For those who read the Bible, this rings a bell.  Battles can be fought, wars can be won but without peace all triumphs are in vain.  We should wage war not to win war but to win peace.  Today the real test of triumph is not the capacity to make war but the capacity to make peace.  We may call for peace as loudly as we can but where there is no brotherhood there can be no peace.  We can't separate peace from justice because no man can be at peace unless there is justice.  We can't continue to treat people unjustly and expect no retaliation.  If every man, woman and child in the world were treated fairly and justly, there would be no need for lawyers, no need for courts and no need for jails.  Rampant lawlessness brought forth by inequities in society reaffirms the sterling truth that justice is the greatest interest of man on this planet.

Justice is the ligament that holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.  Liberty is meaningless without justice and peace is purged without justice.  Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither in my opinion is safe.  Justice and power should be brought together so that whatever is just may be powerful and whatever is powerful may be just.  The concept of justice must not be strained until it is narrowed to the filament.  There is a need to maintain true balance on the weighing scales of justice.  Justice should not be weighed on argument, logic or reason for true justice does not come from articulation or wit.  True justice is succinctly expressed in the biblical words "a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye."

 I voice the sentiments of the oppressed when I say that people unjustly treated prefer a law that is harsh to a law that is unjust.  A good number of citizens of foreign origin who play by the rules are victimized by those who don't play by the rules.  This glaring inequity compounded by lack of equal opportunity caused them to lose trust in government and respect for authority.  What we need in this country is a criminal and a civil system that is alluded to a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye.  A tooth for a tooth is not a respecter of persons and it is blind to race, color, creed, national origin or gender.  A tooth for a tooth means life for life, dollar for dollar, brick by brick, blow by blow and pound for pound.  Kings and slaves should be put on equal footing to suffer the same consequences for the same acts.  There should be no sacred cows, no untouchables that miscarry justice from institutions of justice.

 It is often said that democracy is a farce without social justice.  I might add that there is a failure of justice in our judicial system especially since bias prejudice and loyalty weigh heavily in the dynamics of interpretation.  There is partial justice unless it is based on a tooth for a tooth.  It is not justice tooth for a tooth when a murderer is rewarded with rehabilitation for killing another human being, producing widows and orphans who must suffer all life long.  It is not justice tooth for a tooth when a defrauder is not ordered to pay back the same amount of money stolen from his victims.  It is not justice tooth for a tooth when millions of dollars borrowed by government are given to the rich to be paid by increasing the taxes of the working class.  In other words, justice a tooth for a tooth does not listen to aggravating, mitigating or extenuating circumstances other than self-defense.  A king's tooth is equal in value to the tooth of a slave and a queen's eye is equal in value to the eye of her maid.

 Equal rights is worthless and means nothing without justice a tooth for a tooth.  A tooth for a tooth is the real measure of justice for it does not reward mercy to cruelty, it does not allow compassion to wrongfulness and it does not permit a killer or a cheater to pay less.  I don't think it is fair for our courts to allow bad people to live even as they killed innocent people who didn't deserve to die.  In doing so, our judicial culture sends a message that the killer and his victim don't have equal rights to life and liberty under the law. There is no justice tooth for a tooth in a court system where the accuser and the accused are accorded equal dignity.  Life is more precious than liberty and I don't see justice a tooth for a tooth when one loses only his freedom for taking the life of someone.  Life is more precious than property and I don't see justice a tooth for a tooth when one loses only his property for kidnapping someone to deprive him of his freedom.

 Equal rights, equal justice and equality under the law are not relevant in a justice system that is a respecter of persons.  Justice a tooth for a tooth does not come from the laws that had abolished the death penalty.  Such laws open the door to compassion and mercy toward hardened criminals who don't lose their lives but only their freedom for the lives of their victims.  Loss of freedom which is the debt they owe to society is offset by free board and lodging.  Neither government nor society provide free board and lodging to the widows and orphans of criminals.  They are left to suffer and struggle on their own all life long.  Kindness to a criminal is cruelty to his victims, his loved ones, his family and his relatives.  Justice a tooth for a tooth requires punishment in the same severity for the injuries caused based on the principle that one must suffer the same consequences of his acts.  A justice system predicated on interpretation and case laws is not justice a tooth for a tooth but chop suey justice.

Justice a tooth for a tooth is geared toward justice which runs counter to the doctrine that if they throw you stones, throw them bread. This doctrine is geared toward forgiveness.  Justice is a right that belongs to citizens and forgiveness is a right that belongs to Christians.  There is a clear conflict between our right to justice and our duty to forgive.  Justice and forgiveness don't go together and we can't have them both.  Those who fight for justice are deemed to have forsaken their duty to forgive and those who choose to forgive are deemed to have given up their right to justice.  To forgive is to grant pardon without harboring resentment, to excuse a mistake or fault and to condone an offense that is usually serious.

We seek justice when we can't forgive and yet we want others to forgive us.  We have no right to be forgiven if we can't forgive others for forgiveness is two-way traffic.  To forgive is to forego justice and this is the dilemma we face in a society where we have a right to justice and a duty to forgive.  When we refuse to forgive, we hold others bound for what they have done to us and we burn the bridges over which we shall pass.  It is not just to claim forgiveness when we don't want to forgive.  The challenge we face is a choice between a tooth for a tooth or throw them bread.  It is a choice between our right as a citizen and our duty as a Christian.  Citizens rally to rights and Christians rally to duty.  It is a conflict between heaven and earth, between human being and spiritual being.  Forgiveness has nothing to do with justice and justice has nothing to do with forgiveness.  We all make mistakes and we all need to forgive and be forgiven.  Wrongdoing is a part of our human imperfection.  We offend others for the wrong we have done and they offend us for the wrong they have done to us.  We need to achieve justice to have peace and we need to forgive to make peace.  Unfortunately justice and forgiveness are easier said than done.  Which way to go is everyone's call and no one can claim to have the best way to go.  Without justice there will never be peace and without forgiveness we all lose in a battle of a tooth for a tooth.

 

 

Munting Nayon News Magazine