When one violates another, his primitive self-love dictates that it is his right to might.

Pervading the country today is a throw-back to the daybreak of time when man's only companionship was a crude weapon to preserve what his animal stimulus forebode was a confused identity. Citizens of these "united" states devolve to primitive foundations by yielding to radical assertions that the enemy is government and welfare. They have lost all sight of their state of grace handed down by the founding father's contract with progeny. They are destructive secessionists and imperil the commonwealth.

Before humane consciousness began to seep into the collective skulls of developing civilizations there could not have been right or wrong beyond that of the decree of nature's might. Territorial right, no doubt, was established early, but if a more powerful clan wanted another's turf it was there for the taking. If the more powerful savage wanted another's mate, she too was there for the picking. Surely, possessions of any kind were wrenched over one's dead body. The right to life in general — but for instinctive preservation, and perhaps an instinctive love of the immediate family — could not have been more than a glimmer. From mankind's early dawn to now there has been this struggle between self and other, clan and community, nation and globe.

Not until a clearer understanding of martial commandment designed for collective preservation in order to rid the early world of self-destruction was a system of stern discipline and variable punishment ambivalently introduced. Martial commands grew proportionately with the perception of value in property and life. And not until advanced civilization developed a social contract among men, the precursor to constitutional law, rather than between God and Man, did questions and decision-making of a primitive charitable nature enter the stage of justice to lighten somewhat the mean spirit. The chopping block was not as bloody; stealing grain did not warrant cutting off a hand. The hangman was not kept as busy; stealing a pig was not worth a human life.

Further advances of law introduced postulations on the quality and goals of life laying the groundwork for debate, and subsequently, proportionate to the growing complexity of social transactions, a keener sense of justice was brought into play. Christian doctrine democratizing the soul brought on a more serious level of altruism and forgiveness, however grossly ignored, to lodge in the recesses of conscience among the more enlightened of the powerful and gradually some value was placed on the less fortunate─the weak, the disabled, the poor─entitling them to minimal givens, if not rights.

When it became evident that gray-line causes and motives for transgressions, conflicts, and shortcomings in the human complex, the relatively innate maxim of altruism-forgiveness in relationship to loved ones was adapted to play a minimal rôle in rendering public justice. Loving one's enemies went too far; but it was possible to sweeten justice with respect to a lame or hungry child who stole a walking stick or bread, by perceiving the child with little emotional, and perhaps reluctant, modification, as the judge or sheriff's own.

Why history's complicated thought-process of tempering justice with mercy? Surely, there still prevails enough barbarians and terrorists to justify sterner justice. Obviously, the quality of mercy did not initially grow out of benevolence, but out of the concept of preserving the species for its potential value. Some wise ancient observed the animal kingdom and wondered why as a whole virtually all species dwelled in relative harmony within their kind, but also noted that, at least from his standpoint, there was little individuality in contrast to the many aggressive selves of his own species that led to continual conflict for domination. The ancient tempered his own aggressiveness from observing the mother's benevolence toward her young. Thus, might gave way to right with the gradual concession and acknowledgment of the species generic frailty that perhaps required some attention not unlike a mother to a child. Humankind thus crawled from the jungle with its antennae fixed to the beam of coöperation for more widespread preservation and thereby weaken the relentless chain of survival of the fittest.

To achieve this end, the altruistic-forgiveness principle of the self deeply imbedded in the alter ego had to be transmuted to the other. When one violates another, his primitive self-love dictates that it is his right to might. When and if it occurs to him that self-love is a contradiction in that it precludes the very same narcissistic leaning of the other, either he denies the transgression out of shame, or immediately appeals to God or a super identity for mercy or forgiveness to redeem his soul. So, too, he carries the generosity unto himself to the gratification of the other when his consciousness of self-gratification broadens to include its fruits to a loved one. Awakened thus by the shame of shortcoming and the haste to forgive the self for human weakness evolves a sense of an inherent value─if not a given good, within the self─that all of the civilized domain must of necessity possess, then it must logically follow that it exists in others regardless of apparent misdemeanor. When caught publicly in a shameful act, he cries out for mercy in order to restore his dignity. At least for an instant the cry is joined with a genuine willingness to sin no more. There is no difficulty within the narrow matrix of narcissism for the individual when himself in trouble to see clearly the natural impulse to forgive and to forget. Similarly when the individual is crushed by sudden misfortune, he clearly perceives the value of altruistic assistance from the other.

Still, there is great resistance within the self to carry this over to the other who transgresses or cries for help because the range of forgiveness or altruism is illogically shortened in applying it to the natural right of others, just as the self, prone to forget its own transgression, closes its mind in order build a cocoon of self-righteousness. Even Jesus was not driven to forgive the money-changers because he could not rid his psyche of the haunting belief when one does that of Caesar he is Caesar─just as there can never be forgiveness by the Jews for the old generation of Germans who did indeed do that of Hitler. In the latter case, however, it is ironic that the Jews blinded by their own self-righteous indignation do not hold themselves accountable too for their cowardice and lack of leadership in facing up to the handwriting on the wall long before Hitler shocked the world. Nor does the outside world hold itself accountable for this monstrous atrocity that could have been avoided or at least minimized. Yet one could go on in this vein forever: where were the rest of the self-righteous Russians when Stalin unleashed his terror; why don't the Somalians themselves stand up like men and revolt to insure food for their children; where were the early Americans when the Founding Fathers declared independence and "overlooked" the blacks; where was the American conscience during the systematic annihilation of the Indian? The "quality of mercy" can indeed be "strained" when applied to the alien other.

With rampant crime and abuses stealing the headlines today, it is wise to take a look into the peripheral implications of crime, punishment and mercy, which befuddle the mind and cause eruptive reactions, such as build more prisons, throw away the key, capital punishment, or the other side of the coin─bleeding heart judges and parole-bent liberals. These attitudes in themselves are not the problem, but their tail-chasing implications are. There are judges who indeed possess the wisdom of Andy Hardy's father and render light sentences with caution, but there are too many who are just politicians who render sentences in conjunction with the bed count in prisons. Parole is a good when granted to the deserving and not, again, to free space in prisons. Capital punishment is for the obvious incorrigible and those whose verdicts are based on patent evidence beyond all doubt, along with those who profess their right to die.

Whatever, these would be irrelevant except that implicit and ironic in these heated arguments is the proclivity not to face up to the causal relationships of all problems in the imperfect state of a nation, such as the symptomatic assertions of the '94 election. The visceral impulse of the mean spirit applies not only to crime but other transgressions and aberrations of the body politic that sway from a dictated norm of circumstance and state of being, such as mandates in behalf of the disabled, the meek and the poor. For it is in the flawed makeup of civilization to demonize anything that disrupts the fine-tuning of the norm, whether it be natural phenomenon, welfare, war or bad health and therefore tertiary to this is the ancestral impulse to resist tweaking the dial to enhance the signal of justice in behalf of the other.

Given that this antiseptic self-righteous strain prevails in society, the individual─having repressed the lingering anxiety that he has escaped the public eye of judgment─deceives himself into thinking he can do no wrong and immune to ill-fortune─à la Charlton Heston. Consciously he believes that others too should emulate the same noble quality, though he knows that no one can really measure up to his own perfection. Consequently when and if, in rare cases, the self-righteous does exhibit altruism or forgiveness, he is actually patronizing the culprit who, in a helpless state, is gratified regardless of motive of the self-righteous to inflate his own sense of nobility. In the current socio-political climate, for instance, Cal Thomas the columnist unable to resist kicking Hillary when she's down, grants that she has intelligence but lacks wisdom, or when Newt Gingrich is willing to coöperate with the administration but not compromise. Then there are the blunt self-righteous who are total strangers even to the pretense of being merciful: riding the radio waves is a Limbaugh caller, praising the balanced budget amendment while to the maximum he runs up the credit line of his third credit card. Whining to C-Span is the McDonald franchisee, wary of Clinton's minimum wage proposal, lest he have to lay off some employees, while at the same time rubbing his hands in calculating how much more the market will allow him to tack onto the price of a Big Mac. The most despicable of all is the Reagan-Bush Democrat, silent for twelve years, who now attacks Clinton for not doing enough in reducing deficit spending.

The mind-set of the conservative precludes objectivity.

In today's turbulent tides beaching the ship of state, a liberal is perceived as a compassionate rascal concerned primarily for his own self-professed heroism, rather than legitimately caring for those less fortunate. There is fodder for this, however irrelevant. In a high-profile case, for example, a liberal defense attorney, who paints, along with his self-portrait, fantasies of victim and offender to raise reasonable doubt, his motive is ego, coupled with exorbitant fee, but at the same time is considered a noble liberal, for having out-maneuvered the establishment by exploiting presumption of innocence to prove he can bring in a verdict of "innocence". With respect to the low-profile culprit in distress, the attorney less dramatically presumes innocence in the act of the low-life client, yet raises doubt with merciful intonations in the judicial ear with his incessant reminders of the constitutional protection against the urge to prejudge his client, who in the last analysis might be a victim himself. What is a given for a Michael Jackson or an O.J. must to a lesser degree be afforded the nondescript. Mercy of the court for the weak pronounces "not guilty," never "innocence."

A conservative, on the other hand, is perceived as a selfish scoundrel driven primarily with tribal instinct that severely restricts his sense of compassion for others. As a defense lawyer he must repress his prosecutorial instincts; and if it were not for the monetary gain he would prefer to lose all his cases. This stems from the conservative's distant and uncharitable perspective: if one stands accused he is guilty unless proven otherwise. The defendant of a conservative lawyer, regardless of his client's status who wins a favorable verdict is not just "not guilty" but most certainly innocent. It must be right if Nixon visited China, but dead wrong if Humphrey had.

Putting aside the cynicism, one would think a liberal of all walks of life at least makes an attempt subjectively to identify his own sense of importance with those less endowed had they been granted favorable conditions. The conservative extends no such grant, believing that conditions of birth and circumstance are irrelevant to right action and therefore is more objective. Not so.

The mind-set of a truly political liberal in identifying with the other has actually liberated himself from the symbiotic prejudice of chance circumstance of his environment and projected his own self in the throes of worse conditions of others. Gradually, by carefully mortaring his thinking he builds a foundation of "what if" speculation. What if his station in life caved in on him? Could he cope? What it he lost his job and his young daughter, single, announced her pregnancy? Would he opt for the moral pain of abortion or the shame of applying for welfare? Without a dynamic break from the enclave of favorable circumstances to the disadvantage of the other, the self, on the contrary, is in static subjectivism. Motive aside, the true political liberal objectifies the other as a self with similar inherent value regardless of circumstance and birth.

The mind-set of the genuine political conservative precludes objectivity. He is trapped in the vortex of his self-reliance and delimited values of his own circle of associates safely walled in by self-righteousness. It comes as no surprise that he subjectively perceives an unwed mother as either promiscuous or stupid and must do penance and fend for herself; or that there are just so many good jobs and benefits available for the deserving, and the rest should shut up and be happy with the minimum wage; widowed welfare recipients should snap out of mourning, farm out their children and go to work. All departure from his standard of norms is foreign and dangerous. Small wonder, then, the normally repressive instinct to bear arms to protect the clannish vestige is foremost on his agenda.

It is no accident that the liberal by definition holds the altruistic beam of light on universal value while the conservative directs it to family value. The latter is a reflection of the self; the former is an expansion of the self. To be liberal, family value rarefies the self to identify with others. To be conservative, family value rivets the self. In either case, family is the key, but it is not in itself any more than is the womb. Value lies in the extension of the self to give back value to the family. If denied this extension the family remains primitive or at best tribal. The family takes on value by virtue of its member's input derived from the range of exploration. If the range is limited, the values are limited. When the range is expanded the values are expanded until they touch the plane of civilization whereupon they may conflict or merge with the current altruism-forgiveness maxim. Centralized government to the liberal is the bastion of collective expansion of values for the common good; to the conservative, government is little more than national security to protect a tribal state.

In the modern context, the dialogue of family values is irrelevant, precisely because they have long been ideally universalized. What is relevant is society's unwillingness to shake off its own tribal custom and to join in sharing these universal values with those still strangled by the primitive level of a disadvantaged family. Most agree, for instance, that the poor should not be punished, but most it appears would not agree that the poor are entitled to the same extended values of the rest to escape from poverty. To deny elbow room for poor families to grow in values relegates them to the tribal symbiosis of welfare because there is nothing availed to them outside this depressive circle to feed upon. The work ethic ingrained in every other member of society's value system is systemically denied the welfare recipient. The basic values of shelter, cleanliness, food and clothing are denied the homeless because society, owing to perception not in tandem with the altruistic-forgiving imperative, is unwilling to concede that most were not privy to, or were cut off from, the spiraling value system. Simply, they chose to be homeless.

It is not enough to make available the system of values to everyone. It is even more pressing that everyone be nurtured to perceive values as desirable second nature, and this can be achieved only by keeping the values within reach during the nurturing process. A sick infant should not have to endure hours of pain in an emergency waiting room. A student who shows a keen interest in computers should not have to be bused out of the district to a wealthier school that has them. A youth should not have to spend day and night on a basketball court because there is nothing or no one at home. A disabled person should not be shut-in because a community refuses to fund a shuttle service. A disaster victim should not be tangled up in unending insurance red-tape. An unwed mother should be granted the dignity of relative self-reliance by perhaps exercising motherhood in caring for her own child and others at a day-care center. A drug-addict should not be left to the mercy of the street. A narcissistic stud responsible for a teenager's pregnancy should be made to demonstrate a broader sense of value by either working in her behalf, or conscripted into the armed services and his monthly check garnisheed. An Appalachian child should not be brought up thinking he is inferior. A middle class child should not be brought up believing he is superior to those of one end of the pole and inferior to those of the other. A country child should not be raised bearing arms as a living symbol of a constitutional amendment, rather than assessing it for what it is: simply a rifle to shoot rabbits. A mother should not be put in a position to have to quit her job and go on welfare because she has to monitor her children on the streets for fear they become victimized by drug-dealers or perverts. That a minority equation has to be pondered in the jury selection process is indicative of severe tribal values excluding others from expanding in their life-span a sense of universal human judgment.

Values, then, should not run contrary to the essential maxim of civilization by denigrating what matters most as belonging to certain families and tribal establishments. Nor should they be intangibles devoutly to be wished or distant promises seldom kept; rather, they should be open, thriving, altruistic realities of decent daily living demonstrating faith in the virtue of humanity. Delimitative values of exclusion breed contempt by values equally contemptuous and exclusionary. That is why city cops can no longer walk the streets but must be protected in steel on wheels; for they symbolize authority's contemptuous values deemed inviolate for only those privy to them; as a consequence, such are met with equally contemptuous alienation. Paranoia and distrust is why a murder trial of a black on white is prohibited from flowing factually. Because of the sub-value placed on unskilled labor, welfare recipients thumb their nose at work. The continual subversion in delimiting value against the furthering of universal value wrecks the goal of civilization.

Under the myth that all are created equal, it is soon realized that as life unfolds there are innumerable inequalities that block the road toward expanding the genre of humanity. The Discovery channel is not on the Somalian child's agenda, let alone daily bread. Nor is the basic value to nurture that child on the Somalian father's agenda because the last vestige of self-esteem that could generate a limited sense of value is gone forever. A young black male is expected to accept calmly the statistic that he has less than a 50% chance at getting a job. An impoverished and pregnant young female is misled into thinking there is less shame in applying for welfare than in challenging the picketers at abortion clinics, while the well-to-do female has her abortion performed under cover by the family doctor. However inspiring an anecdote of how a welfare mother knee-deep in poverty and family rearing through admirable determination and perseverance got a college degree, it takes heroic energy of which most are simply incapable without merciful, helping hands and ample opportunities and options.

In light of Christianity or any great religious doctrine, recognizing otherness and its needs is not very helpful in the construction of values if all of humanity is perceived as sinners in sorted degrees, and therefore righteous action is driven by the need for redemption. True, Christianity espouses the magnanimous justice of doing unto others as you would have others do unto you, and sympathetic gesture is thus altruistically transposed to empathic administering of justice just as individual action might spring out of identifying his own shortcoming in union with all of human frailty─not unlike the Reverend Dimmesdale pleading mercy in behalf of Hester Prynne though in reality he was referring to his own sin in seeking self-redemption. Nonetheless, this forgiving light, shaded by unwarranted demand of redemption, presupposes an inherent and rather hopeless baseness in mankind and that virtue is somehow that of another world. On the other hand, perceiving in bright light that other worldliness─attuned to Plato's Ideas, as it were─is in truth the potential of humanity to pull itself out of the primeval mire in order to do good unto himself and others; thereby pursuing justice and ultimately recognizing that universal values could be right around the corner to a very temporal and valuable world of the future. This approach reaps the wisdom of religion in the application of the affairs of state. Therefore, to do that of Caesar is not necessarily bad in the modern context when translated to do that of democratized governance in a hopeful temporal, and dynamic realm.

All too often the classic concept is plastered over by baroque followers. To emulate Christian or great religions in relevant actions is certainly not to murder doctors who have performed abortions or to place the not-to-be mothers in the village pillory. On the contrary, the ugly fact of abortion is an unfortunate spectacle that should otherwise be as private a decision as those who more cleverly and luckily practice successful prevention. In its purity both the motive and result are the same. To suppress tribal taboo and broaden the perspective is nevertheless to perceive abortion as gross hedonistic self-abuse in a world of solipsistic dissolutions. That a woman has the natural right to do what she wants with her body by equating a fetus with a tumor does not make it a moral right, but at the same time political and moral persuasion concerning such a private situation as this is for seminars and teach-ins, not public coercion. What should be open debate is the intellectual exploration into the cause of abortion as of greater value than the fact itself. If a woman indeed has the biological right to abortion, then why does she not see she also has the biological right to protect her body from rude intrusion as she would rape? If indeed the body is the temple of the soul, a woman should think it sacred─as indeed a man should─and demand that it be respected. This does not necessarily mean abstention, but surely if sacred it warrants respect, love, and caution. But tertiary to this is the resistance to the natural edict "Go forth and multiply." The reasons are clear in contemporary society: economic sacrifice brought about partly by women's liberation and the two-income syndrome of families, plus the cavalier drive to hedonism. One more child more or less in the Donna Reed era was not earthshaking to a mother whose job description was singularly clear. Today a woman's rôle is ambiguous─there need not be marriage or even a prerequisite of responsibility to having sex, let alone having a child─and more demanding in proportion to the erosion of male responsibility directly connected to his own ambiguous rôle. As the woman misreads her destiny in thinking she is ascending from her tribal rôle, the man in reality recedes deeply into the primeval jungle as uncertain hunter and stud.

There is in the spirit of forgiveness, however lacking in reality, a grand attempt to understand the why of grimness in a beleaguered world─not, as most would suppose, to glaze over its fissures with lens of deep rose.

Apparently this primordial urge is hard to shake from society: Pro-life is primary regardless of privacy and a woman's glaring fear and/or inability to raise a child. The second amendment becomes more important than the massacre of ghetto children. The two term limit compromises responsibility in casting the ballot intelligently. Financial dishonesty takes precedence over the World Series and thus canceled. Fiscal dishonesty brought about by low taxation of corporations and the rich is to be glossed over by a balanced budget amendment. A finely tuned federal crime bill is now reduced to a whimsical block grant.

It is this frightening scenario that the political realm has to face up to with the power of reason, not fear or worse, righteous indignation. Now more than ever the nation needs a strong, enlightened government to eviscerate narcissistic mavericks bent on destroying civilization. Enlightenment is stressed because brute against brute is no solution. As implied above, the root causes must be investigated in order to understand what is happening in these United States. Contempt for the other is clearly a deterrent to an enlightened society, which can only come to light through the altruistic-forgiving moral imperative─the prima facie of a truly enlightened, coöperative society.

As noted earlier the key is in the altruism unto, and forgiveness of, the alter self: the transitory recognition of inherent shortcomings in the self's makeup that is somehow alien to the self in itself. Mercy is the recognition of these shortcomings in the makeup of the other. Lest there be confusion in treating mercy and forgiveness as one and the same in tempering justice, it is important to note that with mercy come stipulations. Mercy is relative and public; forgiveness is absolute and private and requires self-generosity to sustain it and reach out. Forgiveness as a rule hinges on the arch of love and family. Only by demonstration of reciprocal love, and therefore contrition, can there be a clean slate. Today's society demonstrates virtual demise of this quality. A case in point is the exile of the young unwed mother within the very family itself, either by lack of love and understanding on the part of family members toward the young mother or in her refusal to be contrite. In addition, the young father either lacked love in the act and could not identify with her predicament or because of love, and knowing his economic inadequacy to hold a family together, high-tails it from responsibility. Mercy on the other hand, varies by open circumstance and is a matter of law. In the above case, the government supersedes the dearth of forgiveness by granting mercy to the mother through public assistance.

Public mercy granted to a killer is different from the mercy shown to a mother who abuses her child. The child can forgive her mother; the state can only temper punishment if there is genuine remorse and renewed love and therefore might place at least a semblance of value that she can again become a loving mother. The brother of a murderer can forgive; the state can only render a telling but, if extenuating circumstance permits, merciful sentence to the dismay of the brother of the murdered. But in the public realm of law, why bother with mercy at all? Is this really the noble─the Christian-like─thing to do? Why not the clean, puritanic rendering of justice? It is one thing for a non-smoker to forgive a smoker for blowing smoke at him, but quite another to be merciful, let alone forgive, someone who has gunned-down a child. And worse, should such mortal sinners be free to sin again? On the surface it would appear so. Yet the great religions that have not vengeance in their lexicon do not really advocate this; for implicit in their tender justice is the plea─or, if you will, warning─sin no more. Obviously the extent of mercy for the repeated offender is to lock him up forever, not only to protect society but from himself, just as the insane must be confined to a padded cell. In other words, it is not placed solely on the shoulders of the merciful simply to understand, show mercy, forgive and forget; rather, mercy and forgiveness are predicated on the sinner's pure sense of guilt and is equally intent to amend his sin. In short, the sinner must be worthy of mercy and forgiveness. Here lies the rub: a defenseless, impressionable female teenager who is impregnated may be worthy of the magnanimity of mercy; but what of the "woman of the world"─well before her time─for this type why not throw the key away? The self-righteous rush to judgment on the predicate if there's one, there's all─even the ostensibly impressionable teenager knew what she was doing. On the other hand, if one lets slip his righteous indignation just enough to look behind the result, conceivably he could discover virtually insurmountable obstacles in the paths of both women and may just speculate that the easy edict of "sin no more" should be coupled with assistance like schooling and available jobs that would assist in growing one's self-esteem and reliance. Another emotionally charged issue is parole in face of mounting numbers of repeat offenders. If a convict shows good behavior in a five year stretch, he is deemed rehabilitated. However, his social behavior was under the strict confines of the prison and his work or study schedule was closely supervised. To release a convict so he can return to his old neighborhood and with the bleak prospect of gainful employment, one can be sure his ant-social behavior will resurface.

Albeit true─how much worth can there be in those who flaunt anomalous behavior, anyway?─that in most cases of severe sinners, the stipulation falls on deaf ears, and most violators will be back again begging for absolution, and will probably obtain it too through the matrix of "true" but gullible mercy from bleeding hearts or loved ones. Yet the driving causation for most of the heartache in the world cannot be ignored if indeed society was forged for the purpose of problem-solving. For society to advance, resistance to this conservative leaning to ignore causes is paramount. There are many who scratch their heads over the wife-beater that is continually forgiven. The wife's misunderstanding of love, and insecurity of being without a partner or head of a household are the undercurrent causes in "taking back," not "forgiving", the husband, beyond the first act of abuse. In truth, she is showing pragmatic mercy to herself. The act of forgiveness under relatively mild situations is rather simplistic when there is love and bloodline between the parties more inclined to try to understand the other; but it can be lethal, as the headlines scream out, to ignore a pattern of abuse. In this situation it is far better to rely on the mercy of the court than the unqualified forgiveness of the spouse. Teenage pregnancy, another headliner, is in most cases a value society can live without. All the teaching and slogans of prevention are apparently futile. So why not categorize abortion under prevention? Logically, to be sure, this would be uppermost with conservatives were it not for the trap they set for themselves by identifying with the religious right.

The call for mercy on a societal level of law is far more demanding than forgiveness within a closed circle of like relations because of the problem entailed in empathizing with diverse and alienated otherness. In affairs of the heart the sense of loss or wrong is in the perpetrator as well as the victim and brings forth an exasperating forgiveness. At the same time sterner social justice is the only recourse for infractions on a family level wherein the forgiving principle was continually unappreciated, as in the case of the repeated abuser. Though it may be easier to consider the degree of mercy to a first time offender than to a hardened criminal, the natural reaction to transgression is punishment without regard to mercy. It is more efficient indeed to throw away the key if not the predilection to lynch everybody who strays. This primitive and mean-spirited approach to justice is not so much a deterrent as it is to rid society of the haunting chaos that underlies its structure. If only the killer of passion had been true to himself and took his own life! The horror of good gone bad would by now be put to rest. But it is not only criminal behavior that is the bane of the times. Criminal behavior spills over into other behavior or conversely. Plagued by crime is no different from being plagued by AIDS, unemployment, promiscuity, or disruptive foreign affairs─all undermine the fragile stability of society. Society treads on eggs and constantly puts to task the altruistic facet of mercy.

Sensitivity of the self-righteous is factored in to buffer callousness to the sick, mentally or physically, by Medicaid even though consciously it is resented.

Moreover, the demoniac underworld of crime, poverty, disease, perversion and terrorism is not dealt with unless it laps at the feet of the self-righteous elite of the protective realm. Crime against crime is of no consequence; crude policing of minorities and the poor is warranted to maintain defacto segregation, whether race or class. Jails are for the sweaty blue collar, not the starchy white. Disease confined to a grubby sect is not a medical crisis; if welfare mothers did not trade food stamps for drugs school lunch programs would not be needed. Subsidies are for deserving agricultural conglomerates and corporations, not for lazy ingrates. Apparently only through impacted experience of the commanding can a sense of empathic justice be dislodged.

The intent of a truly forgiving justice in the cloister of religion is really hinged to philosophic and theologic understanding─making it impractical, if not virtually subversive, in the practical world─and one of the cardinal reasons for separation of church and state. Ideally if there is to be a sinless society the character of human nature must be very different, in which case justice and forgiveness are redundant. Thus, true forgiveness is but theory and spirit on the social plane. Its practical value lies within the circles of friends and family. Conceding this─not unlike the mother who throws up her hands in disgust and hands her undisciplined child over to the state─the forgiving religions founded on Love leave the dirty work to the pragmatism of Caesar's temporal world by allowing harsher justice but in some cases, not without mercy. The clergy, however does not abandon the hopeful reconstitution of spirit and soul. That is why even the worst sinners are prayed for and why they are, if there is an ounce of repentance, forgiven en route to the next world. There is in the spirit of forgiveness, however lacking in reality, a grand attempt to understand the why of grimness in a beleaguered world─not, as most would suppose, to glaze over its fissures with lens of deep rose. It is not as much in the act of forgiving as it is in the grim recognition that this world is laced with darkness. Most heinous crimes from the irrational side of existence spring from helplessly tortured minds. If indeed a devil lurks in the recesses of the criminal mind, it is then but an individuated agent of an underlying universal peril. "The devil made me do it" is not as ludicrous as commonly perceived when considering the many aspects of devilry causing unspeakable crime, not to mention the dearth of altruism in the masochism of political thinking by failing to meet social needs. Surely the mother is not on trial in South Carolina; rather, the mystifying incursion that possessed her mind to trigger an unthinkable act. The redeeming factor here should be that she is sentenced to a lifetime as the subject of clinical research.

Those who become conscious of the principle of mercy in society do so by empathic design that perhaps no one is exempt from committing heinous acts. If the delicate chemical balance of the brain is mysteriously disturbed, or given an unimaginably horrid environment, criminal instinct could raise its terror if the check and balance of the civilized psyche succumbs. No matter how many aphorisms we attach to the culprit─monstrous, callous, sadistic─the glaringly simple fact remains that it is as much an uncontrollable defect in the convolutions of the brain as a massive tumor. Just as the apprehension of contracting cancer is inescapable, haunting, shivering empathy hurls the non-self-righteous into the horror of an episode and jolts into play the principle of mercy. Nevertheless, foremost is the sympathy for the victim. Shaken by the brutality of crime, the merciful shiver that they or their loved ones too could have fallen victim to such a monstrous violation. Until time wears down the violent act, the noble and heroic passion of immediate retaliation rears up─no cheek is turned─for there is nothing in the human makeup to quell the animal passion for the immediate satisfaction of instant "eye for an eye" justice. On a calmer note of reflection, however, this temporary abandonment of the forgiveness principle caused by the passion of righteous indignation, is seen as the very same perversion of the violent act itself─the inability to quell the animal drive of destruction, regardless of the self's noble motive to rid the world of the causes of evil, not simply the symptoms. This demand for justice, then, is seen as steeped in the fallacy of symptomatic rectification, that two wrongs make right even though it does indeed render limited solace to the victim when the particular offender is sternly reckoned with, however crime and the fear of crime in general roll along.

The perception, however, is that justice does not consider the victim or survivors if mercy plays its rôle. This is only true if there is a gross mistrial of justice, such as when acquittal is predicated on slick abuse of evidence to raise "unreasonable" reasonable doubt or when the sentence falls short of fitting the crime. Mercy, on the other hand, is extended to the offender only if there clearly exists extenuating circumstances or demonstration of repentance. This is the price paid for the extension of the forgiving principle, which among loved ones is continually exercised and unfortunately too often abused. Rightly or wrongly, it is the spirit of mercy, not its result that is significant. For it sets the tone for compassion in all matters of society. Besides, because the victim does not forgive is no reason for society to renege on reason; on the contrary, this is precisely why justice is left to the courts to make objective that is otherwise dangerously emotional. As a rule, mercy does not let down the victim or survivors who are unforgiving. Mercy modifies forgiveness─again, just as a mother forgives but not without some punishment, some lesson. If the damage is lasting, the victim expects an overt act of recompense from the transgressor in addition to legitimate compunction, which implies that with mercy there is not only understanding but within the psyche of the victim there is also a necessary process of not forgetting entirely the wilful act of lasting consequences. If O.J. is acquitted but the Browns still cling to his guilt, they may forgive for the sake of the children but forever haunting will be the horror of that night.

Mercy, too, spins internally out of the bazaar realization that perhaps no one is exempt from foul deeds: "If Marlin Brando can have such a son...If O.J Simpson could really..." drives one to the awful truth that one of the family by some cruel quirk in his makeup, could lash out and commit an act of violence or aberration just as one quakes in witness to a horrendous auto accident whereby he imagines himself not only as victim but as perpetrator of the horror. In this narcissistic light, out of self-preservation, the culprit or accused clearly sees that two wrongs do not make right. Thus, within the logical framework of the self, he must forgive himself and therefore the court should melt in witnessing his denial or plea-bargaining. Obviously, there are no noble motives here but crime is not noble. True nobility in the administering of justice is reserved for the spirit of Christ Himself who magnanimously uttered forgiveness simultaneously with His suffering on the cross.

There is redemption in the plague on the house of rude fate by the pitiable acknowledgment no one is exempt from the ravages of chance, and plague can sweep into to all our houses by virtue of the fearful potential evil in all, concluding that a witch hunt would have to include all that is human; consequently, the alternative is an enlightened forgiveness of oneself coupled with contrition and prayer for a better world and thus mercy for others by virtue of understanding the causal relationship of man's dangerous potential.

It is essential that the self-righteous begin to develop a broader sense of tolerance and governance by shaking off the ugly character— tribal anger of the witch doctor—of current zealot based terrorists of all shapes, whether it be crime or politics. Frenzied self-contrived dogmas from NRA to racism undermines what has to be done to achieve a "more perfect union." NRA presupposes that there is an enemy out there and blandly substitutes the government for the red face and redcoats of old. Racism presupposes that modern society breaks down sacred tribal walls by a misled an unstable sense of justice. Nevertheless, justice is here to stay: to render a justifiable punishment but coupled with a clinical research on the kinds of causes for given crimes and anomalous behaviors; and in politics, to search the gamut of perplexing issues to arrive at altruistic solutions that will result in equilibrium.

In spite of Christian doctrine and a spirited government designed to root out causes of instability, is forgiveness and altruism compelling? Only for those who are ever conscious of their own weaknesses. If society enervates widening its vision into ways of correcting it own inadequacies. it has yielded to universal peril of temporal existence. The convenient, but perilous fatalism is that there will always be crime and violence; that love and hate are one and the same; that poverty and class are acceptable elements of structures in which humanity must dwell; that vengeance is the only effective justice. If this is so, then there are but two routes: the conservative approach that leads the chosen to the haven of the protected; or to the canyons of the holocaust unleashed upon the unfit. To become a member of the protected one cannot display tolerance for the other of different views. When the conservative wills an action, the ayes must have it; the nays are the enemy of exclusionary right action. Until World War II, American foreign policy was always isolationism; the conservatives have now transformed international exclusion to domestic isolation by refusing to admit to a diverse society. The more isolated political thought becomes, the greater is the disinclination to rectify positively the problems of the other or the greater society. Building a wall around vision prioritizes the solipsistic slant to magnify self-interests at the expense of the general welfare. The result is phantasmagoric self-love and extreme intolerance. There is no mercy for anyone outside the monolithic values of the tribal psyche.

Understanding and forgiveness are thus mortared in, admitting only the slight variables of country club politics and social values. Inasmuch as the element of forgiveness is resident only in the individual, not in society, the narrower his scope the less likely his tolerance level is tested by not having to exercise forgiveness. And since mercy grows out of forbearance toward loved ones and leaks its ingredient into social justice for the distant other, the conservative condition leaves mercy dormant. The globe thus turns without the convolutions of mercy: the collective conscience of its inhabitants barely stirs in its sleep. This enclave of indifference of do-gooders, particularly of those with power and influence, is often the underlying cause for much of what is wrong with the world.

There are far too many unable to perceive themselves as anything but what they are in the public eye. From president to rock star their station in life, regardless of their recognition that a little luck came into play, is deserving and perfectly natural to their character. Immediately mean spirit takes hold by setting up a barrier between their egos and those of others. Their super egos are different from the egos of lesser men and women because theirs have centrifuged by fame and wealth and thereby pontificate and judge publicly without the necessary underpinning of what it is like to suffer or to be incriminated. Even if much deserving of their power, they never concede that their own gifted talent and genius manipulate the world, nor that there are scores of others more gifted that have never thought of themselves as above others to engage in the struggle of power and influence. In all fairness, though, in addition to luck of birth, talent or education, some who do make it have done so by perseverance. Still, for every Streisand there are a hundred bathroom singers who are just as good if not better. For every president elected, others were in the wings who could have boasted cleaner closets. And, of course, on the perimeter of this closed circuit of power, influence and good fortune, there are those of the middle and lower class that have been blest with favorable circumstances that they too are holier and can look down their nose from the lower steps of the temple. A teamster hauling for fifty bucks an hour is not likely to rob a bank. A desk-top publisher may pirate software now and again but he is not going to kill for a new computer program.

When the fortunate peer out of the narrow window of their enclave, seldom do they see there are untold millions who have been cursed with the wrong genes, the wrong circumstances, the wrong nationality. Among their own kind they do not attribute their station and identity to the perquisites of chance: picture JFK born retarded instead of his sister; Einstein abandoned in a ghetto alley at infancy; Henry Aaron reared in Africa; Babe Ruth born black. A teamster pulling a ricksha in Peking.

It is only when the protected are rudely vulnerable themselves─are violated by crime, catastrophe or disease─do they awaken to the stark reality brutalizing the sub-cultures of misery.

Not unlike the beautiful fashion model who snickers at the fat slobs of the world, do those of power and good fortune take into account that most less gifted or not gifted at all, are victims of genes and or circumstance that simply were not programmed to be included in the beautiful world of glamour or simply good fortune, nor even to dream of either being within reach. The gifted or fortunate cannot perceive the immense handicap among those who must struggle without the tools of auspicious birth, beauty, health and favorable circumstance. And O how nobly all─from the highest in public circles to the lowest blest with relatively carefree lives─have with tearful eyes looked upon those less fortunate, then turned away and perfunctorily counted their blessings, but yet so quick to comfort themselves that through taxation and charities they have not abandoned the abandoned! Why should one safely tucked in, give thought that he has not been raped in prison, that he has not felt the empty pain of abandonment? Nay, why should he? Are not prisons and paroles symbols of mercy?─after all, history leaves tales of hanging or loss of arm for stealing bread! What does it matter that most of the violators are as victimized as the victims? For every incorrigible criminal there are a hundred with the same background that are law-abiding. He therefore quickly suppresses these distant matters that have so rudely ruffled the conscience.

So, too, in the perfunctory observation of non-incriminating sub-worlds, mercy and justice may play a subliminal rôle. Sensitivity of the self-righteous is factored in to buffer callousness to the sick, mentally or physically, by Medicaid even though consciously it is resented. Compassion does quiver a little only because there is not one of the self-righteous who is not subliminally stirred by the ghastly thought of his own helplessness in becoming severely ill, but he quickly shrugs it off. His conscience is clear that a young girl loyally watches over her sick mother in the emergency ward because they had no family doctor of preventive medicine. Are not the needs of her mother eventually met? Why should the blesséd self-righteous feel guilt because they have the best in health care and others' health is placed on a roulette table? That a young couple loses their home because of medical bills is their problem since they wilfully neglected to insure themselves. The smoker and drug-addict deserve to die. Is it inconceivable for those of the protective realm to think that they are disease-free because more deserving, take better care of themselves, have a greater future in store and therefore destined to remain healthy? Besides, in an imperfect world must not the sick always exist as pawns for the medical game and as symbols of the suffering ingrained only in the other? What use the chosen good, the powerful, the white male wage-earner, to beg forgiveness for feeling no guilt in that he is not crippled, that he has not undergone untimely violence, that he has not suffered the wrath of poverty or unemployment?

In the economic sphere, where lies justice and compassion for coal-miners who keep industry spinning; sanitation workers who clear mountains of consumption, the illegal immigrant who empties bed-pans? Surely, serfdom, in spite of what history says, is alive and well and here to serve. As for generosity, is there not welfare and Bush's points of light for the Have-nots to get their act together? Surely the line has to be drawn somewhere!

The realm of the elite─apparently the current white male includes himself─with its good fortune of minimal crime, variable wealth and health is but temporarily inconvenienced and has no compulsion to empathize when in reality the chosen membership of this protective realm who have been maximally immunized to the misfortunes of peril need only respond with a resentful hand to victims of nightmarish sub-worlds. In their Utopian shell, these chosen people perpetuate its splendors, revel in them or its possibilities and believe that the world indeed was created for them and only them─and some go so far as to claim its creation was by them. That there are others who suffer or create dastardly acts are no different from a stage play or film. In fact, the creatures of suffering exist for the chosen's cathartic entertainment. They weep over the children of Bosnia, then turn to HBO. Thanks to the theatrical satellite pictures millions were spent on the symptoms of Somalia─God forbid there be one dime or a life spent on its causes, and thereby closing the curtain on another holocaust. Millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on theatrics to prove no wrong-doing on the part of the Clintons when a simple letter or press-conference of openness from them would be the way to go. Black violations of blacks go unheeded; white violations of blacks are buried in news briefs; black violation of a white female executive in Central Park draws national headlines. Gang rape of a black girl by red necks is rejected by the copy editor. Is there any wonder that the cries from the minorities claim that nothing of good conscience is done until there are intrusive repercussions in the protective realm of self-righteous power?

It is only when the protected are rudely vulnerable themselves─are violated by crime, catastrophe or disease─do they awaken to the stark reality brutalizing the sub-cultures of misery. Only then does the protected begin to embark on the journey to sympathy, understanding and empathy that are the ingredients of mercy modified from the seeds of the altruism-forgiveness principle: No one gave a damn about AIDS, previously thought to be brought on by irascible behavior, until Rock Hudson was afflicted and subsequently Elizabeth Taylor took up the banner of conscience. Millions of Alzheimer victims were ignored but for Rita Hayworth and now, of course, Ronald Reagan. Sadly, Reagan himself was guilty of this indifference. Millions of heartfelt cries go out to Magic Johnson for knocking up the subterranean world. Likeable O.J. allegedly kills and suddenly the capital punishment cult is silent.

Despite the protective realm, mercy and much less forgiveness exist through the path of conscience because of the reprobate-residual clinging to the savage heart. One never knows when he might need to call up mercy and forgiveness for himself. Forgiveness anchored by love, which is what Christianity implies by the ludicrous hyperbole of love your enemy, is a nuisance for the forgiver and a grim reminder of the humanside of weakness of the forgiven; forgiveness without its altruistic counterpart is resentful acceptance with the ultimate hope of forgetting underlying hatred. For if your neighbor transgresses, if your lover is abusive, if your family takes away your pride, if a leader disillusions you, you can still forgive; for the remembrance is rationalized away out of compassion and respect, but only if the violators mend their ways and their victims retain their love. It is simply not true that one should love his enemy who refuses to become a genuine friend. That is why devout Republicans perceive Nixon as a great statesman but McGovern a senile fool. And why devout Democrats now perceive McGovern as a harmless, sobering sage, and Nixon as the same despicable little congressman who scandalized his way into power and harbored till his passing the belief he could influence events. Even when Colin Powell makes his debut and inevitably disappoints the black population, he may be mercifully admired but the betrayal will be haunting.

In this still underdeveloped stage of civilization, mercy is the public display of forgiveness with varying degrees of disinterest. One shows mercy toward an unwed mother because of the very remote possibility that his own daughter could be one. Curtailment of the irresistible urge for capital punishment arises when the culprit is well-known and at once perceived as “only human.” Though under suspicion, the AIDS victim is given the benefit of the doubt that it was a result of a blood transfusion. To a limited degree a transgressor is shown mercy owing to child abuse in his own childhood.

Unlike the crisp, efficient, tribal wrath of vengeance, the messy business of forgiveness and mercy can only slowly and painfully grow through understanding while the forgetting of transgression and insult slowly and painfully wane. It is only the saint─whether social worker or missionary─bravely, unselfishly venturing into the sub-worlds to merge with human suffering who is capable of ultimate forgiveness─to excuse his God for an imperfect creation.

Built upon these sands of a dire world, justice is always in peril because its underpinning, mercy, made up of socialized altruism and forgiveness, extend into the quake of an unpredictable and priggish human psyche that from the beginning took affront that God dare suggest that its material side go forth and multiply. It was only natural that Adam be shaken by God's lack of confidence in him to be perfect humanity unto himself and his play thing Eve. It is this psychology that issues forth the subconscious Hitler in all: if only the nuisance of otherness could be stamped out! After all, there are pesticides, why not follow through with this hard logic on the human level? Apparently solipsism is paradoxically inherent in every soul and feeds the mean spirit.

Thankfully, salvation rests in the transvaluation of the altruistic-forgiving imperative to break the barrier of society and to extend its thorn of mercy to prick the social conscience. Perhaps in a millennia or two the "quality of mercy" will reign and there will be no little ragamuffin in the streets of Calcutta hoping she will catch a rat for her supper; violence will be but a catharsis from computer games only; theft will in tandem disappear with poverty and greed; crime of passion will sublimate into forgiving and loving the other; disease will be extinct or at least the afflicted will have the best of care; forgiveness will be but a vestige for there will be no violations to forgive; and true altruism will stand alone. Mercifully the mean-spirited will vanish.