Justice

Justice confuses me.

People celebrate it. People are celebrating it, like it means something, like something has been accomplished.

But justice, at least this kind of retributive settling of the score by punishing, does nothing.

3 people died, scores injured, many horrifically. And now one of the killers is dead. His fellow angel of mayhem is now in police custody, awaiting a hefty sentence.

And it’s what the fucking bastard deserves. He deserves to go to jail. He deserves punishment and pain that waits in his future.

And we’ll celebrate now just as we’ll celebrate in the future. We feel relieved. We feel vindicated. Or something.

But nothing’s happened. Nothing can happen. None of the dozens wounded are going to get their legs back. None of the 3 will be brought back to life with the death of their killers. But we’ll drink to the fact that they terrorists lost and that we can move on.

And then we will move on. In fact, some may already have. Case closed, they got the guys. “JUSICE” has been served.

And what justice can occur in Texas? A plant, which hasn’t been passed a safety inspection for almost two decades, explodes and vaporizes scores of people from the earth. What can we do? People will get fined. People might go to jail. But nobody is coming back.

Retribution is a quick fix. Justice is a quick fix. It pastes over the wound and make us feel better. It’s all just an easy way to make us feel better. We stamp “JUSTICE” on some event so that we can move on with our lives, so that we can forget.

Maybe we aren’t meant to “move on.”

Right now I think healing, true healing, whatever that is and however it is achieved, is the goal. That’s the path to follow. But it’s not easy.

Listen: We are always about to die. We could get shot, hit by a bus, stand under a falling piano at any minute. And then we'll be gone forever. Most of the time we can forget about that. But we're reminded so strongly of our mortality during these sorts random, violent of situations. And, even though most of us will take the arrest of Dzhokar Tsarnaev to mean some great victory has been won in the battle between life and death, good and evil, nothing has changed. Nothing is bringing back Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell or Lü Lingzi. But that won't stop us from acting like something will.

I just don't understand the exuberance.

Good and Evil

It’s a concrete room in the middle of nowhere. One lightbulb, unshaded, swings from the ceiling. Two chairs, no table. No windows, no doors. It is an eternal struggle.

The police chief rises from his chair and begins his latest lament.

“I don’t get you. I just don’t get you. Don’t you see that we have enough trouble getting along without this bullshit? People struggle, people hurt and they ache just in their everyday lives and then you come along with your bullshit. We don’t fucking need you! We don’t fucking want you. Haven’t we evolved? Isn’t this a civilization?”

The chief leans in.

“What are you trying to prove? What? What the fuck could you be thinking? There’s nothing constructive in doing what you’ve done, at least not for any of the rest of us. Just absolutely fucking nothing. Blowing shit up, tearing apart families, destroying lives, lives of people who just want to be fucking happy. Why is that too much to ask? I don’t get it. And I don’t get you.

“What do you want? You want to cause pain? You want misery and destruction? Is that what gets you off? Well, turn on your television. Watch the news. Hell, look out your fucking front window. There should be enough of it out there for you, enough of it that you might be able to leave the rest of us in fucking peace.

“We’ve got enough problems. We’ve got enough pain. We don’t need anything from you, you fucking selfish pig. You fucking disgusting animal. I…I want to strangle you. I want to feel your neck in my hands and I want to squeeze the final breaths from you fucking lungs. I want to rip your fucking head off and show it to the world. I’ll raise it up and shout ‘this is what you get. This is fucking retribution.’

“But that does fuck all. That does fuck all. There is no healing. There’s only more fucking pain, more realization that the lives we lead are fragile, the days we spend only contain more heartache. That’s what you’ve done, you little shit. You’ve made another wound in the side of the human race. You’ve torn open a new hole, one that can never be filled. That’s all you’ve done. Nothing, not even your lifeless body, can fix any of the damage you’ve caused.”

The chief punches the criminal, who barely flinches. Then the chief backs away and slumps into the corner, crying.

“Fuck you.”

The criminal smiles.

The chief wipes tears from his face and shouts. "They're on my side. They're all on my side, not yours. You think you'll win them over this way? You're just adding to their pain. You're just encouraging their compassion, their love and their commitment to decency. And you're only adding to your own hatred."

The chief stands up.  He'll always fight.