Can Justice Exist in This World?
Can Justice exist in this world?
“Sir, I say that justice is truth in action.” (Disraeli) Jeff MacDonald, Perry Smith, and Dick Hickok all led very different lives, had different upbringings, and different skills. However much these men contrast one another, they all had a chance to have a good life. Jeff, being the luckiest of the three, could have continued a fruitful life with his family, Perry joined the military to run from his problems and had no need to return to them, and Dick had loving parents and he could have made something of himself, even if he was unable to attend college. But for some reason, somehow, they all ended up in a similar place, prison. Was it just to punish them, to take away their lives, to remove their freedom? Perhaps in the case of Jeff, a man who wasn’t underprivileged, it is fair to punish him, and the same might hold true for Dick. But what about Perry, who has been troubled for as long as he can remember? In the Declaration of Independence, it was claimed that: “all men… [are] …endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” He lacked these rights from the start; his life was not equal to that of others, and it shaped who he inevitable became. How could one say it was just to sentence a man such as Perry to Death? An act can only be considered just when it is made with good intentions and not to satisfy the interests of any one party in particular, but both parties together. Justice is equivalence.
Not everything is as simple as it might appear at first glance. There are complexities strewn throughout our lives, society, and the world in general. When it comes to crime, people would like the situation to be black and white; however, there are always shades of grey swirling around in the arrestee’s bucket of life experiences. Unlike physics, where the charges and forces always have an equal and opposite, society and its interactions between its
“Sir, I say that justice is truth in action.” (Disraeli) Jeff MacDonald, Perry Smith, and Dick Hickok all led very different lives, had different upbringings, and different skills. However much these men contrast one another, they all had a chance to have a good life. Jeff, being the luckiest of the three, could have continued a fruitful life with his family, Perry joined the military to run from his problems and had no need to return to them, and Dick had loving parents and he could have made something of himself, even if he was unable to attend college. But for some reason, somehow, they all ended up in a similar place, prison. Was it just to punish them, to take away their lives, to remove their freedom? Perhaps in the case of Jeff, a man who wasn’t underprivileged, it is fair to punish him, and the same might hold true for Dick. But what about Perry, who has been troubled for as long as he can remember? In the Declaration of Independence, it was claimed that: “all men… [are] …endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” He lacked these rights from the start; his life was not equal to that of others, and it shaped who he inevitable became. How could one say it was just to sentence a man such as Perry to Death? An act can only be considered just when it is made with good intentions and not to satisfy the interests of any one party in particular, but both parties together. Justice is equivalence.
Not everything is as simple as it might appear at first glance. There are complexities strewn throughout our lives, society, and the world in general. When it comes to crime, people would like the situation to be black and white; however, there are always shades of grey swirling around in the arrestee’s bucket of life experiences. Unlike physics, where the charges and forces always have an equal and opposite, society and its interactions between its