Injustice heaped upon tragedy

Honolulu, Hawaii–If you walk down the main strip in Waikiki, Honolulu’s tourist district, you will probably see an old black man panhandling for some spare change on Kalakaua Avenue. You will notice him immediately. He is blind and he carries a sign. His sign reads, “Please help in the pursuit of justice.” Beneath that sign is a box intended for your charitable contributions.

I have seen this poor old man many times, but I have never contributed a single cent to his cause. His sign disturbs me. Every time I see it, I feel outraged, incensed. The first time I saw it, I stared at it for quite some time, while uttering a series of profanities. “Liberal bastard. Socialist swine! F*&^%$ Leftist!”

At first I couldn’t exactly explain why I found the sign so egregious, so provocative–so damn obscene. I reflected upon my reactions for a while, and then it finally came to me. It was the word “justice.” I had never before seen the word “justice” used in that panhandling context. It seriously offended me, although I had great difficulty explaining precisely why.

What is it about justice? What does it mean, precisely?

What, for instance, would constitute injustice?

Let’s look at that sign again. It says, “Please help in the pursuit of justice.”

OK, I suppose another valid way to read the sign would be: “Please help stop injustice.” Very well, then the next question would have to be: “injustice against whom?” directly followed by: “injustice perpetrated by whom?”

Injustice, after all, inherently implies a nefarious agent–some sort of criminal transgressor or individual rights violator. Since justice is generally defined as a “conformity to the principles of righteousness and rectitude in all things”–obviously, there must be some sort of a volitional agent capable of making choices and therefore either conforming to, or rejecting, ‘principles of righteousness and rectitude,’ in order to have justice or injustice in the first place. In other words, you can’t have injustice without a bad guy to commit that injustice.

Suppose, for example, that A shoots B for no good reason. He just shoots B out of pure whim, because he felt like it. Assuming that A has legal capacity (i.e., is not insane), he would, of course, be criminally liable for a profound injustice.

Suppose, on the other hand, that a falling asteroid strikes B dead instead. Do we have injustice? No, we have a tragic freak accident. Absolutely no one is to blame.

The blind black man claims to be a victim of injustice, and he is asking us to pay for it. Is that justice?

If a bolt of lightning struck poor C dead, would C’s relatives be fully justified in invoking the concept of “justice” to compel us to pay for his funeral? Could we be held collectively or individually responsible for “an act of God”?

Yet that is precisely what the Supreme Court of the United States advocates when it upholds costly laws mandating special nurses for every disabled school child who needs one. It is not justice. Nobody caused the great tragedy of genetic disability. No one is responsible for disabled birth defects. To force responsibility (taxes) upon the innocent abled body is itself an extremely profound injustice. It would be like forcing A to pay for B’s freak accident. It’s neither fair nor right.

Help should come voluntarily, as a favor, or as a gesture of good will. It should not be forced–and it should never be manipulated as a matter of “justice.” Because justice is just too damn important to be left in the rabid clutches of the Leftists