>[The idea that one man's murder is another's justice is] is a very important point that needs discussion. We have a system of laws. These laws have determined just what is justice and what is murder. It is not open to individual interpretation.<
Aren't you being just a bit legalistic here? (grin) There are laws in our country that are not being enforced because individuals think them open to interpretation. Some individuals indeed know they are not open to interpretation and yet break them anyway. To some people, laws promoting abortion are amongst these interpretable laws. If you will claim they have not this right, then you must claim no one (except those in our courts) has it. Very well, I then expect your hearty support of bringing our President before our courts so that in his case they may interpret the laws he is charged with breaking. I expect you not to interpret the law by claiming the President has the right to receive an immediate two-year jaunt from justice, but rather will hold to the uninterpretable law. The president is not a monarch. When he commits a crime not in the course of his duties as president, he should face the law as would any other American.
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In the case of one who is pleased when an abortionist is killed, the law against murder is not necessarily being self-interpreted. As long as the person himself does not murder the abortionist, the law is being obeyed (it is a sad thing indeed we have come to this). There is an apparent conflict of principle between standing against murder and being pleased when an abortionist is murdered, but I think the conflict merely apparent, not necessarily real. I had typed for you a rather long winded explanation of the reasoning behind this notion (an explanation that included why I believe the human conceptus is logically human), but for now will spare you.
I will now only say that when an abortionist kills a child, he has made and executed a claim against the life of that child. If the child did not expressly threaten the entire life of the abortionist or that of anyone he represents (including his patients), then any claim against the child's entire life was false. Therefore the logic exists for the utter destruction of the abortionist, and when abortionists are not destroyed, many people natural feel a sense of disparity. When a gunman kills an abortionist, even though it is against American law, many people feel a natural sense of logical parity, a sense of natural justice. On principle, no conflict exists.
>I understand that Ish or anyone may of course believe what they wish as long as they don't act on these beliefs. My concern is that some may support [even passively ] one who does act out his/her version of justice. What does this say about their belief in our system of laws?<
Very many people in our country are losing respect for the fabric of the law, merely obeying it so as to avoid hassle. People are losing respect for the law because they see so many other Americans short-circuiting it. Many people have lost respect for the system because it is routinely abused by those with might enough to abuse it. It is abused even by those who make the law. When the President short-circuits the law, it merely confirms to many Americans that the law is not a thing to uphold, but rather a thing to abuse to the maximum extent needed and to the extent allowed. You claim perjury not a serious crime, but you err. it strikes at the very core of our nation's trust. For too many Americans, the law no longer gives life and freedom, allowing us to trust one another, it is increasingly a tool of oppression.
The problem here is, as Ish says, there are very many average Americans in this country, tens of millions of them, who feel no remorse over the breaking of a law, especially one with which they disagree. For them the killing of an abortionist is no great matter, because it merely breaks a law for which they had no respect in the first place. Indeed some of them feel happy about it. Many of them will claim publicly that it is wrong to kill an abortionist, this, to avoid hassle, but in their hearts they are glad or at best indifferent when an abortionist dies. It will not take very much, less than perhaps even they themselves realize, to move them to pull the trigger. I suspect the next true nationwide disaster in our country will cause heartache the likes of which America has never seen. It will be a long term heartache wherein our nation will beg for oppression and wherein many of those who now see themselves as oppressed will allow themselves to fight openly against the system. They will lose, but will create massive pain for all. I sincerely do not want this, but am telling you merely what I see. In a country filled with people willing to discard principle because of personal convenience, I can see none else.
>One man's anything is another mans opposite. This has always been the case always will. Each of us must understand that the other believes in good faith that he/she is also right. What is the determining factor? How do we decide what is justice? Well, the Constitution has done a remarkable job given the difficult nature of these questions IMO.<
Yes, but now the Constitution is but a sham. Very much of what goes on in this country simply cannot be found in the Constitution. A great many people think their opponents have shafted them by wresting control of the Constitutional message from the entire country, twisting it to serve their own agenda.
>We elect our lawmakers. The courts [in theory of course ] protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Doesn't always work quite so simple. If one has a better system lets hear it.<
Very well. Our current system depended upon shared morality. It depended upon a nation of people who were generally a moral people, a people who when reading a law understood and enforced not merely the letter of the law, but its spirit. Under such a system be you Jewish or Christian, and I agnostic or atheist, we would, for example, all believe in our deepest being that sleeping with one another's wives an utterly detestable thing, this, on the basis of the law that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. We would not need a library of books all containing marriage sub-laws delineating every action allowed where marriage is concerned. We would know by our own minds the harm adultery causes in a family, and would not, from respect and yes even love of one another, desire anyone to experience that harm. We would all work together, for our own good, to discourage such immoral behaviour, never championing an adulterer, but scorning him, looking down upon him as rubbish, this, until he repents, publicly acknowledging that our way is good, and humbly crawling back into our society in search of forgiveness. Then and only then would we acknowledge him as a man.
A better system cannot be found, but alas our system is made ineffective in that we are no longer generally a moral people. We are now a system of of laws that are devoid of spirit, and we must now hold either to the oppression of strict legalism, or to that of constant injustice.
I therefore suggest we move to a system that is second best: a more libertarian system. If the libertarian system will allow me freedom to create, to prosper, to produce without fear of having my productivity stunted by government might, freedom to fraternize and trade with those who share my sense of morality and freedom to shun those whom I deem immoral, if it will allow me freedom not to support with my dollar what to me is pure murder and depravity, then even if it turns a blind eye to this murder and depravity, I am all for it.
>You work within the system or you work to change it.Those who would take the law into their own hands because they know they are right are missing the point.<
This is not necessarily true, certainly not objectively so. Many people think when one has lost faith in the system, that it is time for one to discard the notion of working within it. They believe it time either to give up on the system altogether, fleeing to a private paradise in the corner of society (likely to await the system to eventually hunt them down), or it is time to fight to create a new system, at best destroying for all the one corrupt system.
>They are not attempting to change the system they are raping the system.<
Yes, because they believe the system is attempting to rape them. Therefore, they intend to rape the system first.
>The world they are proposing is one of anarchy as how can they in good conscious oppose others who also know that they are right [on any issue] from behaving in a like manner? Egad! I'm getting almost as long winded as you Johannes ;<]<
These people make no proposals. They simply want not to be raped, and when they see the system converting criminals into victims, when they see the innocent being victimized and the guilty being raised up as heroes, when they see politicians lying themselves to power, raping the nation in sundry ways, they decide that enough is enough. To many of them the system has failed, and continually takes away their voice, so they begin to handle the thing themselves. Until the system sincerely begins to reach out, to make sincere efforts at accommodating these people, it simply courts disaster. We cannot expect their sentiments merely to fade away. |
