Sad Injustice

I begin this post with an admission that I am tired and somewhat depressed. Some of this can be attributed to my fatigue from trying to get the court to process my lawyer’s letter of representation, some due to worry about my wife’s job situation, some of it due to worries about my dogs’ health, my taxes, my medical treatments, my school work, my car and house and yard and all the other flotsam of life. I have not slept well, the dreams lately are not cheerful. But more, I have come to learn that I am not the man I wanted to be by now. In some ways that is not my fault, as none of us gets to control the world in which we live, yet as I consider the dreams and ideals of my youth, I see how far short of the mark my efforts have landed. And nowhere is that measure more bitter than in my pursuit of Justice.

A long time ago, I reasoned that there were seven chief virtues, upon which every good thing depended. It started with Honor, a sense of the Right Thing and a determination to do it. Yet, Honor is not possible except through Peace, which is not non-violence necessarily, but all things being as they ought to be. That makes Peace less worthy than Freedom, and all of these are less important than Justice. The other three virtues are not of earth but of Heaven, being Faith, Hope, and Charity. These indeed are precious things, but may be discussed better at another time. Because for all their worth, Faith Hope and Charity all exist to establish and maintain the four mortal virtues, and chief among these is Justice.

I worry that most people have given up on Justice; it seems too unreal, too much to hope for. We are trampled by a government which all too often prefers the expedient to the right, and that has nothing to do with which party has the majority. We have rights as employees and citizens, but it is all to hard to exercise them sometimes. I have found that while discrimination by age or gender or race is illegal, it continues unabated in many places. I have found that politicians regularly lie to get elected, and forget their promises as soon as they have taken office. I have found that the police cannot and generally will not try to prevent crime, and after the fact do little more than take reports, yet heavy priority is given to collecting fines for trivial offenses. I have found that more and more people will deride and mock those who protect our country from its enemies, and the overwhelming majority of the entertainment and news industry does its utmost to tear down long-established moral values and pursue radicalism.

But for all I complain, my own case does not show me as a clean man. I have too often walked past homeless people to and from my office, and if I give a couple bucks I imagine I have done some noble thing. I have noted the grievances of afflicted people without stopping to consider whether I can be of help, and what I can do. Too often I go on with my life and never even see where I am needed. To be sure, I have a sense of duty, but usually it considers my wife and daughter, my dogs and a few people I call family and friends. A poor life and scope of honor, that.

It’s not that I don’t want and try to do the right thing, but it is wearing to stop and check the map and see how far I am from the goal. Just something I have to think about from time to time.