NSA SURVEILLANCE = CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

NSA Surveillance = Capital Punishment.  The solution to many dilemmas in this life ends up being a balance between two opposing positions.  For me, the issues of NSA Surveillance boundaries and the use of Capital Punishment fall into this category; I see them as roughly moral equivalents.

In a perfect world, answers to difficult and emotionally-charged questions would be much easier to obtain.  A universe of absolutes, where there is a bright line between right and wrong, where the gray areas are few and small, where certitude is a tried and true commodity…that would be a much easier place in which to govern.  Unfortunately, that does not describe our nation.  The line between right and wrong has become blurred to the point of indistinction,  gray areas have pretty much obscured those rare areas of black and white, and certitude in anything (and I do mean anything) is likely a mistake of monumental proportion.  It typically implies a nearness to death, the prattle of a politician, or the bloviating of a fool.

There is no question in my mind that there are crimes so heinous that they warrant the death penalty; the forfeit of one’s very life for the abuse they have knowingly perpetrated on another.  The problem lies in the system that doles out that retribution.  Too many cases, no matter their statistical significance, of innocent individuals being incarcerated and subsequently released due to later-discovered evidence, are occurring.  One has to wonder how many people have been put to death for crimes they never committed. Like it or  not, we live in a society where the quality of legal defense is in direct proportion to the resources one has to purchase said legal defense.  Equal justice is a goal; not a reality.  Until our courts can demonstrate a level of trust and competence that inspires sufficient respect to make rulings on the life or death of an individual, a lifetime of incarceration should be our most severe penalty under the law.

Similarly, it is foolish not to recognize that America and all she stands for is in a life and death struggle with forces from foreign lands (and sometimes within our borders) that want to see our way of life and governance diminished and/or destroyed.  When federal agencies are detailed the task of protecting us from that threat, they need all the possible resources and support available to do their job; the very future of our nation hinges on their success.  However, when you grant absolute power to anyone, any department, or any agency, that power will inevitably corrupt and will inevitably be abused by those without ethics or morals.  When I balance the threat of terrorism against my personal liberty and understand that the custodian of my sacrifice is someone like the Obama administration, I will take the chance on terrorism every time.  Any person paying attention to how poorly our past Administrations (both Republican and Democrat) have performed in selecting leaders to run their information-gathering efforts must take pause. 

We do not live in perfect world.  Until we do, when we are asked to make sacrifices as precious as life or personal liberties, we have every right to consider who will administer that sacrifice.   To date, our courts and governments have proven woefully inadequate in that regard.