What's Going On?

Today, another innocent child is dead. They had searched for him for a week, along the way arresting a next door neighbor (a previously convicted child molester), both of the man's parents, and a family friend, for obstruction of justice. I'm sure murder charges are soon to follow.

Every day there seems to be another horrible story of a child being callously slaughtered for the so-called "pleasures," "obsessions," or as the outlet for pent up frustrations and rage of other adults. I see these crimes and I think of all the ones that have come before. I think of how many of these crimes are perpetrated by the child's own parents, the one's who are supposed to be willing to move heaven and earth to protect that which should be most precious to them. My own anger and pain at these heinous crimes tell me that if any crime in the universe is deserving of the death penalty, this is it. I don't know if it's right. I don't know if its wrong. All I do know is that there is NEVER an excuse for the murder of a child, and that there's no prison or punishment that we can concoct that would ever measure up to this heinous crime.

But is the death penalty an act of revenge? Is it a leftover from our barbarian past? Is there ever a case where one murder justifies another? Even I feel nothing but sorrow and disgust when I see people celebrating the death of another, like after the execution of Saddam Hussein. The taking of another life should never be trivialized, is never worthy of rejoicing. Because of the nature of the world we live, and because there are those who would do us harm, sometimes the act of murder is the last but only resort left to us. Police officers and soldiers deal with this possibility every day, and sometimes even we civilians find ourselves with such choices before us. As I say in my book Phoenix Tales: Stories of Death & Life, life and death are like two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other.

But when one knowingly, willfully takes a life, particularly the life of a child, are we supposed to simply tolerate such an act? I know we have the ability to incarcerate a person for the rest of his or her life, but does this in any way address the issue at hand? Does it deter others from doing this, or does it merely remove one tiny shark from a sea of predators?

My point isn't to champion the death penalty, or to cry for revenge. My point is that something is horribly wrong with our world when we continuously hear stories of children dying at the cruel hands of adults, and we all need to get off of our asses and start seeking and demanding answers. I know fate plays a role, and often things happen that we can't explain, but if you could trace backwards along the path of all involved, you would find the choices that led you down the path toward the fate you wound up facing. Make sense?

There's a threat just as deadly as avian flu, just as real as cancer, that's going on in our society here and now and while the death penalty is undoubtedly not the solution, if given the choice between that and nothing, I admit I would choose the poor excuse for "something" the death penalty provides. But I believe there are other, better options, more viable and effective solutions. Ways to stop future murders without resorting to present-day murders. The question is what are those alternate solutions, and whether we are doing enough as a society to find them.

All I know is that this trend needs to stop, and by whatever truly effective means necessary, whether it be the death penalty, a societal-wide change in how we raise our kids, or psychological evaluation and counciling for every human before the age of eighteen. Bottom line is that we need to save the children of tomorrow by doing something NOW!

- GBB