Wednesday, June 6, 2012

"Do you think you deserve to die?" - anonymous

I don't think anyone deserves to die. Nor do I think anyone deserves to live. The idea that justice is some sort of system of just deserts is no more than a destructive invention of vain human fancy to me. Such justice has no correlation, or place, in the natural (i.e. real) universe. And because I really believe this, the thought of anyone deserving to live or die, or anything else for that matter, seems insane to me. That being said, and ignoring all the philosophical contradictions that arise, if it were possible to somehow deserve death, then I would have passed the qualification point a long time ago (perhaps around the age of nine or ten). And so would have everyone else on this planet, with extremely few exceptions.

"What do you think society should do with people who rape children?" - anonymous

In cases of actual rape, where the child (or any person for that matter) is maliciously assaulted and physically injured, the person committing the assault should be quickly killed for the same reason we would hunt down and kill any animal that attacks a human. Not for justice, not for punishment and certainly not because they deserve to die. But, only because they are a clear threat and danger to other people.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

"Do you believe in true justice?" - anonymous

Yes, though I think it is impossible to say exactly what true justice is, much less ever invoke it. To me, it is something that must exist naturally in the universe, independent of human intention or even awareness. Much more akin to karma than anything imagined in the U.S. I don't think true justice has anything at all to do with some fantasy of heaven or hell where we end up according to an arbitrary or divine (which are the same thing) measure of our individual worthiness. I do think that justice and truth go hand-in-hand however. To know the truth is to know and experience justice. I think that true justice is the natural process of coming to know the truth (which probably explains why introspection as the only real means of discerning the truth is so important to me).