Our one-size-fits-all way of life today

Mental health professionals used to believe that all children were born with the same potential to be good, moral, peaceful and law-abiding adults. Only as scientific research progressed to a better understanding of brain chemistry and how its function, have we come to realize how that picture was naive. Some of us have been able to alter our understanding as to what our system can do to change some of the problems we see in our society.

While I consider myself a compassionate human, I realize that good and talented people will die because we have not yet found a cure for cancer, ALS and other causes of death. We have not found a cure for pedophilia, sociopathy, and the very serious crimes those conditions inflict on our society. Instead, we warehouse criminals, creating a Hell on earth, and taking away resources from others who could use them to make our society a far better place. We have come to view a 'one size fits all' view of life.

Being the daughter of people who were born in Europe at a time when infants born with serious physical defects were killed on the spot (there were no hospitals and people worked so hard just to survive, such a child could not have been cared for) it is impossible for me to understand those who value life of any human being equally. Many people care not that an unwanted child will be ill-cared for or grow up to take life away from many others. Abortion has come to be viewed as critical to save a life, though many more may be destroyed or irreparably damaged by that action and that life may not be a Beethoven but a serial killer.

An article in today's BBC news brought up a conflict for me. Since the UK no longer uses the death penalty, it suggests that if this predator is found, he will not be put to death penalty, no matter how many lives have been ruined. Authors have tackled the subject but there remain those who cling to the hope that rehabilitation is possible for everyone, that 'finding God, Christ, or some other savior' will have them cease their criminal behavior and will a useful life again though that life may be spent imprisoned until death.

When we raise so many of our children in poverty in the USA today, supposedly the richest country in the world, in order to fight a useless war in Iraq for oil, we are killing our own with no conscience in doing it. Yet, we do not think we can kill the perpetrators of heinous crimes. Instead, we must pay huge amounts to warehouse them with others who grow to hate our citizens for putting them there. While 38 of the 50 states have the right to serve capital punishment, public opinion makes it rarely used, except in Texas where Bush, the 'compassionate' leader, who disallows abortion, found no difficulty in putting to death many people later found to have been innocent. A classic case of the wrong place, wrong time appears in a Texas paper. However, there are criminals about whom there is no question of guilt. In the late 70s one such man, Gary Gilmore, fought for his right to be executed.

Will we ever gain some sort of balance and discretion in our society?