Hello, RNE...

I respectfully disagree with your take on justice. Perhaps it's merely a question of definition.

Justice is one of the highest virtues there is. As a civic virtue, justice supports and enables freedom, especially freedom from fear, but also freedom of assembly, of speech, of religion, and the freedom to be secure in one's person and possessions. As a personal virtue, justice fuels the fight against bigotry and feeds the idea of equal opportunity that allows the meritocracy that we are attempting to build in this country.

Justice opposes tyranny. The tyranny of fanatical sociopaths is what we witnessed yesterday. The only weapon in the philosophical arsenal with which we can fight this is justice: to free the world from this kind of act, and to free the world from the fear of this kind of act is the pursuit of justice.

Small "j" justice is locking up a felon. It will do for armed robbery, but not for this.

I believe we have justice on our side as we seek to annihilate terrorism. If that means annihilating terrorists, so be it. They have set the ground rules. We will do our best to avoid killing the innocent. They have made killing the innocent their life's work.

Regards--
Mary Anne