Mahatma Gahndi once wrote, "An eye for an eye and soon the world will be blind." Vengeance is an inescapable aspect of the human psyche. When wrong is done to us or to those whom we love, instinct demands gratification by means of harm to the wrongdoer. We're all wired like that. We almost all certainly felt it the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Even Gandhi, the famed pacifist, was wired to exact revenge on those who brought evil his way. But if the world exacted revenge whenever it deemed necessary and whenever an eye was taken, one would be taken back,we really would be blind. Or at least blind enough to miss out on most things, among them compassion, reasoning and justice.
After two Detroit police officers, Jennifer Fettig and Matthew Bowens, were killed while working on Feb. 16, the issue of legalizing the death penalty in Michigan was again unearthed in the state Legislature. The next day, the state Senate held a moment of silence for the slain officers. On Feb. 18, Rep. Larry Julian, R-Lennon, introduced a measure to allow capital punishment, roughly five years after a similar proposal of his was rejected.
To some, a cop killer is the lowest brand of criminal. For obvious reasons, taking the life of someone sworn to protect and serve us all conjures a taste for swift and deadly revenge to the guilty party. But revenge is revenge. It cannot replace the past, nor can taking life constitute justice in the eyes of impartial law.
James Bowens, father of Matthew, had this to say to The Associated Press when asked about the man suspected of gunning the officers down: "He doesn't deserve to live."
Who does deserve to live? All who uphold justice and abide by law? Is that meant to include the governors of 38 states who permit criminals to be killed on their watch? Eye for an eye. Kill the man who killed two others, and now more lives are lost than the original tragedy afforded.
The families of murder victims are utilizing death as closure to death, which means another family has to grieve the loss of a loved one. But the loved one killed at the hands of the state is presumably guilty of murder - beloved in spite of his or her faults, yet considered the scourge of the Earth by all else. Who is left with blood on their hands?
Murders in the 38 states with capital punishment are not stopping. As long as people are wired to be human, revenge - an eye for an eye - will put the innocent and the not-so-innocent in their graves. The death penalty is revenge, not justice. Justice is keeping innocent people from being murdered in the streets and keeping those innocent from being put to death by the state.
Cost must not factor into the death penalty's existence. Faith that governments are not murdering to free a small piece of the budget should exist and does exist. Capital punishment must not exist for the satisfaction of the bereaved, either. Death as closure to death - it doesn't make sense.
Perhaps it all changes when it happens to your family, though. Perhaps justice and compassion vanish in favor of revenge. Or, perhaps advocates of the death penalty already are blind.
