posted on June 14, 2001 12:30:18 PM new
Why must people be such absolutists?
I said that I would feel the fault would be in large part my own. I did not say that the responsibility was entirely my own. It would be in large part my own because I accept that as father to my child I am more responsible for her upbringing than others. I accept the responsibility that my daughter's moral development is as much my task as her physical and mental development.
If I were to argue that I was not in large part responsible for my child's upbringing and her subsequent actions then how could I ever accept the argument others make that other forces bear some of the responsibility for their actions?
Some folks here have argued that Timothy McVeigh was trained to kill by the government. That his concept of acceptable collateral damage was instilled in him by the government. And that because the government was partially at fault for his actions and since it will not accept that responsibility then it has no right to punish McVeigh.
Do folks see the logical contradiction in this that I see? If you believe that the government was partially responsible then I suggest you do what you can to force the government to accept that responsibility rather than taking the approach that since a perfect world does not and cannot exist, then anything is excusable.
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I do not believe that one's sense of repsonsibility is determined by late arriving external forces. I think it is something that is instilled in a child from the moment they enter this world and by the people who raise them in their very early, formative years. Because I have a different sense of my responsibilities than another person in a similar sitaution might have does not give me the right to impose my viewpoint on them.
To do so would be the epitome of intolerance.
There is no Parenting 101 textbook. What there is, is simply what you are. You are not merely passing your physical genes on to the next generation. You are also passing on your moral and mental upbringing as it was formed from early on and as your life's experience unqiuely sculptured it.
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I am not opposed to capital punishment. Nor am I a believer in indiscriminate capital punishment.
For folks to reduce every issue to a simple Yes/No question is, I feel, ridiculous and only serves to engender continued misunderstanding, devisiveness and rancor. To the point where the misunderstandings, the devisiveness and the rancor all take on a life of their own.
It happens again and again. Gun control, abortion, capital punishment, politics, euthanasia, sterilization, right to die.
Don't you people ever grow weary of trying to convince others that you have know The Way?
"Suppose it were your child who chose to commit a crime, wherein the punishment was death by execution?"
I do believe I answered that the first time round...
"If my daughter were to commit such a heinous act I would be faced with the realization that the fault was in large part my own. For not raising her properly."
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