Help...I'm Conflicted!

This morning’s newspaper featured the unsettling headline story of a man who called 911 in the early morning hours, and gave the dispatcher his address. The dispatcher, no doubt curious as to the reason for the call, asked what was going on. The caller answered (in what has been described as a rather “matter-of-fact” tone), “Well, I just strangled my girlfriend.” Seems they had been in bed together and an argument started. Apparently the caller ended it rather quickly and permanently. A friend of the victim described the perpetrator as a “psycho” and said she had “told her friend that he was going to kill her.”
Sounds like a sweet couple. He, of course, has been arrested. Bail is unlikely.

This brings us to my dilemma. What on earth should society do in this situation? I’ll tell you right now, I’m conflicted. From what little information is provided in the newspaper it seems likely that the guy will spend the rest of his life in jail, or perhaps an institution for the criminally insane. The cost to taxpayers will be significant whatever the outcome.

In the not too distant past, the outcome would be much different. After a perfunctory trial the man in question would be executed by the state. They would push the reset button of this defective human specimen. But in our modern world, we want to know how we as a society have failed this man, and how to make restitution for doing so. Did the killer lack sufficient education, especially concerning morality and proper social responses? I don’t know for sure, but I bet he is deficient in that regard. So the modern response is to institutionalize this killer and attempt to rehabilitate him. Does anyone really think that is going to happen in our under-funded state institutions?

Thus my dilemma: which is crueler, a swift and sure death, or a lifetime of confinement in a hell-on-earth environment? You see, I am opposed to a state-imposed death penalty on moral grounds. Essentially, my feeling is that if it is morally wrong for me to take another person’s life (and under most circumstances it surely is wrong), then why does the state possess the moral right to take a life in return (the moral right of the state is a gray area, the legal right exists in my state)? I know all of the arguments, pro and con, but I was raised with a strong Christian moral code, and whatever my feelings about organized religion, I believe more in the Golden Rule than in “an eye-for-an-eye”. But isn’t the “moral choice” in this case as bad or worse than the “old school” solution? Personally, I’m conflicted, and we haven’t even touched on the ever increasingly important economic aspect of the whole thing.

It’s been said that with age comes wisdom, and I am getting older. I’ve also tried to continuously enhance my education, largely through reading and exposing myself to a wide range of experiences. Yet it seems that the more I know, the more conflicted I become.

I’m conflicted over simple things in life. For instance, I like the low prices at Wal-Mart for a variety of items, such as shaving cream and razors. Yet I know that this company is squeezing out independent grocers (I’ve got a soft spot for family-owned grocery stores) and chain stores alike. I shudder at the thought of Wal-Mart’s lowest-common-denominator style of retailing dominating the market, and eventually taking advantage of the monopoly position it seeks. If I don’t like the store, should I shop there? I don’t know, because I’m conflicted.

Of course, I’m conflicted by larger issues as well. For example, I have met many people, old and young, who serve or have served in the armed forces of the United States. I have found them to be an admirable group of people, some of our finest citizens. They have now and have always had my wholehearted support. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to our first Gulf War, I was outraged by Saddam's hubris, and generally supported the action taken, despite my dislike of military action as a solution. After the 9/11 attacks on our soil, I was incensed, like most Americans, and I longed for revenge.

However, it was here that my constant dilemma reared its ugly head again. Who should be the focus of our collective wrath? The perpetrators died along with their victims, yet those who planned and funded them remained. Despite my aversion to the “eye-for-an-eye” philosophy, I was content that as a nation we had to punish those responsible. The first time an attempt was made to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 (rather unsuccessfully, but six people died and over 1000 were wounded), there was no military reprisal, only police investigations and eventual arrests. However, when it was announced that we were to go to war in Afghanistan, I became conflicted.

Afghanistan has been a wild country, fought over throughout history by everyone from Alexander the Great through the British Empire and the former Soviet Union. Oh and by the way, no one has ever completely tamed it. Rudyard Kipling wrote of a soldier’s prospects of combat there in his poem “The Young British Soldier” saying that it would be better for a soldier to kill himself than to be taken captive there. However, should we shy from our duty just because it is difficult? Our bravest patriots would shout “NO!” and I concur, and least in theory. And so we chose to go to war, not just in Afghanistan, but Iraq as well.

The result has been the overthrow of regimes that were considered undesirable by the majority of what passes for civilized countries in this world. But the wars have also resulted in a terrible toll of death and disfiguring wounds. Some specialists in the field have also speculated that the majority of our American and allied military personnel are returning home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is a terrible price to pay with our youth, and of course leads to my personal conflict. As a nation, we have stated that it is our intention to withdraw our combat forces in the near future, with a new democracy left to govern in our absence.

That thought brings a conflict in my mind. Now I am also a major fan of democracy, and am thankful for our system of government, a democratically elected republic, with three primary branches of government featuring checks and balances. In concept I think it is the best system in the world, but I’ll get back to that. I also recognize that my view is inherently ethnocentric in nature. I cannot help but be influenced in my outlook by my own cultural experience. I am wary of trying to influence the rest of the world based on our culture’s way of doing things.

One of the prime necessities of a democracy, or a democratic republic, is a well-informed electorate. That condition implies a certain level of education. We don’t seem to be doing much in that regard before we pull out of Afghanistan. In fact, we really aren’t doing much in that regard here in our own country.

Our own government is changing from “one person one vote” to “one dollar one vote”. A recent Supreme Court ruling allows unlimited anonymous funding of Super-PACs, so-called political action committees, which have essentially become propaganda machines in support of whatever group funds them, left or right. Apparently our own electorate, the American voter, is influenced by the information, half-truths and outright lies spewed forth in the endless advertisements produced by these groups. I assume this to be the case, since it is doubtful that they would continue to spend the money without result. H.L. Mencken said that “no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public”, a quote that has been extended to include the intelligence of the American public. I have stated before that I think we need to better educate our people. I remain convinced at the necessity of education and personal growth.

A recent rerun on TV’s 60 Minutes detailed the actions of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was also the subject of the movie Casino Jack. He tells of the widespread buying of favors of our politicians. He is only one of many. If these stories don’t trouble you, you must have a significantly larger bank account than I do, or anyone else I know. These tales of political corruption lead to another of my personal conflicts: how can you love your country and your system of government, yet despise the people that you helped vote into office? What do you think?

Am I older and wiser…maybe, maybe not…I seem to be somewhat conflicted.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier ~of~ the Queen! 
                                  -  Rudyard Kipling

The above was probably good advice for the young British soldier of his day, and perhaps the present day as well, but I think the following poem by Kipling offers a bit more hope:

If
If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And treat those two impostors just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, 
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; 


If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breath a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; 


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; 
If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

-  Rudyard Kipling