>Cognitive dissonance is paradoxically to have one’s beliefs get stronger despite contradictory evidence. “I refuse to have my idealism mugged by reality.”
Like a friend of mine who thinks that the USSC/courts will rule that the retroactive, punitive onerous taxation is unjust/unconstitutional? {On eight points, according to my count: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dv698tm_22dr6x3nfb }
Do I trust ANY of the three branches to do what is right. No. I do not.
Leviticus 19:5 — do not be partial in justice to the poor or the rich. Be fair. I find it interesting that ministries sprang up to encourage debt (a mortgage) when the Bible says that debt is slavery. Proverbs 22:7
I disagree with you that it was a miscarriage of justice not to charge someone that was in an auto accident with a fatality, who was BELOW the legal limit for alcohol, with murder. I think that people that are ABOVE the legal limit should not be charged with manslaughter when the passneger assumed the risk (knew that the driver had been drinking). I knew a young construction worker that went out bar hopping with a friend, got drunk, got in an accident driving home, his friend died, he ended up in the hospital for months and then convicted for his friends death. He was negligent . . . but so was the ‘victim’ (his drinking buddy). Seems a waste to jail him for 6 years.
Also, your idea that prosecutors should have no discretion in prosecution is something you should reconsider. You say that the mitigating circumstances should be considered at sentencing but not in deciding to prosecute. If prosecutors didn’t have discretion they would prosecute every case brought to them by anyone. It would be a waste of time, further overburden the courts, and end up in unjust outcomes. Lawn not mowed and neighbors complain? Convict him of creating a hazardous fire environment within city limits (or whatever bogus laws would apply to such a thing). Under the legal limit for alcohol but you missed a stop sign? Murder conviction. Etc.
This hang-em-high stuff can go too far. Prosecutors have to use their common sense . . . and compassion.