General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is it possible to get redemption after committing a heinous crime...? [View all]Hekate
(90,674 posts)Some crimes cut you out of the human herd, and we have the right to dispense justice for past deeds and to protect ourselves from you in the future.
Having said that, and given the sometimes barbaric nature of human justice (chopping a hand off a petty thief, torture, stoning, more torture, burning alive), I'm with the US Constitution. The men who wrote it knew their history and I think were clear-eyed about human nature. Laws need restraint, too.
We have a system of laws to protect us not only from criminals but from our impulses toward revenge. Lynch mobs are illegal, always have been, and now we seldom see them any more. (Do you have the right person? Who cares, the sheriff caught him, so he must be guilty. Clem, you bring the rope.)
But let an occasion like this arise, and the mob forms and smells blood. It happens on the Internet too, just look around you.
I will stick with the slow workings of civilian law, thank you.
So -- redemption. It happens in the soul. Even in prison, a person has the opportunity to redeem themselves, choose good instead of evil, to pray. And if it takes them the rest of their lives, so be it.
Hekate