Long ago, I saw someone on a political round table on TV say, “Justice is not supposed to be vengeance. It’s an intervention to prevent vengeance,” and I think about it *a lot*.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
He was in Canada a couple months ago guest-hosting a WHOSE LINE live show. He was supposed to be at a Kids in the Hall reunion show last month but got pneumonia. :(
There was a moment in a 1991 Too Much Joy interview in REFLEX that, no fooling, has been foundational to my feelings about the death penalty, and I guess justice overall, ever since. The idea that the justice system should be set up to temper our basest instincts, not cater to them.
I always recommend Scott Turow’s little book about being on the commission that ended up abolishing the death penalty in Illinois. Incredibly thoughtful as he considers the issue from many sides.
Yes, it was Dave Foley. One of the other guests was the celebrity lawyer Gerry Spence, and at one point (not sure when, because Mr. Foley made more than one insightful comment during the show) Spence said "I believe I would like this young man as my attorney."
This becomes very apparent when you look at situations like the old west, where stealing a horse carried a harsher sentence than murdering a prostitute. If you stole a horse, the owner would retaliate, and things would escalate, but no one placed value in the woman's life, so even though it was...
...a more vile crime in every conceivable way, it often bore no consequences. But stealing a horse? That was a hanging offense.
This implies that the course of action we must take if we wish to have our rights protected by law is to begin retaliating with violence when our rights are violated.
I teach a high school class on comparative politics, and I always try to explain that the difference between rule OF law and rule BY law is that with rule by law, the law is not a shield for the weak-- it's a weapon for the powerful. That's led to some interesting observations in class of late.
Comments
Glen Weldon muttering to himself
If justice and laws would be, you know, _just_, no CEO would need to fear for their life.
But we built a system that literally _requires_ health insurance companies to mass murder people because "fiduciary duty" is required by law.
This implies that the course of action we must take if we wish to have our rights protected by law is to begin retaliating with violence when our rights are violated.