2005/11/26

Pro-life in all ways

I thought Mother Jones' "Death Row Conversion" (where American Catholics are turning into opponents of capital punishments) was a good reminder for me on how much I have changed for the past year or so. I was a flag waving Republican and supported the standard platform of anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia yet pro-war and pro-death penalty. And when one of my favorite charities turned anti-death penalty several years back, I was a bit upset (but didn't stop donating). However, I didn't give much thought to both war and death penalty until 2004, when I started reading articles at lewrockwell and as I read ones on economics and politics (including anti-war and non-voting) I slowly bought into their arguments. I stopped voting last summer (i.e., before the Nov'04 election) and slowly agreed to anti-war and now anti-capital punishment. I don't recall any one singular point where I did change but the police shooting in London crystalized for me how bad it is to allow state to kill its citizens, especially the innocence ones. How to deal with grevious criminals, I don't have an easy answer...