#Cold Blooded Murderers: lock them away forever…or maybe just victims? #writingsofashortfatuglyman.wordpress.com

So, it’s happened again, this time in Hartlepool and the British have reacted in the same old way: people surrounding the court screaming abuse, pounding on the side of the prison van, the media suffused with hatred. Why are we like this? Other countries don’t react in this way, this is a time for mourning, for sadness…not hatred. Because not one life was lost on that horrible day, but three! Three important Human Beings have been lost to us forever.

I am a Born Again Christian but also an activist against Capital Punishment. A contradiction certainly. But the Bible, although it advocates  the usage of Capital Punishment for murder doesn’t do so for the same reason as we clamour for it, we are not after justice but revenge! Forget the eye for an eye stuff, that doesn’t apply to you, that was for Moses and the Israelites who were sentenced to wander the desert for forty years without access to courts. No, the Bible urges the usage of Capital Punishment because: it cleanses the ground. And if you don’t understand what that means then consider the hatred unleashed every time it was suggested that Moira Hindley should be released…all that hatred is gone now she’s dead. It’s not to punish the murderer but to remove the hatred from the rest of us.

Two children have been locked away for life. Two children! Sure, I think they were particularly horrible children and I wouldn’t want them in my class but they could have been turned into valuable adults. I think the most telling comments came from a neighbour who told us that his daughter had been playing with them the same morning. He thanked God that she hadn’t been with them that afternoon or, as he said, what might have happened? He hoped she would have run away and phoned the police…but, that’s the question isn’t it? Would she? Would she have had the strength to stand up to her contemporises, to become the outsider? Would she have had the maturity to think of it as more than a game?

We think we know our children, I doubt it. Children are not mini adults, they don’t think like we do, they live in an entirely different world. How many kids have murdered baby animals and laughed at it? How many have bullied a weaker kid to distraction? You don’t even think about it, you just follow on and the leader just keeps reacting to your support by becoming more and more extreme.

I wonder what videos these two girls had been watching? I wonder what filth they were downloading off the Internet…all you people who support the lack of censorship might ponder on that. Two girls who had undergone the most dreadful upbringing, who hadn’t been taught social values. Whose main influences were other kids in care and the social media, turn out wrong. There’s a surprise.

This is not a case for punishment. This is a case for education. Sure, a strictly monitored education like is used in these cases in most of Europe, but still education…in that way maybe we can salvage something from the mess.

I ran into a lady the other morning, did a lot of damage to her lovely new car and it was my fault. She was so cross, shouting and bawling at me. Threatening all sorts of consequences. I’m sure if she had had a gun she would have executed me right there and then. I asked her to stop shouting and she took a breath then lapsed back into the genuinely nice person she was. When she realised how upset I was she gave me a hug and offered to run me home. A nice person indeed. I wonder if when she was a child whether she would have been able to control her emotions in such a fine manner?

So, gentle reader, let me leave you with a question: do you seriously believe, given different influences, it couldn’t happen to one of your kids?