What is justice?
POSTED BY: Giantevilhead
UPDATED: Friday, December 9, 2005 05:42
VIEWED: 6295
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What defines justice? What is its underlying purpose? Is justice defined by law or is law defined by justice?
Supposedly justice is the fair, moral, impartial, and righteous treatment of people. What is fair, moral, and righteous is established by reason and the beliefs of the majority. We’ll just ignore religion for a minute now since they generally offer a set of absolute rules created by an omnipotent and perfectly righteous being. What is determined to be fair, moral, and righteous are then forged into laws, the instrument by which justice is served. Yet the beliefs of the majority are not always correct. Morals, ethics, perception of what is right and wrong also change over the course of time. Laws change. What was once considered righteous is now considered cruel and unusual, eye for an eye for example. Laws once considered just like ones that supported slavery are now considered unjust. A deeper problem of justice and law stems from the fact that laws are forged by men and women, people of flesh and blood and sin. Nothing that lives is innocent. Those who forge laws pass their hate, their sins, their guilt, their imperfections, their desire for vengeance, onto the laws they create. The laws are impure from the moment of their inception, carrying with them the taint of their creators, and no true justice can come from them.
Is it possible for law to be cleansed of the taint of those who forged them? Is it possible for justice to be refined, bled of its sins and rise to perfection from imperfection? Or will justice forever be merely a vehicle for punishment and vengeance? Does justice even exist or are all that is done in its name as meaningless as its very concept? Is there an alternative to justice, a path beyond that of punishment and retribution?
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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No one knows or cares about what justice is? Oh well, for the 5 people who read this thread, I'll tell you what I think justice is. True justice is the instrument by which redemption is served. Through justice the guilty will see the errors of their ways and come to accept responsibility for their actions. Justice rises to perfection not through refinement of law or punishment, justice rises to perfection through the salvation of the guilty and the protection of the innocent. Justice that does not lead to redemption is no justice at all.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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Hello Mr.Head,
Two things.
First, Laws are the only way to define justice. Without written laws, you have a different form of justice per person who shows up.
Second, my meaning of life is Freedom (another blog that noone answers to).
Consider someone who survived a violent childhood. This person may become an adult who thinks he can get away with stuff that Simon, Serenity's doctor, would never consider.
Now these two types have to live under a written law, or else noone will ever agree.
Yet clearly, you and I are not the ones making these written law, but we do have to live by them.
Hey, cheer up weepy: We could have been born in Haiti or Iran...
Quote:
-Smith:Does Big Brother existe. Does he exist like I exist? -O'Brien:You do not exist...
-1984 by George Orwell
Gedeon
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Quote:
Originally posted by Gedeon:
First, Laws are the only way to define justice. Without written laws, you have a different form of justice per person who shows up.
That's part of the problem isn't it? The flaws of those who create laws are passed on to the laws which are then passed on to justice which results in a system that is no more just than the differing opinions of each individual. How is a system of justice created by a bunch of rich politicians more just than what I consider to be just? Is it because they're richer and more powerful than me? Is it because their brand of justice conforms to the majority? There was a time when the majority of the population believed that slavery is right but laws supporting slavery are now considered unjust.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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Power and Fear and Money are valued in our society. I'm don't want professional athletes and politicians to have smaller salaries: I want the hope that my kids will take those jobs in the futur...
I don't value money as a criteria for evaluating people. In fact, people with money have to say something smart before I consider them. And yet I am warped because I would kill to get a Porsche 911 in my driveway. And a ranch? Horses on my ranch?
There's a passage in 1984 where Smith reads "the book" and they mention classes in society.
The highest class has power and money. They want to stay right where they are.
Middle class is chaos. They want power and money from the Rich, and they use the lower class to get elected. When they are elected, they forget the poor and become the Higher class.
Lower class helps the middle class while dreaming of a fair society and justice for all. It is the only class who dreams of socialism and communisme. They never change class.
But I can we can always dream that we are free because we can say that 2+2=4.
Boy, what a downer. I need more coffee...
Gedeon
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Oh, and I just checked out your profile...
I don't know how you're gonna do it, but I think it should involve Processed Cheeze...
Gedeon
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You make Batman cry.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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LOL. Yeah, he's sensitive...
Where are you anyways.
I'm in Montréal, Quebec, and I have been accepted recently as a Montreal Browncoat
Most of us are francophones, but it's all in english if you want to check it out.
Gedeon
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Quote:
laws are forged by men and women, people of flesh and blood and sin. Nothing that lives is innocent.
That's put a buzz in my mind right there.
Sin? What's this about sin. What is a sin. Thou shall not kill doesn't apply to wolves, or even to birds killing a worm. It's a human concept, and you're right, if I was a thief powerful enough to make laws, I'd put loopholes gallore...
what a bitter-sweet symphony that's life
You're slave to the money and then you die...
Gedeon
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Je parle in the French. Je ne pas very good at it parce que it's been a long temp since I spoketh it, et mon professeur was how do you say... una pendejo estupido.
Sin is action committed with malice.
As for the cheese, I could infect the water supply with a chemical that makes people lactose intolerant, creating a plague of flatulence so great that the world's atmosphere will be covered with poisonous gas. I will then auction off a recipe for a special cheese that does not affect those with lactose intolerance, making trillions in the process.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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