoning is pursued, then maybe something scarier should be dreamed up, worse than life imprisonment, worse than execution, and then all crime would be sure to stop. Maybe if we invent a new punishment, call it “Living Hell”. We could tie up the perpetrators, and continually torture them for the rest of their days. Electrocute their genitals, pour agonising chemicals in their eyes, that sort of thing. Keep them on a life support drip so the guilty couldn’t starve themselves to death. No escape, pure hell. Who would dare be bad if they risked receiving that kind of punishment? Good idea? Something jangling inside your head at the idea of such torture? Yes, that would be evil in itself. It is wrong, even if the guilty person were Adolph Hitler, it is still wrong to create such thorough suffering. Part of being human is to have humanity.
And what about this “War Against Terrorism”? Maybe if Britain had stormed the Republic of Ireland Years ago in the same fashion, by the same reasoning, wouldn’t we have been able to stop the IRA? Of course not. Being aggressive in this manner generates terrorism. I’ll believe the “War Against Terrorism” has something going for it when I see the leader of the terrorists sign a declaration of surrender, and when the terrorist attacks stop. Which is not looking hopeful from the way things have been developing.
“Hatred is never ended by hatred, but by love alone. This is an eternal law.”
Buddha
Where does the buck stop for stopping war? We have no right to criticise others until we’re perfect ourselves “don’t judge other people or you might get judged yourself one day!” to quote