Positive Gains for Libertarian Party

As the 2nd District Rep to the Libertarian Party of Indiana, I was asked a lot of questions following the November 2nd election.   Before I get to the answers I provided I would first like to address the results.

Richard Liedtky got 3% of the vote with over 700 votes in a state house race decided by fewer than 500 votes.  Mark Vogel took 5% of the vote and over 9,000 votes in a US House race where Donnelly won 48% to Walorski’s 47%.  Ben Jarvis got 3%, Andy Wolf got 20%, and Ron got 28% in three state house races.

In Elkart County Amy Hapner got 19% of the vote in a county council race, picking up 1,585 votes.

In LaPorte County Mike Sloan got 7% in a three candidate race, and Greg Kelver got 10% in a three candidate race.  Mike ran for county commissioner, and Greg ran for county council.

In St. Joseph County, Tom Zmyslo got 15% in a three candidate race running for county council.

These nine races in Indiana’s 2nd District came to an average of over 12% of the vote to Libertarian Candidates.  This was easily the best showing for the LPIN in this district ever.

Now onto some of the questions and answers.

Q: How would Libertarians reduce the deficit given your position in favor of tax cuts?

A: There is a lot of waste.  By keeping the money at a more local level we can reduce redundancy and the loss of funds through the lobbying and administration process.  We also have identified excessive spending in the general government practice as well and would support a review of the necessity of those programs.

Q: Is the argument by the TEA Party in favor of returning to the Constitution just an idealist argument impossible to achieve?

A: That is a tough question.  The world has changed a lot in the past 100 years, and so has the United States.  So certainly there need to be some amendments to the Constitution to reflect the advances in technology that often complicate the legal process right now.  But the biggest problem we have with our economy is the idea that corporations have the same rights as individual persons.  Corporations are not living, breathing entities, nor should they be given more rights and privileges than small businesses.

Q: Has the time come to place a limit on election spending?

A: We need to be careful.  Right now we have laws limiting how much money individual persons can donate but corporations get to spend as much as they want and use fronts to hide their identity.  It again seems our priorities are backwards.  We should be protecting individuals, not big business.

Q: Is privilege a determining factor in the political system of the US?

A: It isn’t supposed to be, but to a large extent it is.  If you have money you can usually get through the primaries, and then your money can usually get you endorsements or support average people can’t drum up.   It is time to get back to having average persons in elected office, for sure.  Hopefully with this wave of passion we continue to see more ordinary, working-class people winning elections into the future.

Making an Ethical Vote

Election day is upon us and the time is yours.  Those of us in the political process have played our part already, and now it is your turn.

I will not ask you which direction you will take this country, because that is not the question at hand.  That is a question you already have an answer for.  What question is before you today is which candidate do you feel is most likely to help lead this nation in the direction you wish for us to move.

What I ask of you is that party bias is put aside and that each candidate is carefully considered.  I do not see any other ethical manner with which to vote.

When we pull a lever for one political party we blindly put our faith in whatever candidates that party has chosen without carefully considering whether any one of those candidates might not be the best option.  Instead, we should go through each race carefully, consider the candidates, and put our mark next to the one we most trust.

We must take into consideration whether the candidates care about the poor, or seek personal profit.  Whether the candidates are protecting big business or are trying to help the local communities.  Whether the candidates are willing to admit that they don’t have all the answers, or are so high upon themselves that they feel they are worthy of making your decisions for you.

You have the voice this day, my friends.  How will you decide?

California’s Prop. 8 Ruling Proves Tricky

I find myself appalled by and yet supportive of the ruling on Proposition 8. My faith teaches me that I should treat all persons, especially the meek, the poor, and the timid, with compassion and respect. Homosexuals are not excluded from that compassion and respect. And it is time we start making positive strides out of love rather than negotiating political policy out of fear, hatred, and moral objections.

While we try to purify our souls we must be mindful that we cannot do so while attempting to manipulate the rights God granted us to prevent people from legally doing what we detest. We should protect ourselves from evil, yes, but we cannot and should not create law to prevent individuals from sinning against themselves. We also should not use our government to dictate what does and does not constitute a sin. Sins are for God to take care of. In the business of politics we should strive to protect individual rights and liberties, to ensure peace, and to provide each person the opportunity to, through their own moral codes and individual choices, either suffer or enjoy the fruits of their journey through life.

Division and hatred, anger and loathing, the bitterness of detesting those of a differing view are not Gods weapons. Gods weapon is love. His glory is compassion and forgiveness. We should embrace this ideal wholly, abolish our personal desires to eliminate sin universally, and understand that the only way to fight sin is to fight it within our own souls. We cannot defeat it by embracing a social war against acts we might establish as being harmful to our spirits. We can defeat it only within our own hearts, and offer a helping hand to those in need. In making emotionally charged attacks against certain acts that do not violate the rights of others we establish ourselves as angry, bitter, hate-filled individuals.

I feel I can then establish that Marriage is an institution of God, not man. We should not be in the business of attempting to protect with man-made laws what is so sacred that its true existence is in spirit, not body. I recall a discussion not long ago with a minister where he stated that when the government can dictate law concerning the private choices of sexual practice for homosexuals, the government is big enough to dictate not only the sexual practice of heterosexuals, but the right of individuals to marry each other as well. The right to marriage is God-given, and should not be limited by the powers of a fallible institution of men such as government.

I am not ready to sit idly by while my fellow worshipers of God seek to push their personal faith through the law books to create a government (an institution incapable of being free from error, as most of my fellow conservatives are most astute to point out) that seeks to establish itself as the authority on what is good. We must establish the goodness of God within ourselves, then work through the communities in which we live as free men and free women to help lead others to the path of goodness. But that path must be freely chosen or it is not chosen at all, and if it is not chosen, then it cannot be made with the soul, but with the body. As established, marriage is an institution of God, and is spiritual, but in establishing it as a government regulated act it has become an institution of the body. We have erred greatly in allowing marriage to be licensed and regulated in the first place, and now the supporters of California’s Proposition 8 are pushing for the continued expansion of the practice of establishing marriage as a bodily act.

It is through this error of establishing marriage through government that marriage itself has become so prone to divorce. It is no longer a holy institution of spirit and of God’s blessing, but is now of the body and government’s blessing. Proposition 8 itself seeks to limit marriage further. That is bad enough, but worse still is the continued exercise of legislating marriage at all. Thus, I oppose Proposition 8 and propose the elimination of marriage as a political issue.

-Ryan Liedtky is the author of Wisdom: A Prelude to Liberty.

Liberty as social evolution

This is an excerpt from “Wisdom: A Prelude to Liberty“.  To read more, Wisdom can be purchased online at  amazon.com , or at barnesandnobel.com.

…It is no easy task to stand firmly rooted in a moral code when the common ground of our now broken political system is money, power, and personal gain ahead of the interests of the common person. To stand for the rights of those the majority would abuse, negate, neglect, or attack is the only way by which to defend that same majority: what should happen if today’s majority becomes tomorrow’s minority, short of social “retribution”, and the loss of their rights, same as they stole the rights of others?

It must be our intent, if we should improve our nation, to understand the full scope of the changes overtaking this world.

With the advent of modern medicine, for example, we have saved the lives of millions who otherwise would have perished. The result is a higher rate of people physically unable to work, the scope of which our government, and our people generally, have failed to comprehend, or for which they have even begun to account.

We must find ways to increase community activism and the aid provided for people suffering, while ensuring those who donate their time, money, and resources know and agree to what they are providing. I, for instance, will not donate when I cannot agree with how the money is used. It is this reason, along with many others still yet explored within this treatise, that I oppose the notion that government should forcefully take money from some and choose how it be spent in turn.

Only through government that is more moderate in spending can we provide the tax cuts to allow us the opportunity to fill our food banks, provide clothing and shelter for our young, adopt orphans, and provide other help to needy persons. Instead, our governments continue to focus their money and energy on specialized projects to make their own jobs easier, and in providing themselves: raises, funding through government projects to their own companies, and favors to their friends in exchange for continued campaign donations and lobbying favors. All this they do with the money taken from hard-working citizens struggling to put food on the table, and for the supposed purpose of aiding the poor. We can see clearly that the purpose and the result do not match.

These candidates campaign on their work for the poor and provide programs that originally intended to assist people getting back on their feet, but which since have been perverted into systems used to hold people back. As long as the people require these government programs to survive they must then vote for and support candidates who continue to provide those programs, even when they disagree. Such coercion has created mistrust of government, and confusion and frustration for voters.

Then two choices placed before us (without any consideration for other possibilities, ideas, or even the questions asked by the people) are debated as nothing more than a show, with the only clear debate being along party lines. The result of which is the extinguishing of the flame of thought and reason. Our politicians ignore original ideas, dismissing them with form letters and a shrug of the shoulders, leaving us nothing more than a choice between “two evils” come Election Day…

To read more of this chapter and of Wisdom: A Prelude to Liberty, please purchase a copy of the book.  To contact the author, visit the author page at omegapublications.net.

One Child at a Time

This is an excerpt from “Wisdom: A Prelude to Liberty“.  To read more, Wisdom can be purchased online at  amazon.com , or at barnesandnobel.com.

“One Child at a Time” is a comprehensive approach to education. It requires the use of what is known as “Response to Intervention” (RTI), which stresses that educators, administrators, and parents are most responsible for the inability of children to learn. RTI maintains that the children do not suffer learning disabilities, but are disabled only by educators and/or parents who fail to comprehend that there is not a single correct standard of teaching.

The question becomes a matter of implementation. One Child at a Time is no easy task. It requires careful consideration on the part of the educator, the administrators, and the parents. We should consider making a few key changes before drastically overhauling the entire system. A complete change of education theory would not be good for education system; it would be a shock, setting the system against itself. So slow, cautious, but steady changes should be put in place over time.

One of the key changes that should be made involves the grading system. It is a change that must be made first. Children, parents, and teachers should not be made to look at certain children as better than others. The strengths should be developed, and the weaknesses worked out, so as to help each child learn, rather than compete for top grades. Such competition for grades creates long-term negative effects, and holds back “late bloomers” from potential success.

Grades should no longer be compared to other children, but instead be based upon comparison with previous knowledge. Thus, each child can advance at their own pace without feeling compelled to compete for higher grades by memorizing, temporarily, information which can assist them on homework and/or tests, but instead can absorb the material in a meaningful way.

The second step is to replace “standardized” tests with essays and to encourage creative thinking and reasoning skills. Each individual has unique styles of thought processes and logic to reach their conclusions. Far too many are encouraged to replace such abilities with mere appearances, replacing actual learning with homework, testing, and participation grades.

Homework too often is pointless as it is asking students to learn what they already know. The One Child at a Time model would make homework worthwhile as it would have students advancing as they are ready, after they have demonstrated through writing and reasoning an able understanding of the topic sufficient to move forward in the process. Homework should be a tool in assisting the learning process, not a graded comparison of the ability of one student over another.

The third step is to lessen the standard requirements for teachers. College degrees should not be mandated for all teachers. Rather, there should be alternative methods of becoming a teacher, such as a number of years working in a given field, experts, certain levels of proficiency proven through aptitude tests for specific subjects, amongst others. These allow more highly qualified people who have extensive knowledge in their given subjects who might not hold college degrees the ability to teach either full-time or part-time.

Such a move would allow more insightful lessons, and allow the students to get a more hands-on working knowledge of the tasks they are attempting to learn. It would further ensure that they are already up-to-date on the most advanced information pertaining to the subject matter. The classic text-book necessities would be far less important than the in-class interactions, discussions, and hands-on learning process, giving students a far greater learning potential.

The ability for individuals to pass aptitude tests in order to be hired in as teachers would allow intelligent individuals, knowledgeable in certain fields, an opportunity to work with children. While certain restrictions might be more readily placed upon these teachers, a compromise could be worked out such that teachers without a given number of years of experience in the specified field who also do not possess a college degree could teach only those classes designated as electives, that is those classes which are not required to obtain a high school diploma.

The aptitude testing could also be applied to elementary school education, especially in the youngest grades, where extensive college education levels are not as important. However, these aptitude tests should include an examination to ensure the potential teacher has an understanding of the integral workings of a young child’s psychology.

The ability to test into a qualification for a teaching job would serve to lower or eliminate the amount of student loans teachers need to repay, thus lowering the required salary and providing a lower cost of education. This lowers the cost of education at the college level as well by taking many potential teachers out of the government financial aid programs.

Such a move would reduce the classroom sizes, allowing teachers to also work more closely with those students they do have, allowing the One Child at a Time model to reach its full potential.

By making these three initial moves we can improve the quality of a high school education, which in turn provides more value to high school graduation. Students will be able to avoid college all together and move directly into many fields which currently require college degrees, thus reducing the government spending on college aid, lowering taxes, reducing student loan debts, and increasing the spending potential of individuals.

However, One Child at a Time requires more programs over time. A fourth step might include creating a tutoring credit, where-by high school seniors can get class credit for tutoring freshmen and sophomores.

Yet another idea might include community service work as part of class-time during school hours (which might help create a sense of identity and pride, especially in inner-cities, which could also cut down on crime). Community service could include visiting a nursing home and providing much needed companionship for the elderly, assisting disabled persons with such tasks as mowing their yards, or even having the students scrub graffiti off of vandalized buildings.

High school students could also be put in charge of maintaining certain public parks as part of class work in humanities, social studies, or even as part of natural science classes. The goal of One Child at a Time must be to educate the student in as many ways as possible, and in helping to provide a sense of accomplishment, hope, and pride in their individual and group efforts.

Teachers cannot be lazy or detached from their students. Far too many teachers are currently focused only on themselves without regard for serving their students; some other teachers hold grudges against students they do not like or do not understand. Many people who go to college to become teachers do not consider or understand the huge responsibility of educating the future minds of the nation. Not only must teachers explain subject matter, they must also help develop social skills, life skills, and the psychology of the students.

The pressure to pass standardized tests rather than explaining one’s own understanding and views has resulted in the loss of all interest in the necessary skills to develop individuals of the highest quality. The demand for all students to conform has cost society its free thinkers and independent souls who so drove innovation for decades. And our concern with advancing to college above gaining actual knowledge has resulted in a wide-spread dilemma where students compete for higher scores above higher intelligence. None of this accomplishes the goals of education, and only hinders individuals as they attempt to gain the necessary abilities which will guide them through life.

College Reform is Needed

It is true that people with college educations earn more over a lifetime, but the debt they put themselves into is not considered into those calculations.  Once it is, the extra earnings are not significant enough to always justify the college degree.  Further, because the government does not pay for all students to attend college (nor should it, since it is not a necessity for success in society nor for freedom, especially if the high school education process is performed correctly), the education process is not fair nor equal.

Currently, the college education system clearly favors both the poor and the rich, while putting the middle class into unsustainable and unfair debt just to ensure a fair chance at the job market.  The poor are given a free college education; however they often do not get an equal education, being forced to attend poorly rated or extremely cheap schools.  This ensures that the balance of power stays in the hands of the rich, by putting the middle class and the impoverished into situations where-by their degrees ensure they do not get the highest level jobs at the highest level companies, or their debt is such that no matter how much the benefit, they are stuck paying for loans for so long that they might as well not have gone to college.

Further, by the government providing these “benefits” to the poor or lower-middle class, not only do they ensure that the poor and the middle class students are stuck in bad situations (even as they flatter them with tall tales of wealth and respectability), they allow colleges to provide the students with the richest parents (often alumni of the best colleges) a free education as a “thanks”.  In other words, the burden of the cost for college is placed squarely on the middle class and the poorest classes of citizens who happen to be so unlucky as to be denied (often for unknown or unspecified reasons) government aid.

This system of “fairness” has created a far more unfair and unjust system of economic “balance” (which rests at an all time high almost exclusively with 1% of the population).  This system must be stopped, and our societal attitude towards education must be altered if we are to truly break out of this newly created cycle of lunacy.

No easy solution exists.  With diligence, patience, and a careful revamping of our societal mindset, we can understand that there are only two options on the table for true reform.  1) We provide a completely free college education to all persons.  2) We stop providing government aid to college students.

We must also consider that the consequences of both are not entirely what we would prefer.  On the first, the cost of government spending would sky-rocket out of control, increasing taxes and national debt.  On the second, many people would lack the opportunity to attend college.

It should be noted, however, that without the opportunity to attend college for many people, our organization and business models would change.  No longer would it be required of a business manager to have a college degree, and educators would be better (and likely better serve the students) if they were shown to hold intelligence and a capacity to teach during the interview process rather than the mere holding of a college degree.

We must, for the sake of prudence and sanity, choose to eliminate all college aid.

Before criticisms start running amiss, I feel I must admit my own shortcomings.  That I, myself, attended college for a short time before I came to understand the debt I placed upon myself, and my degree has been left unfinished due to this very same policy.  I, however, divorce myself of any hard feelings for the sake of truth and reality: that I am not alone in being failed by this big-government adventure, nor the failed attempt at equality.

Sadly, I have concluded that true equality is not an option in the current political nor education landscapes.  Many others have learned this as well.  It is not without an understanding of the consequences that I have reached this conclusion.  Rather, it is with full knowledge of all possibilities and all consequences of each possibility that I have come to this understanding.

We live in uncertain times, where money is in short supply for the people who need it most, and we must begin to re-examine our efforts, to understand where we have failed, why we have failed, and what we can do to move forward in a far more fair and practical manner.  It was, in fact, in relation to the specific issue of education that I first began to seek an opportunity to engage myself in the political forum.  And it is still this one issue I hold most dear, because if we wish to preserve freedom we must first understand that a new way forward in our secondary education process is a priority.

State Senate Votes to Eliminate Townships

The Indiana state senate has voted today (January 29th, 2010) to eliminate township boards across the state.  The senate passed the measure by a 29-19 vote.

The measure would move township duties to the county governments, with the intended goal of making county level government more efficient and cheaper.  It is well known that Indiana’s governmental layers are deep and complex, and need revamping.

However, township trustees make valid arguments.  Two Republicans, one from Marshall County and one from La Porte County, who currently hold township trustee positions have informed me they worry about fire departments and safety, as well as providing a direct link between government and the people.

It should be noted that in most counties in the state of Indiana, only small towns exist.  Volunteer fire departments are the norm, and are run by the township boards.  In Marshall County, for example, there are four townships which do not have towns with at least 200 residents.  Other townships have towns with 500 or fewer residents.  This means that fire departments are not readily available for many of these areas except the volunteer departments run by the township boards.

This lends a credible claim to the township trustee arguments, as they have been presented to myself.  The concern is over whether the county governments will adequately maintain and efficiently operate these fire departments, amongst other township duties.

There is confusion and debate over whether this will actually result in less spending and lower taxes.  In Marian County, Indiana, home of Indianapolis, this measure might be the best measure to take.  In other counties, it might not be practical.

The state house, controlled by Democrats, has a similar bill which would put the issue to a vote before the people of the state.  These bills are the result of the Kernan-Shepard Report, which was organized by Governor Mitch Daniels, and has been highly criticized, even by members of the Republican Party.  The Kernan-Shepard Report also included changes in local government funding, was behind the infamous HB1001 (of 2007), as well as the proposed idea that each county should have only one county commissioner (as opposed to three, which would take the decisions on action from having debate and vote to having one man’s opinion enacted unopposed).

Many of the reforms have been debated hotly, and the proposal to eliminate township boards has been brewing for well over two years.  There is one nagging question: Why should the state government, a centralized body, determine that it has the authority to remove entire bodies of lower government authorities?  If the people wish to eliminate township boards, as a government entity, that is the right of the people to do so (establishment of government is the right of the people, not of other governments) by vote.

A Strike Against Indiana: SJR 13

While some people view homosexuality as unethical, or against God’s will, it seems a contradiction in the first place to describe God’s will, and then state that what God allows, and likely pressed into being if he has a set plan for us, could somehow be corrupted by people.  It would necessarily seem that it would be in God’s will to allow homosexuality if His plans are predetermined.  And if they are not, then we have free will, and as such are accountable to Him alone for our actions, and not to our fellow man when the immoral or unethical act was not committed against another person in violation of that person’s natural rights.

This, of course, assumes homosexuality is indeed unethical or immoral, a claim I am not certain is valid.  If it is, then I am certain that it does not violate the natural rights of our fellow man, and as such is not an ethical or moral matter we should regulate.  As such, this matter is for the soul, one that the heart controls, and is ultimately up to the discretion of God.  It is not my place to judge on God’s behalf, nor is it the place of any other person or institution.  The formation of government is for the sole purpose of protecting our natural rights against our fellow man, against government agents, and against foreign enemies.

Further, the instant at which government can regulate who can have sex with whom is the moment you lose all rights concerning proposals of any kind.  If the government can determine that two women are not to marry, then the government can also determine that any given man and any given woman should not marry, and claim ethical reasons for that refusal.  The people, then, lose any say over with whom they can date, marry, and procreate.

Thus, the only conclusion I can safely reach is that the precedent for the government to regulate marriage or sexual practice is more unethical than for two people of the same gender to engage in sex.

Due to this genuine conclusion, reached through honest introspection of my own soul, I can conclude only that Indiana’s Senate Joint Resolution 13, which attempts to alter the Indiana State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, is a violation of our rights as citizens.  It is after a great deal of contemplation that I call on all citizens of the State of Indiana to stand up together and declare Liberty FOR ALL, and assist myself and my fellow Libertarians in our efforts to bestow upon each person their only entitlement in life: their natural rights, protected to the fullest degree from those individuals and institutions, both private and public, which seek to violate the same.

Careful What You Wish

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently made a ruling in Citizens United v. the FEC that slapped big-government in the face.  The outpouring of Libertarian support for this ruling has caused many people to assume Libertarians are supporting large corporations.  That is not the case.

The Supreme Court itself made the ruling based on the fact the law allows elected officials to regulate what people can and cannot say.  The choking off of corporations sets forth a precedent which should be worrisome.  If the government can say corporations, and groups of people, unions, and film-makers are not allowed to make certain types of commercials, movies, or appeals to the general public, then the government is necessarily regulating media.

Such acts are, ironically, condemned by the United States government, and the people of this nation, as acts that occur in nations like China.  Who can forget that Hillary Clinton just recently pressed China to be more open?  Telling other nations what to do and then doing the opposite has apparently become the big-government American Way.  This seems wrong somehow.

This case was never about corporations, regardless how many people try to make it such.  This case was about ensuring that two film-makers could not be fined or locked in prison for expressing a political view (which was the threat, ironically under a law former Republican Presidential candidate John McCain helped create).  The Republican involvement in the creation of this disturbingly intrusive law, and the Democrat opposition to its being stricken down, show the two parties are more closely aligned than many might think.

The section about corporations was necessarily taken out to ensure that government did not have a set precedent upon which they could then impose legal penalties to individual persons who might express displeasure with elected officials.  Any true liberal, and any true conservative, should see this ruling by the Supreme Court as good for the rights of the citizens of this nation.  Anyone else is a statist or neo-con, either way hardly someone who has spent much time considering the full implications of such restrictions, or the possibilities in future cases (such as when someone you don’t like has political power and can use those same laws against YOU).

Be careful what you wish for, though, I must warn the Dems.  Because if you wish for such intrusive laws, do not be surprised when the GOP takes advantage of it to regulate your sexual practices.  And be careful what you wish for, Republicans.  I must warn you that if you set forth your policies, don’t be surprised when the Dems use them to regulate your business practices.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time everyone on all sides starts being more careful and calculating in what they desire, or what they THINK they desire.

Justice NOT Found Through Law

Justice is sought by many, and a theme amongst politicians as a talking point that garners lots of votes each election cycle.  Very few people seem to contemplate exactly what justice means, though, other than to believe that they seek it.  Often it seems justice is confused with revenge, though, leaving me to ponder exactly what justice could mean, and how it could be achieved by political or social means.

Justice is a concept so unique to humans that a clear definition is not identified in nature.  Its definition is hazy, and has plagued man for so long that any attempts to express just qualities have been so convoluted as to evolve into an antiquated system of universal right and wrong behaviors that are not universally right or wrong.

We too often think it is justice for a criminal to lose his life or his humanity, and in the process we lose any semblance of our own moral code by implementing human vengeance, often done in the name of God.  Why do we define it in human terms, when human terms are incapable of knowing the full scope of truth?

People cannot know Truth because we live, and so long as we inhabit our earthly bodies are limited by the laws of physics that rule the physical.  Only our spirits can understand beyond ourselves, and only by surrendering our moral codes to our souls can we begin to understand that Justice is not found in retribution or punishment, but through love.  Justice is the culmination of living well and finding happiness, love, compassion, and forgiveness.  More than that, Justice is an entity itself beyond the realm of human understanding: it is God.

The spirit of love commands that we create our laws for the purpose only of defending our rights, not of punishing people for acts we condemn.  We must mourn our losses, not seek revenge against those who caused them.  Anger, hatred, and fear all lead to the same path of violence, betrayal, and loss of moral conscience.  The only just laws are those which are for good purposes of promoting freedom and liberty, and the free expression of faith, or lack there-of, in God.

Justice, then, can be said to be the culmination of God’s will.  We must, as Jesus instructed, live as though we are all neighbors, and without concern for how people got to their downtrodden ways, stop and assist them as best we can.  Only then can we promote God: the true Justice of the universe.