Lamech’s Patsy
“The Left might be godless, but the Right has only the form of godliness.”
Just chucking some ideas around here, so comments are welcome (especially from actual Americans.)
From the New York Times (April 2008)
U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.
[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
You must be logged in to see the rest of this post.
Join now for a year for $15!
June 15th, 2012 at 3:38 am
I think the right needs to actually learn what ‘eye for an eye’ justice means, because I honestly don’t think they get it. The punishments they dish out are rarely fitted to the actual crimes committed. But I think this is a critical century for the US.
Creation: Declaration of independance (1700s)
Division: Civil war (1800s)
Ascension: Rise to power/prominence (1900s)
Testing: Threat of Islam (2000s)
(to be continued…)
How they handle this step determines how the rest of their history progresses!
June 15th, 2012 at 7:50 am
Good comment. Hadn’t thought of applying the pattern, except for this point in history being the end of the one started at the Reformation. I guess it will be clearer in hindsight.
June 19th, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Creation itself discriminates in the case of drug use and other crimes which fill the Federal prisons of the US of A. In other words, the action is its own punishment. However both left and right chime in with extra-creational legislation which guarantees both incarceration of a large segment of the population and growth in civil service and/or outserviced employment. Both left and right want positivistic law which legislates equally and righteously. However there is no such thing as equality and no such thing as right apart from the minute fractal geometry of creation.
When humans are allowed to create their own world you get something like the US Federal prison system.
And yeah, I’m a native son.
June 19th, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Oh, and tangetially. I’m glad to see James Jordan’s name mentioned in connection with Rene Girard on scapegoating and the foundations of human culure. There is a movment afoot to assimilate Girard’s thinking to either liberal humanism or some sort of Bultmanniacal theological liberalism. I’m dedicating myself to fighting this tendency. Girard is a kind of theologically naive but relgiously deep “evangelical Catholic” who has boldly “stripped the Egyptians” of secular social science…whether he would put it that way himself or not. Now the opposing forces are rallying and hope to assimilate back to normal. Normal humanist nihilism that is.
June 20th, 2012 at 9:37 am
Interesting!
November 13th, 2012 at 3:17 am
From a spiritual basis, it’s just not clear to me it is reasonable or proper to release violent offenders due to any logic.
All other crimes non violent, I have a different view. In fact, I’d stop the drug war here, it leads to much violence, empowering of criminal enterprises and nearly destroyed Colombia and is currently destroying our Mexican neighbors.
Scapegoating here? Yea, we’ve always done that though, nothing new today.
November 13th, 2012 at 6:49 am
Patrick
I agree concerning non-violent criminals. The Bible prescribes restitution rather than incarceration. It repersonalizes the crime and also the criminal.
It’s not just the scapegoating (which can be found anywhere) but the underlying social reason for the scale of the incarcerations as a whole. It’s a government left with Law because it has lost faith in God and His transforming grace.
These are all generalizations of course.
November 13th, 2012 at 8:23 am
I imagine you’re too close to accurate for comfort.
Pray for us over here, I do. I ask Christ to transform His church’s heart and mind here and globally every time I pray.
November 13th, 2012 at 8:53 am
It will come. History never repeats itself very accurately. It’s more like aircraft disasters. Every crash is the last of its kind. We do learn, and the Church is right at the heart of that process.
An example might be the awareness of many today of the path to socialism. There are many who are willingly ignorant, but now it takes willingness. We know what lies ahead.
I think men will try anything to avoid doing simply what the Bible says. We do what works in the short term and think that’s a solution. Long term solutions generally look crazy in the short term.
The plans of the godless are always short term.