I have a theory about karma. Not some spiritualistic idea but a practical one. I've observed that usually arseholes are surrounded by arseholes ( note the correct spelling of arseholes you lot that don't come from aussie) and nice people are surrounded by nice people. When the crap hits the fan, which it always does regardless of who you are, nice people have the support to carry them through it, but the arseholes are just torn apart by the jackals that they have surrounding them. Equals karma.
Waiting for karma to address injustices always seemed to me to be too much like waiting for the day of judgment. Meanwhile the path is strewn with victims. Whether it be a family, a team or a nation, it only takes one bad actor to do permanent harm. And this isn't just about being nice, either. Today we have arseholes out there ignoring the directives and spreading a virus.
It can come down to finding a way of moving on though. The law doesn't dispense justice, it dispenses the law, so how do we let go if we can't accept that some form of justice may be meted out in time. The alternative is to enforce justice ourselves and although that nay be tempting it may do your family more harm to see you in jail than the original injustive against them.
@Cyklone I agree, sort of. However, I don't see the law as a justice dispenser, rather as a means to address an injustice, a sublte distinction, I realize. True and perfect justice would require going back in time to prevent whatever injustice has occurred, but of course there's nothing that can be done to reverse an injustice. The issue of reparations aside, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't sufficient to address the injustice of slavery, it took the 13th Amendment. This was not justice, but a law designed to end what had become a very long period of injustice.
In our democracy we, the people, are the law. The prosecutor literally represents 'the people' in a criminal court. Instant karma is for YouTube videos, but if an injustice is to be addressed, it should be done swiftly, not to serve as a deterrent (this is a myth), nor for the sake of those injured (sometimes viewed as vengeance), nor as punishment (a moral statement about a particular act), but to protect additional victims and, perhaps most importantly, to demonstrate publicly to all that we as a society have, through the legal process, done our best to engineer karma.
Of course this may all be undone by a governor or president who chooses to pardon the convicted criminal.
@p-nullifidian couldn't agree more.
@Cyklone Thank you for making this thought-provoking post.
Interesting but not likely. For example, let's say you have an office or any place where there's a varied mix of nice people and also assholes (notice the other spelling), then your theory falls apart. This is a diverse world.
You yanks really need to learn how to spell . Maybe because I'm an old bastard but so often it seems that the longer you live the more chickens come to roost. Sometimes I wonder if the worst curse is " live a long life".