The Good are Half Bad, and Bad Half Good, so Why Kill all the Bad?

   The radio announcers noted that while some Utahns shun movies with too much sexual content, they think nothing of violence on the screen. And, one of the announcers suggested that despite this acceptance of gore and violence, it hasn't translated into a high violence rate for Utah.
   But, I see one attitude on violence that is transferring from our TVs and movie screens to what happens in Utah. In the movies, the good guy gets his guy, kills him dead and that is quite all right. And, so it is in real life, when the bad guy does something wrong and gets killed in the process, we are quite comfortable with it. Say, some one breaks into a home and gets killed by the homeowner, we are fine with that. He got what he deserved.
   It is a standard most all people accept. Perhaps some reading this think, "Well, duh, of course it's okay." Killing the bad guy is a standard treated us in the movie houses and on television time and time and time again. The bad guy gets killed and we cheer.
   And, true to our influences, when it happens in real life, we say, "Well, he got what he had coming."
   I wonder, though.  I wonder if the influence of the media blurs the lines on when it is okay for a person to be killed, and when it is okay to cheer about it. I wonder if the bad-guys-are-bad-guys portrayals leads us to forget that most people have both good and bad in them, and it would be good if many of them remained alive, where they have a chance to correct their flaws. I wonder if all the good-guy-gets-his-man-and-the-audience-cheers-about-it depictions we see on TV lead us to feel more comfortable about the death of some people. I wonder if it contributes to our cheering for death somewhat too much.
   I do wonder if the he-got-what-he-deserved attitude runs a little too deep here in Utah, same as everywhere else. I think of a scripture from the Mormon faith, of how the God-fearing people were forced to take up arms against their bad-guy brethren and they lamented sending so many to them out of this world unprepared to meet their God.
    I wish we had more of that attitude.
   Unfortunately, I don't see much of this remorse for the loss of  criminals' lives here in Utah, or anywhere else. I repeat, the bad are part good, often, and there are people with good in them who are going to their deaths. That is one of the reasons not to feel okay about their deaths. Unfortunately, the movie screens teach us that rather than sorrowing for their loss of their lives, we should cheer, for the death of a bad guy is a laudable thing.
(Note: This blog slightly reworded 5/5/15.)