I realize that most blogs in the blogosphere are already yups who can’t get a real job so they post their opinions about current events and feel cosmpolitan thinking that others actually care about their opinion.  I call it: ego-masturbation.

I want to preface this with: I fully realize that what I am about to engage in myself is ego-masturbation (albeit quite frankly, this entire blog is ego-masturbation).

I recently developed the habit of switching my default bored website from facebook to CNN (read this blog to see why). Recently, the headlines have been pretty much the same: corporate greed, poverty and joblessness, and occasional portraits of how select families are making it through. Today I finally found the silver lining in this economic downturn: to save costs, some states are considering abolishing the death penalty (read article here). The argument is that Justice comes with a cost, 1.9 million more per capital punishment, to be exact.

Justin Thurber raped and killed 19 year old Jodi Sanderholm in 2007. On March 1, a jury will decide whether to uphold Thurber’s death penalty sentance.

“If Kansas Senate Bill 208 passes, it won’t take effect until July 1, so it won’t affect Thurber’s sentence. But future savings could be substantial.”

Consider this hypothetical experiment of Justice: A and B commit the same crime. Hold everything about the crime constant: motive, place, date, etc. Vary only the amount of time for legal proceedings so that A’s trial is on June 30 and B’s is on July 1; perhaps the judge for B  had a cold and had to reschedule. The outcome: A is sentenced to death and B gets a life sentence. The fine line between life and death is a germ.

The moral of the story is that Justice is not absolute. It is not a necessity. It is a luxury that can be appropriated and contorted to transient social needs. Yet, the bright torch of Justice is waved in the air – inextinguishable and unfaltering – the bright light in this dark world of sin. Just as one person is using that torch to shed light into the unknown, another is using it to burn.  This notion of Justice we all carry in our hearts is just as sick as how we preceive those we exact Justice upon. It begs the question, who really is morally superior, and who is morally polluted?

I can’t supress a slight [mental] chuckle. After decades of vicious debate and moral name-calling, it all comes down to the money.