A month or so ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 18 October 2006 15:29:48

I started wondering about disproportionality.

One of my many annoying traits is that I'm a stickler for rules; I like bending them and breaking them and I like other people to keep them. And when they don't, well, I get cross. In fact I get ridiculously angry, and that is exactly the appropriate adverb there. There is a crossing with a lollipop lady near my route to work, and this morning a car ignored her as she stood in the road - the car just drove on across the crossing regardless. And I found myself wanting to tear the driver from her seat and trash her car or something. Ridiculous, and totally disproportionate to the crime. But I know I'm not alone, not least because the Daily Mail has enough of a readership to survive 100 years longer than it ought to have done. The tenor of all of their articles is "this person has been bad, therefore anything terrible that happens to them is fine and no more than they deserve". If a thief breaks into a house and gets shot and killed by the owner then, well, that is no more than they deserve for doing something bad. A crime deserves punishment, and no punishment is excessive. I am immensely grateful that our justice system is not based on such lines. I am very grateful that it recognizes that different levels of crime deserve different levels of punishment. But I recognize that this liberal justice system is not supported by large chunks of society. And sometimes I wonder if they're not right after all. Put this in a Christian context: are there small sins and big sins? Is it more okay to steal then to murder? Is it worse to murder 100 than to murder 1? Like most serious liberals, I question my beliefs seriously, and sometimes wonder if I'm wrong. (Whereas, of course, most fascists people of a more right-wing political persuasion don't ever question their beliefs and, as a result, end up in power more often). And I have to admit that even though I'm convinced that a murderer should receive a more severe punishment than a pickpocket, I don't see much supporting evidence in the bible for this view.