Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

“Sig’s idea of justice — most people’s idea of justice — is badly flawed,” Torstein said.

“They think it has something to do with balancing the scales, inflicting as much suffering on a criminal as he inflicted on his victim. But you can’t ‘balance’ one person’s suffering with another’s. A prisoner in jail may suffer, but he certainly doesn’t suffer in the same way or the same amount as the person he wronged.

 “Of course, the criminal’s suffering does absolutely nothing to restore to the victim what was taken from him by the crime. And finally: the criminal himself behaves in this criminal way because of something that was done to him in his past, or something not done for him in his childhood, and so punishing him does not address ‘justice’ for him — only redressing the wrong done to him in the past would equal justice for him ... and isn’t he as deserving of it as his victim?”

Yah, Torstein would say stuff like this, and everyone would go ... “Huh, now, what?”

He would laugh.

“OK, think about it this way. Once upon a time there was a gazillionaire named Donald. One day a former employee named Ross came to him and asked for a jumbo loan of $50 million to launch a new business. Donald lent him the money with a payment plan based on the business slowly growing over the next 10 years. But it didn’t. It spectacularly failed!

“Now Ross owed $50 million to Donald, and had no way to pay it. He threw himself on Donald’s mercy, saying: ‘I lost everything and I’m about to lose my house, and my kids are going to starve. I really can’t pay you and not feed my family.’ Donald felt sorry for him. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘Forget the loan. You’re off the hook.’

“Then Ross headed home, happy, and he saw a friend, Bill, who owed him $50. He stopped and demanded the money, because he really needed it badly, clearly, but Bill was even more poor than him! ‘If I had the $50, I’d pay you,’ Bill said. ‘But all I have is a dollar, and I’m going to buy milk for the baby with that.’ Ross got incensed when Bill wouldn’t pay! He hauled him into small claims court, took his last dollar and garnished any future wages he might get until the whole $50 and interest were paid. That’s justice for Ross: Bill did owe the $50. But Ross had already been forgiven a $50 million debt. Was that fair? Was it just?”

“What’s garnish?” Sully asked.

“A right to someone’s money in the future.” Torstein was pretty straightforward about answering kids’ questions with something they could understand, but with adults, it was all stories and illustrations. In a way it was like learning a new language, seeing things from a radically different perspective than you’d ever seen them before.

“So you’re saying mercy is better than justice, is that it?” Ferdy asked. “I think we all believe that.”

“I’m saying mercy and justice are very nearly the same thing at their root,” Torstein said. “I’m saying if you could understand the forces that have shaped each person into who they are, from the criminals to the saints, you’d be able to understand justice, and not before. I’m saying if you could restore to each one what has been taken from them, expunge the devastation of what’s been done to them, pour into them what needful things were denied them, then you could really do justice. That’s what would really balance the scales.”

“In a society though, you have to have laws, and there has to be a penalty for breaking the law,” Pete said. Not that he was a huge law and order guy, but he did appreciate order in general.

“Does there?” Torstein said. “When you have a little baby, you institute rules for his own protection. The older and more mature he becomes, the better he understands the reasons behind the rules, so the less he needs the punishment for breaking them. Shouldn’t societies grow in the same way?”

“They should, but they don’t,” Bruiser said. “I mean, look at me, 35 years on the wrong side of the law and never punished for it, so I just kept doing it ...”

Torstein laughed. “You’re my best example then! No one punished you for breaking the law, and all on your own, you stopped doing it! Maybe I gave back to you something that was taken from you so far in your past you don’t remember it, something that turned you to the dark side. Maybe I gave you justice.”

It was something to think about, wasn’t it? What if we pursued mercy as if it were justice? It was a crazy idea ... but in a way you could see how it could work.