This is from LNP Lancaster, Pa., not far from Philadelphia, Pa..
Letters to the editor
Society’s role in stopping crime
When we are making decisions such as how to deal with convicted criminals, we must remember that these people are us. We are all one. However, anything destructive is working against life and must be dealt with. Destructive individuals should be allowed to experience the results of their actions and should be allowed to make any corrections they wish to make.
Our young delinquents are not delinquents by nature. They are neglected and they know it, and so they take their anger out on society. The solution is to provide them with loving attention. Society must change to do this.
There is a spiritual side and a practical side to every situation. It’s nice to allow everyone to do whatever they choose to do. That said, if a mass murderer is running around, then, from a practical perspective, the mass murderer must be stopped and society must be protected.
Whatever works in any situation is the way to go. As with everything in life, we are constantly evolving. From a practical perspective, we can’t go from today’s mass incarceration to incarcerating no one. Over time we will get there but, for now, we must protect society by incarcerating violent criminals. And we should try to rehabilitate them, not punish them, as best as we can
Allowing violence to be normalized
“Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.”
Yeah, right. Talk is cheap. How do you evangelical Christians sleep at night?
How do you sleep knowing that, as I see it, you allowed your country to slaughter well over 1 million Vietnamese human beings — all purportedly as retribution for the relatively piddling Gulf of Tonkin incident?
“Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also’’ (Matthew 5:39). That is verbatim how your God instructed you to respond.
Do you truly appreciate just how beautifully magnanimous your God is? (Apparently, you don’t.) You defied those majestic words, permitting a slaughter instead.
Then, subsequently, hundreds of thousands more human beings in the nation of Iraq were likewise slaughtered. And many of you remained silent. Absolutely no one in that country was responsible for 9/11, and no Iraqis ever otherwise attacked you nor me. But, even if they had, your God has explicitly told you how to handle such a situation.
Slaughter is never an option. Violence only begets more violence. Today, Russia attacks and slaughters civilians in Ukraine, following the blood-soaked precedent that I believe you allowed to be set.
Perhaps if, over the years, you had pulled your heads out of the sand and had paid less attention to the potential life contained in the womb and instead paid more attention to the death and suffering inflicted upon actual living, breathing human life (much of it caused by your acquiescence), maybe the result would now be different.
Just how do you sleep?
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