Say No to the Lie
The Tori Stafford murder trial is generating a good deal of emotional reaction from everyone who is exposed to published accounts of Terri-Lynne McClintic's testimony. Predictably there are calls for reinstating the death penalty in reaction to the case. It would be useful to identify the lies being put forward here.
All I saw was myself at that age and all the anger and hate and rage and blame I built up towards myself came boiling up out of me.
We have all had impulses to anger based upon some transference of past trauma to present situations. What is the lie here? If you give in to these impulses and vent your anger you will somehow feel better. It never works and the resulting feelings of guilt and shame can send you into a downward spiral.
And yet, upon reading McClintic’s testimony, a common gut reaction is that if what she says is true, she and Rafferty simply don’t deserve to live.
The writer goes on to advocate for a return of the death penalty. The question of the death penalty usually gets raised in response to some horrific crime in which the public becomes intimately aware of the details and emotionally involved. What is the lie here? Oddly enough it is the same as above though experienced through the insulation of official sanction.
There is a theme here to be sure. Abandon reason and give free reign to your emotions and you will feel better. Humans have always struggled with this predilection to addiction of one kind or another. We used to call it concupiscence and it is the direct consequence of original sin. Pander to it and you can sell newspapers. Much of the coverage of the murder trial has an almost pornographic feel to it affording people the opportunity to feel a host of emotions.
Rather than sit here and indulge my emotions, I am going to stop now and offer a prayer for the soul of Victoria Stafford, the two who ended her life and last of all for myself... that I might be granted the grace to say no to the lies in my own life.
1 comment:
Thanks for posting these reflection. The whole sordid media coverage is voyeuristic.
While each and every one of us has to be responsible for our actions, it cannot be denied that we also do not live in a vacuum, and that, as social creatures, we are influenced by our society.
The media/Hollywood should examine what role they play as "enablers" of crimes that involve drugs and pornography. It is well known that quite a number of serial killers, as well as child killers were addicted to pornography, many times child pornography. Yet the media will "enable" to pornography industry and condemn as puritanical anyone who challenges this cancer.
When children are physically abused - and rightly so - there is a great clamor" "off to jail", "execute them..." Yet, when children are abused mentally and spiritually. Silence. A few months ago, I happened to turn on the TV to catch the news on Canada's largest private network. Putting in the TV about 2 minutes early, I caught the end of a "musical" production which consisted on nearly nude females (and what clothing they wore was invariably tight and sexually suggestive) and a few men undulating and gyrating to a mechanical beat. The production ended with these same persons ending up covered in "blood". However, the worst part was the audience: screaming pre-teen and early teen girls. Is this not abuse? Is this not sick, degenerate etc.? So yes, the media are enablers. The media plays a vital role in building up, perpetuating and excusing a eroto-maniacal society whose most extreme manifestations are child killers.
Getting back now to one of my pet themes. The problem is with "us", not radical Islam. Is radical islam responsible for the widespread use of drugs, pornography, fly-by shootings, family brake-up etc. etc? No, the problem is us: a sick society enables sick people; sick people constitute a sick society.
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