A reader relates a time that he failed it. If you refuse to allow people to be held accountable to their own decisions and actions, they are never going to learn from their mistakes or change their behavior:
When I was in grad school, there was a female grad student who gave a presentation on “toxic, white masculinity” in the library. Well, it was extremely late at night, and I was leaving the library, when I saw her. This was in one of America’s most dangerous cities. It’s normal for us to walk female students and professors to their cars at this university. Especially for me, being 6’10”. Well, her car was a good bit away, and to get there, she would have had to cross two different groups of negroes, in darkness, aside from two, weak streetlights. She asked me to walk her to her car. I said, “you don’t need me too. I’m not seeing any toxic white males over there.” She looked confused, then shocked, then upset, because there were no other people nearby, and she knew instantly that I was angry at her treason. She would have to walk to her car alone, unless she was willing to wait an hour for the campus police to finish up arresting criminal negroes elsewhere. She asked “please,” a couple of times, and I agreed to walk her to her car, if she would listen to what I had to say, and I gave her an earful about how rotten and treasonous she was being, and how the real world is out there, waiting to chew us up. That she needed to bring white children into the world. I hope it had an impact. I doubt it. Not as much of one as letting her get assaulted and robbed would have had, but I lacked the strength and resolve to let that happen. I didn’t have the heart to standby while she got clocked and had her laptop stolen.
If you don't have the heart to permit people to experience the inevitable consequences of their choices, you are an enabler. You are, quite literally, part of the problem. You are helping destroy civilization.
Hence the importance of the Rorschach Test and accepting the teachable moment.
This city's afraid of me. I've seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. When the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up around their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout: 'save us.'
And I'll whisper, no.
There is a place for mercy and forgiveness, but only in response to genuine repentance, not momentary uncertainty and fear. In the absence of repentance, never stand between Justice and her lawful prey.
