Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Friday, October 23, 2009

A Just Society

Obviously one that punishes social malefactors while protecting the law-abiding citizen. Isn't that what a just society is about? Right.

Of course, there's a certain subvention of what most people feel comfortable with viewing as that norm. When the plight of the socially maladjusted who find their place in the nether regions of the social contract tweak the heartstrings of a socially liberal society sensitive to the possibility that the thieves among us were short-changed in their formative years. Not quite responsible then, for their choices in later life.

The abuser of women not being quite responsible for his actions, because he is only repeating what was familiar to him as a child. The raving racist spewing hatred must be forgiven for he is himself a victim of a dysfunctional upbringing. The school drop-out who decided drugs and gangs and criminal activity trumps a normal life of work and remuneration, because he is a visible minority misunderstood by general society.

And then we get situations that are completely up-ended to what should occur in a just society, cruel parodies of justice where the victims of crimes are forgotten, left on their own to recover as best they may, while the social predators are kid-gloved in a court system that frustrates society and the police whose work it is to apprehend them in their socially malevolent pursuits.

Something like the forgiveness uttered by the victim of a drunk driver whose stunt in driving into her home destroyed her two-decades-old residence, her family's two vehicles, all their possessions, and only miraculously managed by circumstances not to take the family's lives in the maelstrom of destruction. She forgave the 21-year-old DUI; he'd made an error in judgement.

Well, in Toronto's Chinatown, a hardworking owner of a shop called the Lucky Moose Market hasn't been too lucky. He is being prosecuted by the Crown, charged with an indictable offense. He was arrested back in May, charged with assault and kidnapping. Of a shoplifter, a thief who had already lifted and sped away with some of the store's perishable goods, and had returned for a second round.

Whereupon, David Chen and two of his employees chased the offender, caught him, bound his hands and held him securely ensconced in a van until police arrived. This was clearly defence of one's property. In defence of which a citizen's arrest, as it were, was made. The thief set aside until he could be delivered to the hands of the law. Not just any thief, but a hard-core repeat offender.

Someone with three decades of criminal wrong-doing, with a record that sets out Anthony Bennett's field of work in great detail. This man was well known to the owners of the strip of markets and shops in Chinatown, since he's been stealing from them for years. He would shop-lift from one shop, and sell his ill-gotten gains in another location. From durable goods to perishables.

Even after having been released from jail on his most recent charges, he returned to victimizing shopkeepers in Chinatown. He is addicted to crack cocaine, and has a requirement to feed his habit. Consequently, it is incumbent on the merchants in Chinatown to play their part; enabling him to steal what he may, sell what he may, and purchase his drugs of choice.

The Crown even made a deal with Mr. Bennett. In exchange for his agreeing to testify as a Crown witness against his apprehender, Mr. Chen, he was given a lighter sentence for the theft which initiated this entire charade. And Mr. Chen is awaiting the outcome of the Crown's charges against him, a hapless victim of political correctness.

Haven't we misplaced priorities and kind of mislaid our sense of justice in ministering to the misfits of society that plague us, and administering 'justice' to law-abiding citizens?

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