I find it interesting that many people can be in favor of or against one, and maintain the opposite position with regard to the other. To me, ending life is ending life and consequently both abortion and the death penalty are wrong.

I do consider myself to be open-minded in that I will listen to and evaluate any position, so I am interested in any comments you may have.

Thanks.

If interested there are two groups that I know of Lifelines and Human Writes. Both have websites as far as I remember.

I’m looking forward to you addressing the issue of the “mentally impaired” and the insane. I have some thoughts of my own about this having read Elaine’s comments. My first thought is that the way of the world is insanity in itself, so who is to judge another insane? Which one of us has absorbed none of the insanity that the world shows us? Even my son Samuel who is not quite a year old has clearly learned some insane approaches to life from his parents.

Keep up the good work, Erin.

Justice… I believe in restorative justice, not retibutive. For more information on that, read this article:

The mentally impaired: That’s a subject that would take more than a comment to address so I will add it to my list of topics to blog about. Good question though!

Also, I’m not saying all criminals should be put on an island or relegated to isolation, just the very violent ones. And I think they should stay there until they can peacefully enter society once again.

The system is broken at many levels. We as a society need to address the underlying issues of why people commit crimes. We need to use our resources towards prevention, not cures. But in the meantime, we don’t have the right to kill people just because we’re not sure what to do with them.

And what about the clinically insane, who even in your utopia couldn’t be rehabilitated? Are they locked up? Let loose on an insland with other murderers? Let loose on an uninhabited island with supplied airdropped once a month? Compassion dictates that they are taken care of, but how do you take care of somebody whose brain is flawed, who gets kicks out of torturing and killing things?

All of this leads me to yet another question — how is a morally conscious person supposed to deal with crazy people? How should we as a society treat the people that are insane and harm others? Insane and harm themselves? Insane but harmless, like the poor souls wandering around San Francisco?

And what is your interpretation of justice? How can amends be made for different crimes? What can make up for terminating a life, sexually abusing somebody, gaining and abusing the trust of the public — things that don’t have any comparable monetary value?

And is teaching our children compassion enough to make up for not teaching them consequences? Or is it that we need to redefine suitable consequences for actions, like how you redefined “eye for an eye”? Which kind of goes back to — what is justice?

I’m sorry for so many questions, but I’m not being facetious, I really am interested in hearing what you think, if you have the time. :’(