By TLB Contributor: Ken LaRive
In our society, we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution that is supposed to protect both law-abiding citizens and antisocial misfits. Caught red handed, a person has the right to due process in a court of law, a law based on our moral and ethical codes, and a Judicial System held in place by Constitutional Law.
This system is unique to almost the entire world, and in its purest form, promotes the adage that justice is blind. This means to us that justice is unbiased, dispassionate, and impartial, and this so-called blind justice is reflected from the most petty to the most heinous of crimes… and one might suppose, in the study of American Law, that the true reality of our judicial system is not found in the utopia of a legal classroom, where the idea of justice originates… but in the field, the field of reality.
Just as ethics were taught in my own Communications department, from the immorality of subliminal advertising to the ethics and responsibility to promote truth in broadcasting, the reality in the field, in the real world, is quite different. And our judicial system has become as corrosive as our information system, and all other self governing systems that grow without bounds, from government to board room, where absolute power corrupts absolutely.
To understand some of the corruptive realities of our legal system, go here.
Most all would agree, our judicial process, our system of justice, is indeed very lucrative. The primary reason for this is that it thrives on ciaos, in spite of its outward appearance. And as we try to understand that process by looking at its surface, it may seem that our laws are rigorous in its interpretation, but just the opposite is true, under the surface… With strict rigidity, an inherent and promoted lack of adaptability, there grows mountains of red tape, manufactured convolution and loop-holes, and the more corruptible and parasitic it becomes, the harder it is for our original ideal of justice to survive… and in that process, here in America, both trial and corporate lawyers, for the most part, reap monumental rewards. In that process, per kappa incarceration of our population is greater than any other civilized society on earth, bar none, and yet, Justice is denied… and there is a primary reason for this. It is called a black bottom line.
Find out here how our judicial system fills corporate-owned jails, and where the motivation to fill them comes from.
One might consider that crime and punishment, in a free society, is proportionate not only to the social norms used to survey it, but should also be an indication of how that society defines each individual in relation to the whole, and the roll of authority. In a truly free society, considered Libertarian in nature, authority is granted by the people, and is a reflection of their identity as a whole. In a totalitarian society, the will of the people is bypassed, and most always by violence.
Go here to understand totalitarianism. Go here to understand the concept of Liberty.
All viable societies punish crime, because there is a universal perception that life has not only value, but that each of us are accountable and responsible for what we do. Our collective lives, our safety, and in some instances our virtual freedom, or liberty. is at stake. Punishment was designed to dole out justice, but also to thwart a recurrence of that crime. If working for the common good, if that is the ultimate goal, crime would soon be thwarted. But what profit is there in that? No, crime is promoted, and then thwarted, promoted and thwarted, so that profit grows, and Justice has little or nothing to do with it… money makes the world go round, promoted by fear, and that is a truer depiction of our American reality, not our shredded Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Learn here, how our polite society enslaves us.
The following was taken from my 1998 diary while traveling in Saudi Arabia. One can learn a lot about yourself in relation to the world, and your nation as well, by trying to understand the moral methodology of law in another country…
In Saudi Arabia crime is punished severely. All males convicted of murder, or the selling of drugs, are put to death by the sword. The investigation is immediate and through, with one week to present your case, and if convicted, another week is given to make peace with your God.
Here is a story as told by two Arabs I worked with who witnessed this punishment. This particular beheading was reaffirmed by Mohmood Admad of the Arab News staff, who was also there as a reporter, and his thoughts translated into our local English newspaper.
This punishment was done in the town of Jeddah, just 50km from where I worked, and one week before I arrived. All of it transpired at noon on the playground of a school on a Saturday morning, and everyone was welcomed to view this punishment, without visual restriction. and in the light of day.
Abmad: “When Friday prayers are said, police form a cordon around the audience gathered in the large square beside Al-Jafali Mosque, next to the Al-Balad district school of that city.
“In the center of the square, flanked by the Iman, the prison warden and a few police officers, kneels the prisoner. He faces the victim’s family, who are waiting for him to die. He may beg them to forgive him, and they may choose to do so.
“The crowd shouts at the prisoner, reminding him of his Shahada, or at the victim’s family, asking for forgiveness.
“The prisoner is examined by a doctor, and most of the time he is given a sedative to help him get hold of himself. Across the square, the prisoner’s family are weeping and begging the victim’s family to forgive. A medical team and Red Crescent ambulances are standing by.
“The prisoner now recites verses from the Qur’an while a government official reads the charges and the verdict. Halfway through the reading the executioner suddenly nicks the back of the prisoner’s neck with his sword, causing him to tense and raise his head involuntarily.
“Then, in one swift move, the executioner separates the prisoner’s head from his body. Several spectators faint, and the executioner is pulled from the scene lest he get carried away and injure someone else with his sword.”
Note: My friends here tell me that they have gone to several of these executions, and it is very different if the victim’s family forgives the prisoner at the last minute…
“The atmosphere suddenly changes to the joy one might expect at a wedding, with people cheering and blessing the family. Suddenly, attitudes change, and there is not only peace, but an air of something like relief… and instead of anger, instead of vows of revenge, there is something very powerful and all encompassing, empathy. And from the gnashing of teeth and the sobs of loss, comes something akin to joy, and this is considered, above all else, God inspired.”
Only men will receive the sword, women are shot. Two bullets are used, one in the heart and one in the neck. A doctor will mark the spot where the bullet must enter…
The director of Prison’s General, Dr. Ali Al-Harhi, was interviewed for the “Arab News,” and he stated: “While we are talking about these matters, I would like to increase awareness: that is to say, awareness among people not to let their anger lead them into killing others. It is not worth risking your life for one moment of blind fury. We must be patient and not allow the devil to drive us to murder.
“A murder’s reward is the sword- not counting the psychological pain he suffers because he ended another’s life. We have to use our minds and remember the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who said three times: ‘Do not be angry.’
“The punishment for drug dealing is also death,” he added. “I ask every drug dealer, is it worth putting your life at risk for money?”
Arab law treats a drug dealer to be just as guilty of crimes against humanity as a murderer. They see a dealer as caring nothing for the life of the person he sells drugs to; only his own selfish want of money is motivation. It is strongly held that we are all responsible, not just to ourselves, but for those who are under our charge, or are defenseless.
Those we let out on plea bargains would surely be put to death here. Instead, if they have enough money to buy a savvy lawyer with connections, in America, they are set free to do the same thing again, and again. And when they find themselves back into the system, with another day under the guise of due process, profit can be made on the broken back of Justice, and all of it held in place by a polite society of slaves, without conscience. And without conscience, the veritable wind under the wings of justice, blind justice can not exist. And so, when a system cares little or nothing but for their own selfish concerns, holding truth and justice as ransom, the devil will take his due.
“I was lost a long time, without knowing it. Without the Faith, one is free, and that is a pleasant feeling at first. There are no questions of conscience, no constraints, except the constraints of custom, convention and the law, and these are flexible enough for most purposes. It is only later that terror comes. One is free – but free in chaos, in an unexplained and unexplainable world. One is free in a desert, from which there is no retreat but inward, toward the hollow core of oneself. There is nothing to build on but the small rock of one’s own pride, and this is a nothing, based on nothing… I think, therefore I am. But what am I? An accident of disorder, going no place.”
― Morris L. West, The Devil’s Advocate
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