My mother’s birthday was going to fall in the middle of the week, so I decided to drive down to Muskogee for the weekend to celebrate it with her. Saturday, we drove to Tulsa, and we went shopping for her a birthday present. Afterwards we had lunch a Macaroni Grill. Since it was such a nice day I decided to take the slower way back to Muskogee rather than the turnpike.
As we were nearing her house traffic on US 69, a major artery, came to a stop. After a while we began to inch forward. I could see three ambulances near the intersection; two different fire department vehicles had passed us as well as a multitude of police vehicles.
We finally inched forward enough to see the actual intersection. There was a mass of something lying in the road. I was having a hard time ascertaining exactly what it was. As an aside, I hate rubber-neckers. In another life, as part of my duties with the Health Department I worked accident scenes that involving semis carrying food. Gawkers frequently caused problems, and in one instance nearly killed me. Anyway, since we were not moving, I continued to stare. The mass of metal finally came into focus as the remains of a motorcycle. I looked a little further up the road, and I could see a pair of booted legs sticking out from underneath a tarp.
This put a damper on what had otherwise been a pleasant day. One wondered about the dead person on the road. My mother talked about that he was someone’s son. Having five boys, I’m sure that accidents of this nature were something she spent more than a little time worrying about.
We had no clue as what or who else was involved in the wreck. We had no clue as to the cause of the wreck. We did know at least a partial result of the episode. It was a reminder to me of the capricious nature of life. It left a feeling of sadness in me for the untimely death of this human. I wondered about folks that he left behind, about lives that would be affected by his death.
In the Sunday paper the next day was a story about the accident and a picture of what had been a motorcycle. The dead person was a 36 year old man. The story went onto say that he had been speeding on a stolen motorcycle, ran the red light and smashed into a pickup progressing through the intersection legally. The pickup was driven by another thirty-something and his teenage daughter was riding with him. She suffered only minor injuries, but they had to transfer the father from the Muskogee hospital to a Tulsa hospital because his injuries were so severe. It went on to mention that the motorcyclist was not wearing a helmet.
It bothered me, but somehow the fact that he was on a stolen motorcycle and driving insanely made it less depressing. Dead is dead, why should my emotions switch like this with the additional facts of his irresponsibility? Did it somehow make his demise justified?
Later that day I went over to visit my cousin and I was telling him about the accident I saw Saturday. He remarked that he had read the article in the paper, and went on to say that he knew the man’s mother. She worked as a hair technician at a local facility for the physically challenged.
Now my emotions were back the other way. There once again was a human connection to this corpse in the middle of the highway. He was indeed someone’s son. His death was going to affect at least one person in a very negative way.
My brother and I went to a bluegrass festival Saturday night, and during the ride he told me a story about a truck driver they let go from his place of employment. He had stolen a tractor and trailer and several other things from the business. They managed to recover most of the items but not all.
My brother called Monday to tell me about karma. The business that he works for sits on the corner of the intersection where the accident we witnessed happened. He reminded me of the story he had told about the stolen tractor. It turns out the motorcyclist was their theft. He went on to tell me about some facts that were not brought out in the newspaper article. He had only recently been released from jailed pending trial on charges on other stolen property. He was being chased by the Muskogee police at the time of the accident. And the most gruesome of all, he was decapitated during the collision. My brother went to postulate that from the few days he worked with him, he believed him to have a drug habit.
Now I was back to not knowing how to feel about this death. Part of me was saying it was genetic selection, and not a bad thing this individual was out of the gene pool. Part of me was horrified by his gruesome death. Part of me felt for a mother who was surely grieving the loss of his son. Did this individual have children? Were there other significant others in his life?
All this back and forth on my feelings about this person’s death got me to thinking about how we put value on human death and life.
How does the human race as a whole value life? If you consider humanity’s behavior over history, I would say there is little or no value placed on human life and an individual death is without significance. We have a history of slavery, genocide, oppression, and a myriad of other degradations of people. Is it that as long as the species continues, the individual does not matter? Generals and leaders though history have been willing to send legions of humanity to their death for no better reason than to increase the leader’s power or wealth.
How does the corporatacy value the individual or general population? Current events and history indicate to me that if there is any valuation from the top of the “masses” it is in so far as they can aid our leaders in maintaining power and wealth. Populations are to be manipulated, controlled, coerced, or oppressed, whatever it takes to do so. Workforces are valuable only so long as shareholders profit and executives take home their seven and eight figure bonuses. Not only do corporations not value the individual, they do not value our society. They are quite willing to shifts jobs to anywhere on the globe where they can find the lowest bidder, regardless of the consequences where the jobs had been.
How does religion value life? It strikes me that several are so focused on the after life that life here has little meaning. Many seem to value members of their own religion, but find members of other religions valueless or worse. Religions, over history, have been willing to oppress, excommunicate, or exterminate individuals or populations that challenged their power or the status quo.
The question is, as an individual, is that if all these societal forces do not value life or an individual death, should I?
When I was younger I was adamantly opposed to the death penalty. I still don’t believe it is much of a deterrent, but at the time I did not see where the state had an ethic right to kill someone.
Then I begin think about many of the folks on death row. The value that they had put on human life, at least at some point, was little or none. Why should we value their life anymore, than they valued another person’s life? The thought then crossed my mind as to why, as a society, should we stoop to their level. Back and forth I went.
At one point in my musings about this, I began to consider all the resources being spent to keep these persons in prison, the monies being spent on the legal proceedings, etc. I was weighing this against the resources being allocated to social services, and what a fight it was even to get those resources allocated. Could not these monies be better spread among many needy citizens rather than towards one individual that was a detriment to society? And back and forth I went.
The courts are not infallible, and there have been a number of documented cases and reversal of death convictions in recent years. What price do we pay as a society for executing innocent individuals?
I also begin to consider the situation from my bag of skin. Life imprisonment would be a cruel and unbearable punishment. I would rather be executed than to rot in jail. Do we have a right to make this decision for another individual? Perhaps some folks can find meaning and joy while being locked away with no hope of release. And back and forth I went.
I read once the measure of a man is how he treats a person who cannot do anything for him. I begin to consider the countless transactions I have with individuals through a day, a week, a lifetime. In some manner each of these transactions is a weighing their value by me. Do I treat them respectfully? Do I value the humanity within them? If they treat me disrespectfully, should I value them less as human beings? Do I respect the Buddha nature / the Christ nature within them, no matter what their actions?
There are many questions and so very few answers. We all, at some point, need to make a decision on how we are going live life. Are we going to live an ethical life or not worry about such things? Am I going to treat everyone as I would have them treat me? Am I going to consider each individual important and treat them with respect?
I did not know the individual that died on Highway 69 that Saturday. It strikes me as a senseless, stupid death. I do know that at one time he was a little boy loved by a mother and hopefully a father. I can mourn for a life wasted, for bad decisions made. I can mourn with a mother grieving the loss of a son. I can forgo judging this person and mourn the loss an individual that may have turned his life around at some point. To not mourn a senseless death and a twisted life would lessen my humanity. Like so many things in life it comes down to an individual making a decision on how to live and approach ones own life. I choose to respect the Buddha / Christ within this man.