girl-aflame's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loyalty Vs. Justice - If Project The August If Project: If you were the sole witness to a crime committed by a loved one, would you offer what you knew to the proper authorities? Which do you value more: your sense of loyalty or sense of justice? It would depend a lot on the severity of the crime. I know that justice is black and white and being fair has nothing to do with how serious your transgression was, but whether or not I completely change another human being's life, especially one that I love, is not something I would take lightly. If they murdered someone I would have to turn them in, of course, but not just because they murdered someone - also because they need help. If they stole something or robbed a place I wouldn't turn them in but I would require that they go and get help, or else I would. In fact, short of murder/attempted murder/serious assault almost to the point of murder, I can't think of anything I would turn them in for. The determining factor for me, though, would be their attitude toward the crime. If I think they're planning on turning it into a crime spree, they need to be stopped. It isn't just the lives of other people we're talking about, but their lives. I would want to do the best for them that I could, and I would do whatever I felt necessary to deter them from their destructive behaviors. If it takes jail time to wake them up, then in the end it will be better for them to have gone to jail than to stay free and never learn their lesson, eventually seriously harming themselves. In most cases, though, my loyalty wins out. I consider looking out for their best interests a form of loyalty, however. Sometimes when you love people you have to do things that are hard and that they interpret as being unloving, when really you're just trying to protect them. It sounds a little juvenille, but it's a very hard concept to translate from words to principle. 2:59 p.m. - Saturday, Aug. 09, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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