Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
White Papers
Justice
Whether inherently prone or environmentally conditioned to be at odds with the rights of another, some become so isolated from social conscience that, as a subsequent alien, they willfully seek their happiness at the expense of that society.
In the beginning, we are not in control, and disposed so, we respond to any who with at least one hand, gives to us. But in that giving, some demand a piece of soul, or the whole of it. If there is the least bit of objection, the giving hand is made to momentarily close to allow the other with the whip to raise. In that beginning, we are weak, and many are made weaker by oppressions of vain glorious Will.
The child enters the world, and on one day, a mere cycle of day and night arbitrarily promotes the child to adult. Society suddenly, arbitrarily transforms oppressed and indentured child to adult. The child is, by definition at that moment, one second past midnight, an adult responsible for itself. From society this indentured child shall inevitably take, and refired by each condition associated with each giving, and the thousand pains and threats of pain, the child'adult becomes adjusted to the world far, far from a familiar crowd.
In the city they hunt and hide, and most often they are caught and revealed. They are photographed, categorized, classified, and filed. The jury assesses, the judges dispose..."For your punishment, to right your mind, you shall do time! You shall be isolated from us and confined!"
In detention, the adult meditates upon what went wrong. Who did they trust that should not have been trusted. Who did they love that should have been hated. Resolved and clear, they leave when their detention is done. And all is well and done. The cycle they learned so well in their beginning is complete. Society believes the same. Predator and prey are one. All is, as it always has been with them. What they do to society, society's justice seeks the same. Driven by the instincts of a predator'prey primeval brain, crime and punishment lives in vain.
Far from the angry crowd, predators, bred and cultivated by society, assume the risks of their chosen profession. And all is as it always has been...'right and wrong' existing only under the threat of punishment..its bitters, and bitter sweets of desire and revenge.