Dec 11 2007
Time Out
From the Arkansas News Bureau, via Race42008, via Ace, Huckabee’s statement wrt his clemencies and pardons:
And I don’t know that I can apologize for that because I would hate to think of the kind of human I would be if I thought people were beyond forgiveness and beyond reformation and beyond some sense of improvement.
This is where Christian socialists and liberals jump the track. Forgiveness isn’t relevant to the justice system (or the Governor). The surviving families and friends of crime victims may forgive the criminals whose actions destroyed their lives and loved ones, but neither the justice system nor the governor can forgive a criminal. Human beings may forgive; institutions may not. Anthropomorphizing the justice system in this way, as Huckabee and apparently several clergy in Arkansas do, undermines justice.
Forgive the criminal, but don’t commute the sentence. For justice to be blind, it must be blind to forgiveness. There is no forgiveness in releasing criminals. There is only an insult to the families of the victims.
We see the same anthropomorphism when Huckabee and liberals call for a compassionate government. Human being may be compassionate; institutions cannot. Forcing compassionate behavior with government force is not compassion, but a perversion of compassion. The only compassion is that which is freely felt and freely offered.
Church leaders should understand this, yet many do not. A call for compassion (or forgiveness) seems always to be a call not for compassion (or forgiveness), but a call for government action, be it stealing other peoples’ money to fund a “compassionate” program, or slapping the families of crime victims in the face.
Charity is the domain of the church. I often wonder why so many in the church are pushing their duties onto the government, and God forgive me if I’m being cynical, but I wonder if it’s because they’d rather not be bothered. I might add that the government really needs to stop interfering with churches and charitable organizations (the recent action against the Salvation Army is only one of many examples) so they can do charitable work.
(In Huckabee’s case, there’s a lot more than just this confusion. The anthropomorphism doesn’t explain his arrogance, or his utter disregard for the families of the victims.)
2 responses so far
2 Responses to “Time Out”
I don’t know that institutions must lack the expression of individual acts of compassion, but I do know that we’re required to forgive those who trespass against *us*, not those who trespass against Marge the next block over, or Dick over in accounting. Justice isn’t a two-body problem, and you can’t operate the law by the Golden Rule exclusively. Nobody has the right to forgive sins against somebody else. We’re supposed to turn our own cheeks, not offer up the cheek of the next random oblivious innocent the newly-shriven criminal might come across upon release.
Pardons aren’t forgiveness, anyways. They’re pardons - mercy as grease to keep the gears of justice from seizing up. To be wielded in the interest of the greater good. If you’re pardoning the meek and the relatively harmless, well and good. Pardoning rapists and other possibly recidivist violent felons? Not a good thing.
[…] I am tough-nosed and hard, lacking in compassion because of my views on government and justice. It was nice to read something that sounded so much like my own thoughts. *chuckles* Forgiveness isn’t relevant to the justice system (or the Governor). The surviving […]