October 25, 2002

According to this msnbc article,

According to this msnbc article, the only countries that allow government executions of juveniles:

  1. Iran
  2. Pakistan
  3. Nigeria
  4. Saudi Arabia
  5. Yemen
  6. Democratic Republic of Congo
  7. United States of America

I have to admit, I tend to roll my eyes at shock-value out-of-context statistics. But come on.

This article has a lovely closing, by the way. "Sometimes they are just evil." Aaargh. Maybe I wouldn't have been as bothered by it 18 months ago, but all the post-9/11 stuff has made this a sore point for me.

Even though I might seem otherwise, I'm not someone who believes that the most depraved (in our eyes) members of society are simply these poor misunderstood souls that can or should be "saved". I'm actually comfortable with seeing some souls as just inherently different than others, or soulless, or consciousless, or empty, or very, very, very different than human, or deserving a very different "right place" for themselves than I would have for myself. But what frustrates me about the "Ah, they're just evil..." response is that it sweeps aside much more than just the supposed need to validate the criminal. It sweeps away our emotional response to what the criminal represents, it sweeps away our analysis of the criminal's effect on our common surroundings, and it sweeps away our duty to look at what enables that criminal to exist in the first place. It's lazy and it pisses me off.

I have this theory that when someone volunteers a pat answer to an upsetting concept and then moves on, they are practicing avoidance inside themselves and are acting out of fear. What a missed opportunity to come to more understandings inside ourselves. To practice what I preach, I think I'll go sit with this for a while... Posted by Curt at October 25, 2002 01:14 AM