Dexter
I'm offering this opinion in response to your observations but intend that if anyone takes the time to read it...that it's meant as a general analysis. The parole board is an instrument of government. It is an arm of the judiciary that is tasked with the responsibility of adjudicating the risks and/or propriety of releasing convicted criminals back into the population.
These folk are people and are just as (I hope) conflicted about the task before them in terms of Robert Latimer as are all the thoughtful folk here at CC that have contributed their views and opinions.
There may come a time when dreadful diseases and chronic illness are no longer a life sentence to unrelenting pain and suffering. Unhappily we have yet to see the dawn of that marvellous day. We haven't made the psychological or cognitive leap that would give the uninvolved a sense of what it may be like to experience and endure the concomitant suffering of those who watch as their loved ones are wracked with agony despair and hopelessness. We are by any reasonable metric bound to the "Christian" ideation of death, dying, murder, suffering and our palette of responses to these life-altering experiences are programed and conditioned by "beliefs".
Our focus as a society and as individuals has been manipulated to serving self-interest ahead of everything else. The logical 'conclusion' that this combination of thinking establishes in the minds of average every-day folk is that the judgment that serves as most accurately reflecting the moral responsibilities of our self-interest and our beliefs is the standard against which every behavior ought to be measured.
Alone certainly but in combination these two conceptual 'models' dictate that the response to these kinds of situations and questions is something reserved for the end of things, for the final and concluding moments of circumstances. We acknowledge that we react to situations, sometimes with great courage and self-sacrifice and sometimes with anger fear and helplessness.
Despite having made significant advances in recognizing the legitimacy and appropriateness of many ideals and social constructs that only a few short decades ago were regarded as inviolate, we are changing. We embraced the notion that a womans gender ought not disqualify her from participation in elections nor should a persons skin color preclude their access to and freedom around the very same social instruments and vehicles that every other person regardless of their skin pigmentation enjoys.
We rather flippantly and with far too little consideration in my opinion are ready to invest in war and violence to achieve aims and outcomes of dubious value and have in the past twenty years done so without studied regard for the impact of pursuit of some particular 'end' irrespective of the 'means' employed.
These folk sitting on parole boards aren't versed in latitudinal thinking nor do we encourage anything but the linear in our governments and our social institutions, hence we are always dealing with entirely foreseeable situations that we also find ourselves poorly equipped to confront.
Our society has always demanded victims. We allowed ethnic groups to be victimized by our greed and our patriotism from the birth of this nation right up to and including today and yes we still have great difficulty confronting these blights on our societies. When epilepsy was interpreted as demonic possession, and what are now recognizeable and treatable conditions stupified the caregivers of years ago we warehoused these poor people in near dungeon like settings without regard for their most basic needs and development. We need to establish and foster a dialogue among our community leaders and everyone willing to invest even a moment in considering how we need to change our perceptions of 'social appropriateness' when it comes to euthanasia and self-directed suicide.
Robert Latimer is a criminal only because he (and many others) don't have an alternative he could offer to his daughter. The failure is ours. Unless we are prepared to examine and debate the issues like those that faced Robert Latimer and re-write our laws and educate our judiciary with reasoned and de-mysticized sobriety, we will continue to victimize others for no better reason than our own unwillingness to confront our mortality with dignity and grace.
We are all sitting waiting for parole not just Robert Latimer.
