Two wrongs don't make a right?

As every would-be wiseacre and cracker-barrel philosopher knows, two wrongs don't make a right.

Phooey! The second one is justice and retribution, and therefore not a 'wrong'.

Injuries done to me I must forgive, not because the state says so and not because some psychologist says that resentment is bad for my psyche, but because it is my Christian duty.

But unpunished, unavenged wrongs inflicted on the innocent I cannot forgive, particularly when the perpetrator tries to justify them, or claims that he has "paid his debt to 'society'", whatever 'society' may be.

To forgive such without adequate retribution is to insult the wronged.

Charity and Some Difficulties with Not Hating One's Enemies

Redneck Reflections has an excellent but tough post today on the necessity for positive good and for charity, a virtue I find difficult to cultivate.

Loving my enemies if they are weaker than me is easy - mere routine. As to those I perceive as stronger, there is nothing I would not (at least theoretically) inflict on them. As Virgil wrote, of the destiny and duty of Rome:

Parcere subiectos et debellare suberbos

("Spare the humble [or defeated] and war down the proud", and boy! would I not war the arrogant swine down!).

And this leads me to another matter - Honour, which a correspondent attacked as a merely pagan idea, but one to which I am greatly attached. A future post, perhaps.