The United States faces many controversies, we are surrounded by differences no matter what the topic is. Americans get into such heated conversations about what they believe is going on in the 21st century, but what about the thoughts of the great influential people that have made our history what it is. If they were alive today, what would they be thinking? They may be amazed about the technology we have, or disappointed in how our economy is run and possibly even civilization itself.
Let’s travel back in time to England in the 1600’s, when King James died on March 27, 1625 , immediately following his death his 2nd son took over his reign, Charles I . Charles was born on November 19, 1600 in Dunfermline Palace, he had two siblings who survived birth, Elizabeth Stuart and Henry Fredrick. He outlived his siblings and took over the throne in 1625, that same year he married Henrietta Maria on June 12, 1625 at the Canterbury Cathedral. Unfortunately due to the complications his father left him with after his death, Charles had to deal with Parliament.
Due to these difficulties he decided to disband Parliament for 11 years. After Charles and Henrietta’s first child passed away, they were gifted with a Son, named Charles, even though Henrietta was a catholic, it was declared that their children would be educated in the Church of England. King Charles raised the Ship Money Tax and had strict rules about religion, which caused his people to get extremely irritated. After this he sought help from Parliament when he lost The First Scottish War, but Parliament declined his offer.
Immediately after he was desperate, he was running extremely low on money and had to recall Parliament. In 1682, a Civil War broke out with King Charles and Parliament, and by May 1646, Charles surrendered. As a result of the war, in 1684 King Charles was convicted of treason and was beheaded the next year. Furthermore, if King Charles was alive in the United States during the 21st century he would realize that it is obviously extremely different than England in the 1600’s.
He would also have many thoughts, such as The United State of America has definitely advanced in technology, medicine, its military power, education and freedom. Due to the Constitution, United States citizens have freedom and many rights that they can exercise. Such as the right to a prompt by fair trial by jury, to vote, to apply for federal employment requiring U. S. citizenship, to run for elected office, freedom to pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness freedom to express yourself and religion, to express yourself and most importantly, freedom of religion.
Many people in the past would only dream of this “utopia”, to be “completely free” and express everything possible. Anyone can express religion, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Atheism and Catholicism. There are so many different religions in the world, and American citizens have the choice to choose whatever they want. They’re billions of Catholics on this planet, just like Henrietta Maria. The Catholic faith has similar beliefs to Christianity, they believe in the bible, baptism, the Holy Trinity, and try their hardest to follow the Ten Commandants.
One of the Ten Commandment is “You shall not murder”. However, it is a controversy in the United States about the death penalty. Many argue that America should abolish the death penalty, but others argue that the U. S. A needs to keep it in order to maintain order. Americans always say that life is precious, it can be taken away at any point and yet they take it for granted. Society gets into huge protests and express their feelings about abortions, but when the United States government uses the death penalty all of a sudden they stand with them and rally.
We are all human, we make mistakes, and we have flaws. However, these citizens getting sentenced to the death may have mental problems, but why is it that the United States government refuses to talk about it. Is the U. S. A too proud to let people know that some individuals are mentally ill? Studies have shown that in 2014, one out of every five American adults experience a mental health issue. Also, one in twenty-five Americans live with a serious mental condition, such as schizophrenia. This is a condition that causes hallucinations, misapprehensions, paranoia, and so much more symptoms.
That amount has probably increased since 2014, and the death penalty rates increased with it. In 2015, there has been 353 mass shootings, with 462 people killed and 1,312 injured and these numbers aren’t even all of it. The main question is, what overtakes these citizens to go to extreme measures and take someone else’s life? It can be because of a mental illness, but experts may never find out the reasoning to their ways. Society deems their actions as coldhearted, disgusting and most importantly, worthy of the death penalty. The death penalty in the 21st century is not anything like how it was in the 1600’s.
We don’t use the guillotine or an axe, we are much more sophisticated now. Now the United States government uses lethal injection, electrocution, firing squad, the electric chair, the gas chamber and hanging. A United States citizens can be executed for many reasons, such as treason, terrorism, and so much more. If they commit any of these improper crimes in certain states they will be sent in front of a judge, tried and possibly be sentenced with the death penalty. In certain states, they still have the death penalty, such as a majority of the southern and the north western states.
However, is the death penalty really morally correct to use if Americans study religion where it is unjust to kill another human being? We learned that King Charles in favor of the Church of England, consequently he was considered an Anglican. Anglican is similar to the Christian faith. If he were alive today he would see that we, as Americans, are not perfect people. We make bad decisions and need to suffer the consequences of our actions. Nevertheless, taking a person’s life is not the answer. The United States government should think of a worse way to “murder” someone.
Instead of killing, why doesn’t America’s government just keep these sick people and lock them in a room with no human interaction. This would be worse than killing them because of the fact that if they stay alive, they have to live with the guilt of what they have done and that’s worse than death itself. In conclusion, their punishment would be not to die, but to live with their guilt. If King Charles was alive today he would agree that what he did do his country was wrong. As well as if he had to live with his guilt until his death bed, he wouldn’t be able to handle the emotional stress that it would bring.
The death penalty, though Americans feel like it is the best way to resolve someone who has done something unforgivable, we can make them feel a much worse pain. The pain of living and seeing all the wrong that they have done, with no way to fix it and see the pain they have brought to innocent people. Publilius Syrus once said, “The pain of the mind is much worse than the pain of the body”. Furthermore, if King Charles was still alive he would agree that the death penalty should be banned from the United States.
