Hi Immie:
And in a way, I have been put in a situation where I was forced to sacrifice life for the sake of free choice. I regret that and wish I had not been coerced and had never entered into that catch-22 situation, but in the end, I understand that free choice is necessary in order to set up a sustainable society by freely informed choice and not purely by blind faith or force of law. (the situation was being emotionallly coerced to have an abortion against my will and my beliefs because of other people's pressures; it made me understand why people would rather prevent this by just making abortion illegal if that's the only thing that could have protected my consent from pressures, including the threat of the father to commit suicide which killed any life connection or spirit I felt at all; however, I have faith that abortion can be prevented by resolving the causes of relationship abuse that lead up to it; that is a superior approach because it solves problems at the root, not criminalizing them after the fact, and the majority of people who are against abortion prove that force of law is not necessary to put an end to abortion since these people believe by free will.)
I support the CHOICE of the death penalty/war/abortion not being illegal, because I believe policies/decisions should be made by CONSENSUS regarding religious issues, or else they should remain private or separated. Since I believe in this standard, then I agree to be under that standard, where such decisions have to be made by consensus including mine.
I believe this is enough to protect me and others from oppression or abuse of the laws to commit injustice, and the reason this failed in the past to protect me from abuse was that people around me and including me were not taught to respect consent as the standard.
Now I find that people who adhere to the standard of consent/consensus most effectively
are more able to invoke or enforce that same standard to the same degree. It is like the Golden Rule. So the more people who discover this standard applies to Civil and Constitutional law enforcement, that you get the justice you give, it raises the standard.
Everyone I know wants their consent protection from oppression or abuse by others,
so this knowledge empowers them to take and share equal responsibility for enforcement.
In the meantime, where people compromise consensus/consent for majority rule in cases of conflict, to the same degree they are willing to impose against others, they indeed should be equally accepting where they get imposed on themselves to that same degree!
I do NOT agree to political bullying by economic or emotional coercion or
majority rule where religious and spiritual issues should be resolved to
include and protect and represent all views equally, under Constitutional laws.
I am not perfect at enforcing this standard, but I commit to it and agree
to corrections or restitution where I fail to meet it, so that just relations can be restored.
Not everyone believes or is at this level of restoring justice and consent of the governed,
but I am willing to work through the process until we can establish a sane
consistent level of law enforcement, by informed consent not by force of law by bullying.
The death penalty is a dangerous expensive mess,
and I believe taxpayers are owed restitution BIG TIME for
the lives and losses it has cost over the years.
If the public were paid back for the cost of violations of "separation of church and state"
by mixing religious laws on capital punishment with state jursidiction and prosecution,
those billions wasted on ineffective, unethical or unconstitutional actions by the state
can be paid back as credits into a fund to cover for health care reform, to build military and teaching hospitals to serve the vets, mentally disabled, and others at risk and in need, so that is what I would propose to the Governors and to the President concerned.
The people who originally committed the capital offenses should pay restitution
instead of charging and punishing taxpayers several times over for the crimes of others,
along with the corruption of private interests making money off the prison contracts.
Criminal abuses and addictions are more effectively treated by medical approaches
as a sickness, that can even be cured by early enough detection and intervention, including spiritual healing that is free and cannot be legislated by the state.
We can't afford to keep paying for problems to escalate.
By pure trial and error, the solutions will rise to public attention anyway.
In the meantime, YES, I am willing to resolve all conflicts by consensus
in order to enforce that model of free choice, which DOES ALLOW the
free choice of abortion, war, the death penalty -- as long as final
decisions are made by consensus since these involve spiritual/religious issues
and cannot be legislated by the state, without consent of all parties, or else it violates religious freedom and equal protection of the laws by imposing a biased decision on dissenters.
The more consistently you defend consent of all parties equally, then people will respect your consent. If you submit to playing the bullying games, then you gamble and get what you give. Good luck with that! I'd rather lose by standing for what is right, then win by compromising. You can lose the battle and still win the war; people have been doing that for years, and when the sacrifices pay off, the credit belongs to them.
I believe I paid a heavy sacrifice to understand the proper process and enforcement of free choice in a democratic system. It has to be by informed consent, not coercion or bullying, and all conflicts have to be forgiven, resolved or corrected in order not to compete but to cooperate fully and freely on mutual solutions despite our differences.
Getting rid of the death penalty or abortion requires changing the whole dynamic of society and relations, where we no longer commit relationship abuse or capital crimes. So we no longer will have capital punishment or abortion either. These things will solve themselves by addressing the real causes of what leads up to them. Totally by free will not by force.
