“Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.”
- Ayn Rand
“’Mercy’ means an unearned forgiveness.”
- Leonard Peikoff
So a dickhead who helped kill someone apparently appears on a TV show, and the producers don’t even bother to give the audience the full context of the crime for which he was jailed – a "rampage of violence" said the judge who convicted him; a “commotion” says the YV show -- nor warn the parents of the young man he killed that a thug who helped kill their son will soon be singing on their TV screen.
But it’s all okay, says the producer, because the thug has “paid his debt to society” and everyone should move on.
Bullshit.
You see, this is just one more problem with having so many victimless crimes: when so many crimes are victimless, it’s so easy to forget that real crimes do have real victims. Your “debt,” as a criminal, is not to a collective; it is to those people whom you’ve harmed – those very real victims of your actions.
And dead victims can’t move on.
Mercy to the guilty is an injustice to the innocent. The producers of X Factor have committed an enduring injustice to Jeremy Frew and his family.
4 comments:
How exactly is he meant to right an injustice to his victim?
I am sure if various people got into a bit of trouble themselves (drunk driving, for instance) they would not be doing a Ghandi and asking the Judge for the maximum sentence, but demanding to be let off as lightly as possible haha! (hypocrisy writ large!)
So yes let's put this fellow in the stocks, or rip him to pieces - to let everyone know what a 'good person' you are.
"Pity to the guilty is treason to the innocent"
Ayn Rand was an admirer of William Hickman. She is not an ideal person to quote when it comes to condemning killers.
Max- Rand admired an attribute of Hickman, not the person. We can admire Adolf's oratory or Alexander's ambition without admiring the perversions of virtue.
These Xfactor guys are looking for the headlines, they want to be in the papers and to be watched- they want controversy, they don't know any such thing as "bad publicity." Selecting this guy was eyes wide open from the start, no media ambush. They want NZH and blogs to talk about them and here's the latest way they've found. They did it last season too, I'm sure, although I'm not trying to count the ways.
That's the angle I take on interpreting events. You expect the producers to give full context? Have a moral defense? Of course they commit enduring injustice! It's reality television! It's entertainment media! It's corruption, but I repeat myself.
To accept that about who and what these guys are is to stop being shocked and surprised when they generate their stock in trade.
Never forgive, never show mercy, never show compassion! That's the bottom line because Ayn Rand says so!
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