22/11/01

Justice: Corrupt At The Very Core

ONE of the most depressing styles of 'thinking' that seems to pervert the morality of people far more than is actually evident to most of us concerns the willingness of people to foist injustices upon others in order, somehow, to protect themselves.

This selfishness is exhibited in so many areas that it seems more like a pervasive infectious virus that needs to be eradicated rather than a minor aberration.

Whether the discussion concerns domestic violence, capital punishment or sexual assault, it seems that the majority of people are nowadays more than happy to prosecute, persecute or disadvantage others in some way, no matter how great the potential injustice, so long as they, somehow, feel better protected.

Take the issue of capital punishment, for example. It seems that the majority of folk in this country are in favour of it, even though they are aware that innocent people might be executed. Their argument is usually that the world would be a safer place if there was capital punishment, and that, therefore, the price of a few miscarriages of justice is worth paying. 

In other words, killing a few innocent men is worth the benefit to them in terms of feeling marginally safer - though, in fact, they are not.

However, if you ask these people directly whether they would be happy for themselves, or for their partners, or for their parents, or for their offspring, or for their friends, to be so executed, even though they were innocent, they readily admit that they would, of course, not be at all happy! 

Further, they would also claim that they would vigorously oppose such a horrendous action.

"No WAY are you going to execute my INNOCENT loved one.

"No WAY are you going to execute my INNOCENT loved one. I am, at the very least, going to create HELL of a fuss about this!"

And, it is at this point, on this admission, that one must expose their hypocrisy. Thus, ...

"I see. You would be extremely UN-happy for YOUR son to be executed for an offence that he didn't commit, but, so long as it is someone else's innocent son who is executed, then you couldn't give a damn. In other words, so long as YOU'RE ALL RIGHT JACK, then you don't give a toss about injustices to others. So long as YOUR little world seems a little safer, everyone else can go to Hell! They can even be executed despite their innocence, so long as YOU are all right, and you feel a teensy bit safer."

And, at this point, such people usually accept that their selfishness and their distorted sense of justice have been exposed and, further, that both are utterly contemptible. 

On top of this, their attitude is shown to be no better than that of the common murderer who ALSO thinks that killing innocent people is OK.

Indeed, they are 'at one' with such a murderer! 

Their notions of 'justice' are exactly the same. 

Killing innocent people is fine, so long as I'M ALL RIGHT JACK.

This is EXACTLY how murderers feel.

So what's the difference between them!?

What exactly is the difference between someone who kills an innocent person and someone who merely thinks that doing so is quite OK?

Morally speaking, "Not much!" is the answer.

But it isn't just on the issue of capital punishment that this shamefulness occurs. It also arises in other areas.

For example, innocent men are evicted from their homes and prevented from seeing their children without any evidence against them. Teachers have their careers ruined and become unemployable when they are merely accused of misconduct - even when they are later found not guilty of any offence. And the legal procedures adopted in areas such as these have been drawn up on the presumption that it is OK to damage, debilitate and prosecute people (men mostly) and to ruin their lives, simply in order to make life APPEAR safer (mostly 'for women and children') on the grounds that some of these men MIGHT have committed an offence and, in any event, the world is safer by taking such draconian actions.

But the same perversion of justice applies.

"You wouldn't want any of these things to happen to YOU, or to YOUR innocent loved ones, but you are quite happy for such things to happen to INNOCENT others, so long as you feel that you, yourself, reap some kind of benefit. And, so long as YOU ARE ALL RIGHT JACK, then you couldn't give a damn about injustice to others."

It is my belief that such people need to be shaken out of their warped sense of justice and of their complacent attitudes toward the poor treatment of innocent individuals.

For example - and in general - whenever I hear our fawning politicians or our hateful feminists actually supporting policies that treat INNOCENT men unfairly on the basis that it might protect a few women (e.g. in the area of domestic violence, sex-assault etc) then I KNOW that I am listening to someone who does not deserve my respect.

After all, there are only two possibilities.

Either such people don't really care about anyone else, or they care only for themselves and for those who are important to them. And, in EITHER case, they are clearly people who feel that so long as THEY'RE ALL RIGHT JACK then everything is just dandy! 

Well, if they do not care about any damage to innocent others so long as they and their dear ones remain untouched, then they deserve to be exposed for the shallow, self-serving, hypocrites that they must be.

And, talking about 'shallow, self-serving, hypocrites' has reminded me of an email that I sent to a Canadian woman who was arguing for the most draconian measures to be meted out to men in Canada who were simply accused of domestic violence or of threatening it. (You can get some idea about what is going on in Canada from Dave Brown's article about Bill 117)

Needless to say, she was none too pleased to hear me suggest that she was exposing herself to be a 'shallow, self-serving, hypocrite' by supporting these terrible measures.

I got a long reply!

But it boiled down to this.

If many women were protected by such measures then, frankly, the costs to a 'few' innocent men was surely worth it.

I wrote back and simply asked her this.

If it was her own INNOCENT adult son who was being kicked out of his home and losing his children through a false allegation of domestic violence, would she do nothing, or would she create hell of a fuss?

She never answered.

But, of course, whichever answer she might have given would have exposed her as being EXACTLY what I had accused her of being.

She was caught both ways.

EITHER she would, indeed, make a fuss to protect her innocent son - in which case she was a woman who was clearly concerned only for her own loved ones - i.e. she was concerned for herself - OR, she wasn't even concerned about her own loved ones!

Indeed, people who support actions that harm innocent others have no moral grounds on which to defend themselves.

Period!

They have hit the moral low ground. In fact, they cannot get much lower. And it doesn't take much to expose them.

Further, it is well worth noting that the usual 'justification' for harming innocent others is of the sort that actively avoids having to come up with the solution to avoid the problems in question.

"What else can we do?" they shrug. 

And, at this point, one should jump in and tell them! 

They should damn well come up with solutions that PROPERLY protect innocent others!

And, until they do this, they should continue to be exposed for the selfish, self-serving, hypocrites that they must be.

If people are quite happy to destroy the lives of innocent others, just so that their world feels a little more secure and comfortable, or to capture votes, or to make money out of the hysteria, or to increase their own powers, then they really should be hounded.

And they deserve to be hounded.

And, if some of these people feel that this is a bit strong, and somewhat 'unjustified' ...

TOUGH !

... because they ...

OF ALL PEOPLE

... do not really have a moral leg to stand on, do they?

After all, if they think that it is perfectly acceptable to harm innocent others in order to make themselves feel more secure, then they can hardly complain if people harm them in order to achieve a similar increase of security for themselves.

Also see AH's The Golden Rule to see why MRAs should have no reservations about striking very hard at those groups that are prepared to inflict injustices on others in order to pursue their own self-serving aims.