Verse 74: An Empty Threat

Verse Seventy-Four
If people's lives suck,
and they look forward to death,
what good does it do
to threaten to kill them?

If people are afraid to die,
and the wicked are condemned to death,
then who would dare to commit evil?

But that doesn't mean you or I
can just take life and death
into our own hands.
That'd be like walking up
to an industrial buzzsaw
and trying to use it
without any training.
We'd only end up hurting ourselves.
~ Ron Hogan rendition ~

Again, I'm going to step out of the way to share Nina Correa's commentary on this verse.

When society tries to mandate people's behavior, there has to be not only a threat of punishment, but actually carrying out the threats in order to get people to comply with the laws. If someone who breaks the law sees others being punished for their crimes, wouldn't that seem to be sufficient to prevent them from doing anything wrong? Throughout history, those forms of threats and punishments haven't prevented people from breaking laws, have they?



In an effort to cast blame on others rather than themselves, people set up a judicial system which is supposed to fairly determine who are the criminals and who are the law-abiding citizens.

The judicial system is given ultimate authority. A skilled carpenter determines what it is he's going to carve, then hacks away the parts that don't fit into his design. If the judicial system takes over the authority for running the world, determining who's to live and who's to die, then those who don't fit into the mold society has designed will be cast off like sawdust or wood shavings.



When people are fearful of their own deaths or receiving punishments from others for what they might have inadvertently done, then give control of the world over to a few people who promise to protect them, they might suddenly find themselves on the sharp end of the executioner's ax. People who side with the executioner, trying to rid the world of those who don't follow society's rules, will eventually end up receiving punishments and retribution themselves.


This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.