Justice, Mercy, and a Dead Dog

An interesting thing happened to me over the last few days, which has prompted me to further consider the interaction between mercy and justice. I admit, I am perplexed by the predicament and the attempt to reconcile the two values that have come into apparent conflict. So, any thoughts from readers would be welcome. My own are likely to be sort of rambling, maybe raising more questions than answering them.

I know from reading blogs, news, magazines, etc., that social justice (or social mercy, as I prefer to call it) is en vogue these days. Thus, I have read a good deal of philosophy on justice/mercy. I’ve got a lot to say about this subject, but that’s for another post. Today, the philosophical became real.

Briefly, here’s the deal: several months ago, a nice lady at my church found that her dog had been killed by her neighbor’s two pitt bulls. Anyone who has ever lost a pet unexpectedly knows that it is not a pleasant experience. The lady was understandably upset by the ordeal, but rather than get angry, she merely asked that the neighbor pay for a new dog of the same breed. The neighbor initially agreed to do so, but, several months later, has not paid. Further, the neighbor appears to be actively avoiding fulfilling her obligation to the lady at my church. So the lady, knowing that I will soon be a lawyer, asked me to handle the claim for her.

From a legal perspective, it’s a slam dunk. My thought was to send a letter to the neighbor asking for the costs of a new dog, and threatening litigation if the neighbor did not pay by a certain date, at which time we would ask for much more than simply replacement costs. However, since I am not yet a lawyer (though it won’t be long, since I’m out of law school now…and no, I don’t ever get tired of saying that), I explained to her that I could not help her, but I did know of an out-of-town lawyer who has come down to help our church members out from time to time with legal issues, so I told the lady that I would ask about getting in touch with this lawyer to see if he might be able to help.

So, tonight at church, I asked our minister about contacting the attorney. After I briefly explained the situation to him, however, he said, “You know, this is the perfect opportunity to turn the other cheek, and that’s what you should do.”

Suffice it to say that this answer was not what I expected. But, he may have had a point. I mean, I can’t say that maybe he was not just trying to think of a polite way to say “let’s not take advantage of the lawyer’s good graces,” but at any rate, I had not even considered that maybe the lady should just turn the other cheek.

I’ve subsequently spent much of the rest of the evening thinking about whether this situation is one where turning the other cheek is warranted.

On one hand, it certainly does not seem unreasonable to expect that a person should repair the damage that he has caused to a person. In the church lady’s situation, she was not interested in going to court and getting the full value for the claim: she only wanted a new pet. My vehicle was struck in traffic the other day, and, as it was the other driver’s fault, I certainly expected the other driver (who tried to concoct a blatantly implausible story to act like it was not her fault — in other words, she lied about what happened) to pay for my damages. Seems completely reasonable.

Further, as potential legal counsel, I am not sure that it is my role to tell a client when he/she should turn the other cheek. All I (will) do (after  passing the Bar) is represent the interests of the client. Indeed, the reason we have the court system that we have is to bring a civil, fair and just resolution to disputes that arise between individuals.

But on the other hand, I went back and read Matt. 5:39, and it seems pretty clear. Moreover, the following verses seem to reinforce the message of the “turn the other cheek” verse.

Yet there’s something wholly unsettling about merely letting someone just get away with such an egregious act. I mean, I get that sometimes things happen. Sometimes your vicious dogs get loose and they do things that you don’t want them to. Sometimes you don’t see the vehicle coming down the other lane before you make a lane change. Sometimes you do things thinking that you will not get caught (see, for example, the steroid issue in Major League Baseball). What feels like a punch in the gut, however, is when people try to shirk their responsibility for their actions. It makes my blood boil when people just don’t accept their responsibilities and do the right thing.

And to turn the other cheek, to be quite honest, seems like a coward’s way out to me. If I was to do so, I would not feel accomplished or a distinguished Christian example, but someone who took the easy way out, even if it meant getting taken advantage of. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s getting taken advantage of, or more accurately, when other people get taken advantage of.

Yet the verse seems pretty unambiguous.

I know a lot of folks read Matt. 5:39 as a foundation for Christian pacifism, but I guess I’ve always viewed turning the other cheek as sort of an act of aggression, or at least assertion. I mean, if Jesus really wanted us to be peaceful, pacifistic, and non-confrontational, wouldn’t he have just instructed us to take the lick without turning the other cheek? The action of turning the cheek has always seemed to me to be more along the lines of saying “Psh, that didn’t hurt! Come on, is that all you got?” I always read turning the other cheek to indeed be a slap in the face, but a psychological one, not a physical one.

This reading seemed to comport much more with the actions of Jesus when he cleared the Temple as well as his attitude toward the Pharisees in Matt. 23 when he ripped them a new one. Neither of these episodes can rationally be considered to be nonconfrontational. Or how about when Jesus instructs us on how to kick people out of the church? Finally, ever read the book of Revelation? I have always understand and agreed that Christians should not be unnecessarily provocative, and in each of the above situations there were legitimate reasons for conflict.

In the past, I have also read and interpreted Matt. 5:39 in context with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, which, according to my interpretation, can be boiled down to one message: do the right thing. Integrity. I won’t parse it all out, but I think that’s a good summation of Matt. 5-7. To me, doing the right thing is as much a fundamental Biblical concept as grace or mercy. Indeed, we must do what is right or we will not obtain our reward. Given this, it has always been my contention that it is vitally important to do what is right and proper. Accordingly, I have read Matt. 5:39 as a call to almost shame those who are not doing what is right. By turning the other cheek or going the extra mile, we effectively disallow the aggressor the benefit of his aggressive behavior. If we take it in stride, we don’t let him win, and in doing so, we demonstrate that his behavior will not produce the desired results. In this way, then, my interpretation of Matt. 5:39-42 has been essentially the opposite of the nonconfrontational viewpoint.

But tonight, as I read it again, something struck me in a new light. Maybe I just didn’t consider the context as I normally do, but the plain language of the verses, particularly v. 40, seemed to suggest that maybe we should be more merciful and less confrontational?

The problem then becomes one of justice, or, more appropriately, the lack thereof.

If, for instance, I were to turn the other cheek in the situation of the lady at my church, then it would certainly be difficult to say that justice would have been served. In fact, the minister at my church even admitted as much. He said we would be taken advantage of, but that’s part of turning the other cheek. But, as much as I respect him, I find it to be unsatisfying. I might be wrong, but I find it unsatisfying nonetheless.

I believe that serious Christians have been unfairly (or, perhaps very fairly) pigeonholed as naieve and succeptible to being taken advantage of for quite some time by our culture, and it is turning people away from the faith. Rather than become attracted to it, we are often viewed as weak-minded. Of course, as one that has practiced this faith all my life, I can say that this is certainly not the case. Sure, some Christians don’t stand up for themselves when they should under the guise of Matt. 5:39-42, but I cannot grasp an interpretation of these verses that leads to such attitudes.

So all this leads me to this: should the lady at church and I be willing to accept injustice in the name of turning the other cheek? Or, in such a situation, would we actually be accepting injustice at all?

Maybe more broadly, in which situations should we turn the other cheek, and how do we recognize those situations? I admit that in the situation of the lady at my church and in my wreck, it wasn’t the initial event that really frustrates me, it’s the evasiveness to responsibility that really gets to me. I wonder if there are situations in which turning the other cheek actually does more harm than good by allowing someone to get away with improper behavior?

Have we as Christians mistaken the call to turn the other cheek as a call to pacifism and nonconfrontationalism and thereby perpetuated false impressions of our faith, assuming that there are such situations? Or is nonconfrontationalism actually the proper reading of Matt. 5:39-42?

Does justice become lost in our zeal to show mercy by turning the other cheek? And how do we reconcile the two seemingly opposed virtues?

Finally, what should I do about the lady at my church?

I don’t know. I’m not ready to throw out my above interpretation because I believe that it is solid and consistent with many other passages of Scripture, but I am willing to consider that I may have missed something. I’m still digesting it all. I am hoping (if you’ve read this far) that you could help shed some light on these issues, good, bad, or ugly.

Sorry about the really long post, but this post really just scratches the surface on justice issues that I have been pondering over the last few months. I’ll likely be spewing some more things about justice in the coming weeks as I have the time.

Teleprompter vs. No Teleprompter

Over on the Late Show, David Letterman has been doing a little sketch called “Teleprompter vs. No Teleprompter.” I like that idea, so I think I’ll play along too. Here’s a clip where the speaker’s teleprompter experienced technical difficulties in the middle of his speech. See if you can figure out when it went out:

Happy Mother’s Day! and Happy to Not be a Law Student Anymore!

Yesterday I took my very last law school exam! Which means that I am effectively no longer a law student anymore! It’s a pretty good feeling! You can tell because I am ending every sentence in this post with an exclamation point! That means I’m excited! Graduation is Friday, but hey, all the hard work, sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears is over!! Double exclamation point on that sentence!

And, today is Mother’s Day! I’m excited about Mother’s Day too! So, happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there that might be reading this! That’s probably not many! But here’s to moms everywhere! And here’s a video in honor of all that our mothers have done for us over the years! :

THE END IS NEAR!!

So yeah, it’s been awhile since I threw anything up on the ol’ blog, but that’s because it’s been finals time down here. If you’ve never experienced law school finals, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. I happened to see a sign posted at our school the other day describing the symptoms of swine flu: coughing, muscle aches, fatigue, dizziness, nausea…and I couldn’t help but think that these symptoms are eerily similar to how finals make you feel. So bring on the swine flu! It can’t be much worse than law school.

BUT there’s good news on the horizon! In exactly one week (next Saturday to be exact), I will be walking out of my final final exam. That’s right, my last law school exam ever (assuming I pass and all [*knocks on some wood*]) is next week. Then the following Friday, I’m graduating! And I can’t WAIT!

It sort of feels like this semester has gotten away from me somewhat. I’ve been busy trying to finish up strong in my classes, while keeping my house relatively clean and maintaining some semblance of a social life. But at the end of the day, I’ve still been a little overwhelmed by everything that’s been going on this semester. So, I can’t wait for the relief of that I expect to come with graduation. Now, I’ve still got a long way to go, with the Bar in July, and a job search still going on (and in a bad economy mind you), but I look forward to the time when I can go home at the end of the day and enjoy life.

Maybe I’ll read books for fun again. Maybe I’ll have time to finally take my kayak out. Maybe I’ll get back into some sort of shape. Hopefully I’ll get to do some traveling again. I love traveling, but I haven’t been able to do much of it over the last three years.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is John 10:10: “I have come to give them life, and life to the full.” It always inspires me to do everything I can to get as much as I can out of life. Unfortunately, I’ve had other priorities over the last three years. I’m looking forward now to getting back to living.

Apparently I’m a Terrorist

It’s been quite a day for political fervor, at least if you find yourself on the conservative side of the political spectrum. If you watch most of the news, or much of any TV really, you’ll know that most media outfits are solidly in the liberal tank. I hate to admit it, but if I hear it enough times, I even start to think that us conservatives are becoming more and more marginalized. But, hearing about all of the “tea parties” that went on today helps me realize that there are a lot more of us conservatives out there than we get credit for.

Of course, the media (apart from Foxnews that is) has treated the parties like a redheaded stepchild, which just reminds me of just how hypocritical the left can be. If left-leaning groups organize a protest for, say, opposition to the war in Iraq, then it is held up as a virtuous exercise of Constitutional rights. Or how about George Bush? It suddenly became acceptable to brazenly bash him, almost a trendy thing to do. But say anything about Obama and see what happens.Pretentious liberals will never let you hear the end of it.

Anyway, here’s a few more quick hits:

• I am a white male religious conservative who owns guns, dislikes the president, and is disheartened by the economy. Apparently, according to Janet Napolitano, that makes me a terrorist. I’ll be waiting for a call from the president to engage in good-faith diplomacy soon, because that’s how Barack deals with threats.
• Well, at least that’s what he claimed during the election. I guess pirates are excluded from this pledge, because Obama sure didn’t wait long to authorize military action against those pirates that were holding the ship captain with the great name of Phillips. Me, I’m fine with military action against them. I say that if the pirates want to pick a fight, they should get one. But, that’s not what Obama said he was going to do during the election. But, why am I not surprised?
• I read a good editorial today about the lack of transparency in the Obama administration regarding the “stimulus” money. While I was reading, it occurred to me today how ironic it is that Obama has villified AIG so much while his administration is preparing to spend $800 BILLION of taxpayer and borrowed money. Most of the mismanagement at AIG resulted from too much exposure to debt, combined with a non-transparent market (I know this because I just wrote a reserach paper about this). Now the president is about go all AIG with the budget by massive borrowing and spending. Have you learned nothing, Mr. Obama?
• Rick Perry is the MAN. It’s about time someone stood up to the massive controlling politics in Washington. Long live the 10th amendment!

Alright, I feel better. Time for some sleep.

Are You Ready for Some Baseball!

T-minus one day and counting until one of the most glorious days of the year: Opening Day of baseball season! After a long winter, it’s almost back.

Seriously, Opening Day should be a national holiday.

A Real New Orleans Night

Preservation Hall from the outside. Yes, that's really it.

This past Saturday, I had a great, classically New Orleans experience, and I wanted to tell everyone about it.

I got the call about 3:00 in the afternoon. Some of my friends were going to a legendary place in New Orleans called Preservation Hall, and they asked me if I was interested in going with them.

Though I had heard about Preservation Hall before, I had never been there. All I knew about it was that it was a place to listen to jazz, and it was pretty cozy inside. So, always eager to have some fun and try new things, I agreed to go with them.

Preservation Hall is in the middle of the French Quarter. We left at about 7:15. Doors opened at 8:00, show started at 8:15. By the time we got down there, parked, and made our way to the Hall, it was about 7:45, and the line to get in was about 100 feet long. We had heard that if you don’t get there early, you’re gonna spend the whole time standing. We heard right. We proceeded to file in, pay our $10, and found a place to stand near a door to the hall.

Turns out I was right about it being a cozy place to hear jazz; really, that’s just about all there is to the place: jazz and people. No food, no drinks, no dancing, no amplifiers, no flashy lights, smoke or mirrors. Not even a bathroom, and I’m not sure about air conditioning. To call it a hall is a bit of a stretch: the place is just a room, hardly bigger than a good-size living room. It is dimly lit, very rustic inside. The only adornment on the walls were paintings of old jazz musicians. About half the room has some benches to sit on; the rest is standing room only. In the front of the room there were a few dining-room style chairs set up with some instruments squished in tight. In most cities, a place like this would seem a little sketchy; in New Orleans, it feels right at home. Just the right sense of decay, and a ton of character.

Promptly at 8:15, the musicians made their way through the crowd, took a seat, and started playing. And, oh how sweet it was. I’m not real familiar with what makes some music better than other music, but even a guy like me could tell that this was some great jazz music. That, and my friend who is a band director told me so. He knows those kind of things. Again, no fancy lights, no amplifiers, no mics, nothing but musicians and their instruments.

The band, which was (and always is) one of their house bands, would start a song, play the melody through, then the guys in the band would take turns doing solos. Each member of the band played a solo. If a bunch of NBA players got together in an old gym to play a game of horse, that’s what it would feel like here, only with jazz, just going back and forth, just messing around, showing us what they can do. It had the feel of being in someone’s living room, like we had all just dropped in on a jam session.

The band plays three 45-minute sets every night, 7 days a week. At the end of each set, a good bit of the crowd leaves, but you don’t have to, and if you don’t leave, you can usually sneak down and grab a better spot. Show ends at 11. If you’re down here sometime, and you’re looking for something to do that’s not rated “R,” it’s great entertainment, and an experience that is uniquely New Orleans.

Dear Mr. President…

Just wanted to drop you a note to check up on you. I caught your interview on 60 Minutes the other night, and I saw the part where you were laughing, which prompted the interviewer to ask if you were drunk. Listen, I know that you’re in the middle of a big job, what with figuring out what to do with the economy and being the leader of the (for-now) free world, and it can get stressful. It’s good to see that you are not turning to the bottle to relieve your stress. Laughter is indeed the best medicine. Nevertheless, I’m sure you could use all the help you can get. So, I thought that I would do my part as a faithful American citizen by getting some information in your hands, to see if it helps you avoid that drunken stupor look.

Mr. President, just wondering if you have been keeping tabs on what’s going on over on the other side of the pond? It doesn’t seem like things are going so well over there. Looks like they have been in a recession longer than we have over here, and it looks like Great Britain, under the leadership of Gordon Brown — the guy who gave you that nifty pen-holder a few weeks ago — has been attempting the same remedies as you are proposing for our nation. But, Mr Brown’s reforms don’t look to be working all that well, at least according to Daniel Hannan:

Perhaps this should not be all that surprising, considering that similar large-scale government spending programs, such as FDR’s New Deal, really didn’t have much of a positive effect on the economy during the Great Depression either.

Course, they may be more sensitive about recessions in Europe, since the Great Depression led to the rise of Hitler and all. But, it looks like PM Brown is in a little hot water. Well, thanks to you, at least he’s got plenty of movies to watch…that is, if they actually turn out to work on the other side of the Atlantic.

I know you are a thoughtful guy, Mr. President. I know you like to think things out and scroll them on a teleprompter rather than speak extemporaneously, because when you do speak extemporaneously, you sometimes find yourself in your own hot water with various groups, like mentally challenged athletes for instance. But it looks like, unlike previous presidents, the nation is cutting you some slack on your verbal flubs. Still, it’s probably better to be safe than sorry, to stick with the teleprompter. At least you’ve got one supporter of this idea here.

But, I digress. Mr. President, I only hope you realize that lessons from history, both recent and not-so-recent, have shown that big spending programs don’t really produce meaningful, sustained positive impacts on the economy. What’s more, people don’t really like it when the government takes everything over. Ask Russia. How’d the socialism route work for them?

We know you like sustainable things. You have made that abundantly clear. One look at your teleprompter could prove this fact. Perhaps a better history lesson on creating sustainable positive market effects is to reduce taxes on corporations and rich people. See, when the government reduces taxes on corporate transactions, those corporations (both large and small) — which, by the way, have a lot to do with the performance of the stock market — simply find the opportunity to make cheap transactions too hard to pass on, so they go ahead and make deals. Further still,  directors of publicly-traded corporations even have an obligation to maximize the value of the company’s share on behalf of its shareholders. To pass on an opportunity to take advantage of lower tax rates might expose directors to liability. So, lowering the tax rate might even have the effect of forcing companies into action.

Also, because rich people like to invest their wealth in things like, well, just about anything in which someone can invest (including small businesses, which I know is one of your favorite causes to advance), the more money they have, the more they will be able to invest. At a time when many people have lost much of their investments, perhaps it is not a prudent time to begin to take even more.

Further, the state of Louisiana has demonstrated the power of tax incentives by virtually creating an entire industry using tax breaks. See, Louisiana, where I live, began to offer tax breaks to film production groups if they would come here to film their movies. As history would suggest, this deal was far too enticing for film producers to pass on, so they came to Louisiana to make movies. Now, there is a large film- and television- production industry which has helped to diversify the economy, and has managed to sustain itself for the last several years. In fact, Louisiana has now become known as “Hollywood South” in the production industry. Of course, the state has done nothing but offer tax breaks, then let the private sector run. Perhaps there is wisdom in Louisiana that could be applied to the rest of the nation. Yes, I know,the words “Louisiana” and “wisdom” ordinarily do not belong in the same sentence when that sentence does not involve food, but when it comes to attracting film production, the success of Louisiana’s program cannot be denied.

So, Mr. President, I trust that you are taking history, as well as the current situation abroad, into account as you make your decisions about the best ways to move this country forward. I’ll be anxiously reading your teleprompter and watching the Tonight Show to see what the ultimate outcome is. Let’s just hope you do a better job making economic decisions as you did in selecting your pastor.

Taxin’ and Spendin’ and Takin’ Over

Is it just me, or does it seem like every day, there’s some new plan to drastically increase the power of the federal government into areas in which the government ought not be? There are so many things happening that I can hardly keep up. Suffice it to say, I’m a little nervous about the direction this nation is headed in.

If I’ve learned one thing from 24 this season, it is that an “emergency situation” is a good excuse to do things that wouldn’t ordinarily be done. In this “emergency situation” we find ourselves in now, I hope that our government is proceeding with caution and carefully evaluating the measures that it is considering, and not rushing to judgment. As much as we do not like what has happened with institutions like AIG, and with devices like credit default swaps, we must not let hindsight bias or a sense of vengeance direct us. And we must also not compound the problem by trying to do too much on a governmental level. I believe that too much intervention will cost us on many levels in the long run, and it may well be the first step down the proverbial “slippery slope.”

I get the feeling that the current administration is drifting from plan to plan, with no sense of direction, other than just to offer plan after plan that increases the governmental footprint. I hope I am wrong, but so far, I have no reason to have confidence in what has happened so far.

But, what do you say, my fair reader?

What’s Up With the Economy, Part 2: The Secondary Mortgage Market

Note: This semester, I have been taking a seminar on the financial crisis that our nation is currently facing. Since it is an issue that affects us all on some level or another, I thought I would share what we are discussing in class. This entry is a long-overdue part 2 of the series, on the secondary mortgage market.

It’s been awhile since I had a full-length post in this series. When I left off last, I had tried to describe all of the variables that were simmering together, waiting to blow like the top of a volcano. But before I get to that point, I want to clarify how all these bad mortgages came into the hands of investment banks on the secondary mortgage market.

When most of us go down to our local hometown commercial bank and take out a home loan, by all appearances, it looks like that bank loans you their money, and then you pay them back over the term of the mortgage, usually thirty years. While commercial banks indeed loan their own money out (as far as I know, anyway), the loan does not stay with that bank for long. Normally, each individual loan is packaged with many other loans, and then sold to an investor, such as an investment bank.

If, for example, a commercial bank loans, say, $200,000 to a customer for a house, at a 5% interest rate over thirty years, the bank will collect $500,000 over those thirty years — $200,000 for repayment of the principal, and $300,000 interest. The commercial bank would then quickly sell the loan (or at least the rights to repayment) for, say, $300,000, to an investment bank. The commercial bank gets quick repayment, no risk of default, and a nice $100,000 profit, while the investor stands to make $200,000 over the long term. The commercial bank can then go loan the money out again and make more, while the investment bank adds a nice long-term investment. Thus, money is made according to the interests of each party.

Of course, in the real world, this loan would be bundled with many others, and sold as part of a package worth millions of dollars. This system has some advantages, but it also can lead to a significant amount of risk as well. Some of those loans would be more risky than others, particularly those made to subprime borrowers. Credit rating agencies normally examine and rate each package, but they are not always right in their ratings.

Maybe the biggest risk in this system, though, is that the institution that creates (or originates) the loan does not bear the ultimate risk of a default on that loan. Folks called loan originators create these loans for commercial banks. The originators earn a fee for each loan that they make and then sell on the secondary mortgage market. Thus, the interest of the originator is to make as many loans as possible, and not to minimize the risk of making bad loans. This opens the door for more risky loans to be made, then bundled and sold with a bunch of other loans.

So, to tie in with the first part of this story, as commercial banks made risky loans for all the reasons I wrote about like two months ago, they then sold them to investment banks, who took on the risk of default. But, the investment banks were not content to leave well enough alone, so they created new ways to generate money by developing what are known as collateralized debt obligations, which I will discuss next time. Hopefully it won’t take me another two months to get it done.