Judge, if You Must, but Curb the Glee: Notes from Las Vegas by Kevin D. Williamson

Judge, if You Must, but Curb the Glee: Notes from Las Vegas by Kevin D. Williamson

But what about vengeance? The desire for it is not necessarily wrong or discreditable. But I do not want to put that particular loaded gun in the hands of the people chanting “Burn, baby, burn!” at executions or entrust it to the political system that brought us both Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anger makes you stupid, and self-righteous anger makes you stupid and dangerous. And if there is to be a mode of modern citizenship that has a particularly Christian character, it should begin not with arrogant crusading and joyous heretic-burning but with moral and political humility. Spend a little time here in Las Vegas and tell me whether you think we should moderate our expectations of democracy just a teensy bit. If we really believe what we say we believe — that we are made of the same stuff as R. Kelly and Jeffrey Epstein — then perhaps it is enough for us to seek to secure decent and regular administration of the law, reasonable public order, such prevention of harm as we can manage, and a measure of rehabilitation for those who can be rehabilitated. If we must judge and punish — and we must — then let us do so only because it is a mournful necessity, not for the love of the act itself and its power, or for the seductive pleasures afforded to us by detestation, reckoning, and hatred.

Another very thoughtful piece from Kevin Williamson touching on justice, vengeance, original sin, redemption, King David, and other small matters...