On Punishment, Justice, Mercy, and Forgiveness in the Law

Punishment, Justice, Mercy, and Forgiveness

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?

If this were a philosophical treatise, I’d probably have to deal with each of these topics separately in their own respective books. Anyway, what is the relationship that ties punishment, justice, mercy, and forgiveness together?

I think it is the first of these: punishment. Justice involves dealing out appropriate punishment for wrongdoing. Mercy involves a softening of said punishment. And forgives involves the wiping away of the guilt associated with the wrongdoing that justified the punishment in the first place.

But is that the end of the discussion? I don’t think so.

Punishment

When I speak of punishment, I am speaking in the legal sense. Although parents have the right and duty to discipline and punish their children, I am more concerned with the government’s role in punishing criminals.

Generally, an individual is punished when they are convicted for committing a crime. Politically speaking, we can grossly simplify a distinction here between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans support firm, even severe, punishment when a crime is committed. Democrats tend to favor leniency (at least, when the perpetrator is a Democrat—yes, politically, I lean right).

Who has the right of it? Should punishment be severe, firm, lenient, or nonexistent? To answer that, I think we need to look at Justice.

Justice

What is justice? The entirety of Plato’s “Republic” is dedicated to that topic. Although worth a read, I think that particular work falls short in certain areas. Regardless, I won’t be nearly as thorough.

If I were to define justice, I would start with something like “The enforcement of appropriate punishment for criminal wrongdoing.” I’m sure it’s probably incomplete, but it’s a start. Let’s go back to our punishment question. Should punishment be severe, firm, lenient, or nonexistent?

Many people would probably say that punishment should fit the crime. Severe crimes deserve severe punishment. Moderate crimes, moderate punishment. Trivial crimes, trivial punishments. That seems reasonable to me, but I want to point out a problem that develops when one considers mercy.

Mercy

What is mercy? If I were to offer a tentative definition, I think it would be something like “Mercy is the suspension or softening of the punishment that a criminal has earned for his crime.”

The problem I mentioned above arises when one notes that if “Justice is blind” (that is, justice applies equally to all people regardless of rank, station, or what-have-you), then, legally-speaking, mercy can never be offered. Because if it is offered, the recipient is showing undue favoritism to the criminal in question. Not all are being treated equally under the Law.

What, then, does that mean? Should we regard mercy as alien to our courts? How about forgiveness?

Forgiveness

What about forgiveness? Does forgiveness require that some form of punishment be inflicted upon a perpetrator before his victim can forgive him? That doesn’t seem quite right to me.

It doesn’t necessarily seem totally wrong, either. There is some truth to saying, “He has paid his debt to society. Wipe the slate clean and be done with it.” And yet, I think a greater forgiveness is that which is given without justification. That is, the forgiveness of a crime (maybe crime is too strong a term—misdeed, perhaps?) that has not been punished.

All crimes must be punished, you say. Otherwise, it is an affront to justice. I disagree. I think the victim has a choice. They can forgive even when punishment has not been meted out. What punishment did the executioners of Jesus of Nazareth deserve? And yet, Jesus asked for them to be forgiven.

Still, a legal system probably can’t be built if it embraces that level of forgiveness for all criminals. For one, the government isn’t the primary victim in many crimes. If a murderer kills Fred’s wife, how is it the government’s right to forgive the murderer for his crime and not Fred’s. Maybe Fred doesn’t want to forgive his wife’s murderer. Imposing that upon him would certainly be unjust.

Anyway, those are the thoughts percolating in my mind tonight. More can be said, I’m sure, but not tonight.

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?

To President Biden and the Tech Giants

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?

Yeah, I know … my HTML-ish mantra above and below will bump me from the Google searches so I likely won’t be read by much more than 5 people let alone Biden, Zuckerberg, and everyone else. Oh, well.

Anyway, where to begin?

Truth, Science, and Dissent

I’m a big advocate for truth. That does NOT mean I am an advocate for crushing dissent. You see, one of the truths I believe in is “Everyone has the right to freedom of speech.” This was once taken for granted, but currently seems to be under assault from the Left with the rising notion of “Authoritative Truth.”

The crux of the matter is whether science has the right to squelch opinions that differ from the mainstream scientific view or, rather, the view espoused by government scientists. I find it highly ironic that the “scientists” (many social scientists and even some of the hard sciences like even physics) who are claiming that “There is no absolute truth” are the one’s basically advocating an establishment of “truth police.”

Truth and Omniscience

To be sure, there are some absolute truths. But there are many other truths as well—non-absolute truths. Anyway, as far as absolutes are concerned, I am 100% absolutely certain that “I am not omniscient.” Similarly, I am pretty sure “You are not omniscient either.”

Although you have the free speech right to claim that you are omniscient, I suspect no one will listen to you. I certainly won’t.

Relativism of Knowledge

One of the many problems of establishing government-backed “authoritative” scientific “truth” is, basically, what I call “relativism of knowledge.” There are 7+ billion people on this planet. We all know different things.

When push comes to shove, there is no “collective hive-mind” that holds all scientific knowledge obtained by the human race up to this point. We can record stuff in books or on a computer, but (barring AI stuff-which isn’t human) until a human commits that knowledge to memory, it remains simply dead and inert. A recording of past knowledge.

Because of that, the amount of knowledge any single government scientist might possess really doesn’t exceed (at least not by a meaningful amount) the amount of knowledge the common man on the street might possess. What differs is the type of knowledge possessed, or knowledge pertinent to the scientist’s specialty.

Medicine and D&D

For example, as an avid gamer (as in Dungeons and Dragons and the like) and game designer, I probably have more knowledge about developing RPG games like D&D than a given hypothetical CDC scientist–we’ll call him Sam. In contrast, Sam has more medical knowledge than I do.

So, if you want to talk about D&D and gaming systems … I’m your guy. If you want to talk about the coronavirus in detail … Sam’s a better choice.

Informed Consent

However, I’m not the only person with knowledge of D&D and gaming systems. Neither is Sam the only individual with medical knowledge of the coronavirus. Let’s add Bob to the discussion. Bob is a doctor working at a hospital nearby specializing in contagious diseases with knowledge about the coronavirus as well. His knowledge is roughly on par with Sam’s.

Suppose Sam and Bob disagree. Who’s opinion should win the day and dictate public policy? In my opinion, neither. It should be the patient’s opinion in each and every case. Sam should present his view to the patient at a level a laymen can understand. And Bob should do likewise. The ultimate choice as to whose advice should be followed should be made by the patient. Not the doctor. Not the government. The patient.

That is informed consent.

That’s the way it should be done.

Government, Big Tech, and Medicine

I have no problem with Biden and even the Tech Giants (none of whom specialize in medicine) promoting guidelines that are sourced back to the CDC or WHO or whatever other medical authority. I do take issue, though, with the squelching of other voices who might source back to other, different sources—even when they are unorthodox sources.

Not a single one of you is omniscient. No one promoting any viewpoint on this Earth is omniscient. You don’t have the right to squelch other opinions. Because, so far, our scientific knowledge is incomplete and there is always a chance that some patent clerk somewhere has an insight that you and your “elite” friends haven’t recognized yet.

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?

Regarding Centralized Government

Why I Don’t Support Centralized Government

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?

I am a citizen of the United States and I support, to the extent that I currently understand it, the ideals of this country’s founding. The U.S. tries to promote freedom (at least, theoretically). In light of that, I think it worthwhile to examine the best means of achieving that goal.

What is freedom? As far as the government is concerned, it is the lack of or the removal of as many restraints on the individual as possible. Obviously, you can’t remove all restraints. A government can’t be so pro-freedom that it won’t pass laws against murder. That would be ridiculous.

Thus, we come to the recognition of Human Rights and the balancing act legal doctrines must play when supporting such.

As they say, my right to swing my arm ends at the tip of your nose (or maybe 12 or so inches before). Likewise, my “right to murder someone” is legally and morally infringed upon and curtailed because murdering someone infringes upon the victim’s rights (life, freedom, etc…). And so on.

The Rule of Law

Before we get into the nitty-gritty on The Rule of Law, let’s briefly look at absolute truth.

There may be some confusion about absolute truth stemming from the nature of The Rule of Law. Many people claim that there is no absolute truth. This often is in response to a judge interpreting a law in a case in such a manner that it seems heartless and cruel and at odds with true justice itself.

The judge firmly follows The Rule of Law and imprisons a starving man who stole some bread. It seems cruel (and I agree), and people use such an example to attack the nature of truth and absolute truth.

However, absolute truth is a different animal from The Rule of Law entirely. For one thing, it has a much larger scope than law. Truth reigns over math, science, nature, law, and a whole litany of things I lack sufficient knowledge of to list.

If the point of the “no-truthers” is really “There is a limit to how rigidly one should adhere to the rule of law,” I cautiously agree. I’m not entirely convinced that we should go back to “The Rule of Man,” because that was tried and it didn’t work. But let’s leave that discussion to another day, shall we?

The point of “The Rule of Law” was that we were supposed to treat everyone equally before the law. In essence, “The Rule of Law” provided universal solutions to problems of legal justice. And I think the takeaway from the “no-truthers” position is that universal solutions can often lead to intractable problems. Hence, the Rule of Law may ultimately be self-destructive.

Why?

Universal Solutions Usually Affect Someone Negatively

What is a universal solution? Well, a law (legal) that some government somewhere passes. Let’s take the United States, for example. Washington D.C. passes a law. It binds all citizens in the entire country.

Of course, we now have so many laws no one (except a super-computer) can keep track of them all. Ignorance of the law is no excuse? Really? Really? Then keep the number of laws to a manageable quantity. Clearly, there has to be some other way of dealing with justice other than paralysis through the creation of a legal tsunami.

Anyway, the point I’m making is that often, what is proposed as a universal solution may be really better if it is more limited in scope. If it is not so limited, it might positively impact the people it is meant to, but negatively impact a whole group of people miles away who not appreciate the interference.

A good hypothetical example of this for demonstration purposes is bicycle laws. It makes sense for bicyclists to use streets in N.Y. city as there is very little danger from car traffic; it is often jammed or traveling at reduced speeds. That is not true in smalltown U.S.A. In my view, bicyclists should be able to use sidewalks in small towns.

Passing a Federal Law (or even a State Law) mandating that bicyclists must use streets throughout the country (or state) negatively impacts the bicyclists in small towns. This isn’t a big issue, but it does demonstrate how universal solutions can sometimes fall shy of the mark.

The point is also clearly made within discussions of religion and religious freedom. In the United States we usually try to respect the religious beliefs of all religions to the best of our ability.

Too Many Variable Beliefs Which Can Be Infringed Upon

There are many religions represented in the United States. We have the various sects of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and innumerable others—some less influential than others.

When the U.S. was primarily Christian, much of the legal structure, for better or worse, conformed to that belief system or, at least, was influenced by it. There may still have been injustices, but the society, more or less, “worked.”

These days we face a new challenge because of the influx of different belief systems. Basically, there are just too many belief systems to hope that very many universal solutions will work effectively without shortchanging someone somewhere.

Let’s just look at a few examples.

Cows

One of the noteworthy characteristics of Hinduism is that they hold cows to be sacred animals. In Hinduism you can’t eat a cow and … well, that exhausts my knowledge of Hinduism. Most other religions don’t have that same belief. Not a problem? I can eat my cow and the Hindus are free not to?

That’s easy. But, and this is entirely hypothetical, what if the beef industry needs subsidies? Are you going to use tax money collected from Hindus to subsidize the beef industry? In my opinion, that would be a bad idea.

The universal solution of supporting the beef industry conflicts with the religious rights/beliefs of Hindus.

Sex and Condoms

Okay. How about sex and condoms. Some sects of Christianity (I’m not sure about the other religions) are opposed to pre-marital sex and, in some cases, all forms of birth control. Should tax monies collected from them be used to provide “objectionable” sex education and free condoms to those in need either here or abroad? Again, my inclination is “no.”

Again, the universal solution here (sexual education and dispensing condoms) conflicts with the religious rights/beliefs of Christians.

Homosexuality and Transgenderism

Let’s look at homosexuality and transgenderism. Both are listed as abominations in the Bible (O.T. and N.T. for homosexuality, and O.T. for transgenderism), and yet we have legally embraced homosexuality as fine and are in the process of trying to do the same for transgenderism.

The problem revolves around the First Amendment of the Constitution and the nature of universal solutions. How do you balance religious liberty with the liberty of the homosexual or transgender individual?

If you apply a universal solution for the homosexual/transgender, the religious individual’s rights are infringed upon. If you apply a universal solution for the religious individual, the homosexual/transgender’s rights are infringed upon. It’s another no-win scenario.

Decentralization of Power as a Solution

I’m not sure I have a perfect answer. But I’m of the view that the inherent inability of universal solutions to solve satisfactorily many issues should lead one to try to decentralize power/solutions as much as possible. If universal solutions give you intractable problems, you should seek to rid yourself of universal solutions to the extent you can.

If the beef industry is in trouble, you, as an individual should try to help it in some fashion. Leave government out of it for the sake of the Hindus. Maybe try GoFundMe.

If you support sex education and dispensing birth control, you as an individual should try working toward those ends through your own efforts. Again, leave the government out of it for the sake of the Christians who disagree.

If you support gay marriage, don’t try to cram your belief in such down the entire body of the Catholic Church. Instead, you can try to persuade them toward your position. It may take longer, but it will likely be much more peaceable. Like I said, leave government out of it as much as you can. The same holds for transgender issues, too.

We don’t need a law to cover every eventuality. We don’t need to be micromanaged by Washington D.C., San Francisco, or any other government. Someone famous once said, “The government that governs least governs best.” I agree wholeheartedly.

Satan is a Liar. And Jesus Christ is the Lord. Repent and be saved. Yeah, I know you’ve heard it before. But have you ever heard it from the antichrist before?