Tag Archives: death penalty

16

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Happy b-day to my favorite tall, slender, pale, whispy blonde high school fashionista. A sporadic reader of the blog, right now she’s completely unplugged at church camp near the Canadian border. That means I can call her “pale” and write whatever I want.

I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. Right before she ceremonially set her phone on the kitchen counter and departed for camp I naively asked, “What are you going to miss more, your cell phone or me?” Hope she doesn’t mind if I assume her on-line identity and jump right in to her friends’ texting torrent. Maybe I should update her Facebook page for her.

I’ve always been skeptical of conventional wisdom about teens. Yes, there’s her post-Katrina bedroom, shrugs and grunts over breakfast, and occasional attitude, but the big-picture parenting challenge is to remember that’s superficial stuff.

Scratch below the surface and ask her about her faith, the death penalty, her surviving middle school, her desire to live in another country by herself after college, the five (soon to be six) kids she regularly babysits, or her desire to someday have her own medium-large family.

She’s blossoming into an increasingly competent, thoughtful young woman with nice friends with whom she can be her quirky self. For instance, how many Sixteens rank their friends’ driving? To move up the list she advises, “Don’t be oblivious or careless.” Words to live by.

When it comes to 16, I’m proud of a lot of things including her work with young children and her remembering, when it comes to peer relations, what it feels like to be on the outside looking in.

Watching her blossom is a great joy.

Right to Bear Arms

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The “Washington sniper” has been executed and Fort Hood’s Hasan is probably next. IF I understand correctly, here’s what the right would have us believe about these heinous crimes and how best to prevent future tragedies of their ilk. Mental illness is an excuse concocted by public defenders simply trying to save the lives of their clients. We’d greatly reduce violent crimes if we’d apply the second amendment right to bear arms so that private citizens (or members of the military on bases) can defend themselves from criminals who carry high powered guns. For every violent criminal there would be thousands of private citizens capable of shooting them dead in their tracks at the first signs of their weapons. We’d further reduce violent crimes (and save money and provide relief to the victim’s families) if we’d put these violent criminals to death more often. Increase executions and make violent criminals think twice before they kill innocent people.

Polling shows U.S. citizens are almost equally divided on the death penalty. I can’t imagine any scenario in which the “right to bear arms/death penalty hawks” are going to convince the “gun control/life in prison doves” to alter their thinking and vice-versa.

What to do?

Maybe we should just divide the country into 25 “hawk” and 25 “dove” states. Pick one representative of each view and have them take turns picking states for everyone else. Since I disagree with almost everything in paragraph one, I nominate myself for the doves, and my first pick is Washington State. Clint Eastwood, representing the Hawks, will no doubt take California which I’m not happy about at all. My second pick, Oregon.

For practical reasons, residents of hawk and dove states will be allowed to travel freely into ideological enemy territory; however, they will have to agree to adapt to life in ideological enemy territory. For example, Clint will have to leave his gun at home when he flies to Seattle and I will have to avoid committing a violent crime when visiting California lest I be fired upon by private citizens and/or executed by Ahrnold. Social scientists can do longitudinal studies on the quality of life in each set of states.

Problem solved. Happy to help.