Posts
While I do not care if a professional athlete (or really, anyone who isn't operating heavy machinery) smokes a joint or if teenagers have protected sex or if a woman chooses not to carry a pregnancy to term, I do believe in morality. I didn't arrive at my sense of morality by the same method as many of the right-wing. I think that someone like Bill O'Reilly would see my morality as defined by secular humanism, and I don't know that I can argue with that.
In particular, I've been thinking a lot about capital punishment lately. I believe that murder is an immoral act, whether committed by a criminal or the state. What does this mean?
For one thing, it means that I will often be accused as being a "soft on crime" liberal because I oppose capital punishment. Why? There is the rational argument that you cannot teach a society that killing is wrong by killing. There is the possibility that the wrong person will be put to death. Now, don't get me wrong: I have little to no sympathy for murders who have been put to death. There are crimes heinous enough that I believe the perpetrator should be locked up for the rest of their life. I just fail to see what we accomplish when we kill for punishment, for retribution in the name of the people.
It also means that I'll be accused of being a pacifist. I am not. There is much to admire about pacifism, but ultimately, I find it to be unrealistic in a world run by human beings. Pacifism would not have taken down Adolf Hitler. Still, isn't it murder to lead your country into an unjustified war? There are over 4000 of our soldiers, and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis dead because of the unjust war in Iraq. My moral compass sees no difference in the immorality of these deaths as those of 9/11.
Liberalism is, in its essence, about morality. This is why I consider myself a liberal, and this is why liberals stand opposed to murder.
