Here on LI, a man who killed a police officer when he lost control of his car was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and avoid jail.  The Police Officer left a widow and three children and they suffered a painful loss that they have to live with for the rest of their lives.  It is assumed that the driver was falling asleep at the wheel and that led to his loss of control.  There is a public outcry that the law should be changed so that the next time this happens any driver involved will go to jail.

The driver in question has a family also.  People want to impose more pain on his family to make them feel the pain of the Police officer's family.  Why are we so intent on adding to the pain in this world?  By putting people in jail for everything that causes another pain we don't eliminate the pain caused, it just adds more pain to the world.  The only way to ease pain is with love.  Revenge, whether by an individual or a government, doesn't ease pain.  It just smears it around like a drop of grease until it stains every piece of purity it comes in contact with.  Our system is based on a jury deciding if a person has committed a crime worthy of punishment.  As laws are made more and more specific in an attempt to eliminate the judgement of our peers we become more machine like and less human.

Each one of us has made a careless decision in our life.  Most of the time we have been fortunate not to have had that decision hurt someone.  How can we punish those who are simply less fortunate than us without minimizing the additional pain such punishment will cause?  Where's the love?  Where's the foregiveness?  De we really want to live by the standard we are insisting on for others?  God help us!