The Tao of Ben Franklin #8-Justice
Virtue # 8: Justice
“Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
What does it mean to be just? I think it can be boiled down to one sentence. Do what is right. I think it was Mark Twain who said, “You’re never wrong to do the right thing.” It’s hard to argue with this statement.
However, doing the right thing, as right as it is, and wrong as it is not, does not always make it easy. Man, my third grade English teacher, Mrs. Lewis would have hated that choppy sentence.
Doing the right thing is not always easy. That’s better. That should not stop us though. We hear a lot about justice these days, but it’s not justice at all. It’s revenge. I cannot see anything in Franklin’s virtue of justice to suggest he thought it right to go about wronging people who did nothing to harm another in an attempt to benefit a group they did no harm.
Example: Once your great great grandfather stole my great great grandfather’s car. So now the only right thing to do is take your car and give it to me. Huh? We don’t even know each other. Also, how is you giving me your car going to really change anything? This is a bastardized form of justice.
I think the first part of this virtue, ‘..by doing no injuries,” is rather self evident. Don’t hurt people. Don’t steal from people. Don’t slander people. Don’t do anyone any sort of injury. It seems pretty straight forward.
Then there is the other half. That’s where it gets tricky if one really ponders it long enough. First, let’s look at the word 'duty'. Duty is a big word when taken seriously. It means a task belongs strictly to you, no one else. It is your duty. Therefore, it is you who must perform it.
So looking at this from a moral perspective we have many duties that aren’t always apparent. I’ve been recently faced with what I can only see as a duty though it’s not an easy one to perform.
Since I was 12 I have been pretty much estranged from my younger half brother. He has spent the better part of his life incarcerated for one drug charge or another. He was let out of jail about a year ago from this writing and he and I connected. It was nice. We started to talk as brothers. We shared stories about our lives.
It was fun to hear things about my grandparents who he spent much more time with than I did before he started his streak of incarceration. He told me funny tales about our grandfather, a 6'5” dark headed, dark skinned man that anyone would swear descended from Geronimo himself. My brother told me how once he was skipping school and ‘Pop’ as we called him, hunted him down and gave him the tongue lashing of his life. He said it was one of the scariest things he ever endured. We laughed about it. We both loved our Pop but also knew his temper was not to be trifled with.
He and I were starting to connect regularly. We had a couple lunches and then we planned to have him over for his birthday. He was to arrive at 4 p.m. for an early dinner. 4 p.m. came and there was no sign of him. Then 5 p.m. I get a text that he's going to be late. Then around 6: 30 p.m. he says he still hasn’t been able to get away from Sulphur Springs. I tell him not to worry about it. We’ll celebrate his birthday another time.
I haven’t seen him free since. My brother once again fell into his old ways. He was picked up in a drug free zone with a small amount of methamphetamine and is at this time sitting in the Hopkins County jail. It breaks my heart.
Since we were communicating on the outside I wanted to keep the channel of communication open while he was on the inside. That’s not cheap. A phone call to an inmate-$.25 cents per minute. Want to do a video call? That’ll be $.35 cents per minute.
My brother has to purchase anything between meals such as coffee, candy (Starburst fruit chews which my grandmother always kept on hand for him) and anything else. Oh and there’s the e-cigarettes for $10 a pop. You can imagine how Mr. “Improve always in ALL ways” brother feels about that. The bill adds up quickly.
Cody has no money. He has no one other than me to help him financially so every few days I get a message on the NCCI app (that’ll be $.25 cents to check the message) saying, “Hey man I hate to ask, but could you put some money in my commissary account?”
“No problem,” I reply. Oh, and that’ll be another $.25 cents for the reply. Maybe we should implement these fees in free society as a means to cut down on social media usage.
Michael Scott: “Pam, write that in my good ideas notebook.”
It’s frustrating as hell. I want to tell Cody, “Hey partner. You do realize I have two kids in college right? You’re running up a $200 per month tab and the tax payer is putting you up for free.”
When I get frustrated I’m reminded of how God asks us to look upon our brothers.
The Bible story of Cain and Abel (see Genesis 4:1-13) gives us an understanding of how God believes we are to take care of our brothers. Cain was so angry and jealous of his brother Abel that he killed him. Afterward, when God asked "Where is Abel?" Cain said he didn't know. That's when Cain asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?" But he was really saying, "My brother is not my problem."
This is where living up to the second part of Franklin’s virtue can be difficult. Is my brother really my responsibility? Well, if not mine then whose? Once when he was out he was having a tough night. Most likely on a meth binge and needed a place to stay. He texted me asking me to Venmo him cash for a room. I said, no. I explained I didn’t want our relationship to be based on money.
A great book for learning how to handle these situation is ‘Toxic Charity’ by Robert Lupton. It gives great insight into just how harmful doing charity the wrong way can do more harm than good.
This, at least as I’ve justified it, is different. Cody has no one. As long as he’s in jail we can speak, he can’t get high (I think) and I can exercise my duty as his brother.
What about marriage, parenthood, being a good citizen? All of these come with duties. How often do we neglect to omit the benefits that are our duty.? Franklin, like the other Founders had a much different view of duty than we have today.
Today we’re told our duty is first and foremost to ourselves. We don’t seek truth, we seek our truth. We don’t seek to do what’s right. We are told to seek what is right for us. Don’t hold back either. If it feels good to you, do it. It’s what you want so it has to be right. If anyone stands in your way, label them a bigot or fascist. This is a troubling road. Being so focused on our own needs and wants leaves little room for the needs of others.
The book of Proverbs reads, “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, "Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow"-- when you now have it with you. Do not plot harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you.”
If someone deserves good, and it is within our power to provide it, it is our duty to do so. I don’t know if my brother deserves good. According to the eyes of man probably not. However, he is my brother. I have the power to act. Soooo…
It has forced me to be more diligent in noticing those who need and deserve the good I have the power to provide. I want to be better at this. I don’t want my eyes to be constantly glued to my own navel, something I deal with often. I want to turn them toward others.
“The time is always right to do the right thing”
I hope I can live by the simplicity of this virtue and just do right. Martin Luther King once said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.” I’m going to try as many times as I can. At the end of the day, I just want to be just. See what I did there?