Who should you feel personal responsibility towards?
Maybe yourself. Having to look at yourself in the mirror.
Does one leave their personal humanity on the shelf when doing their jobs? Is there Harley the civilian: a good, decent compassionate man; and Harley the Defense Attorney whose job is to win cases and the two shall never over lap?
Remember one of the arguments used by the Nazis was that they were just instruments of the State. They were just doing their jobs.
Remember that scene in the Green Mile where Tom Hanks is asking himself what is he going to say when he stands before God knowing that he had executed an innocent man? "What am I going to say? I was doing my job?"
Doing your job.
Regardless of where the order or imperative comes from, one is still responsible for one's actions. If you knowingly kill an innocent man, knowingly get a guilty man off completely, does that relieve you of any personal responsibility because it was your job?
Dear Pellius,
Might you agree that comparing the job of a defense attorney is a far cry from a Nazi concentration camp soldier walking people into an oven as per his "orders"?
When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a wretched physical being, a partially defeated dreamer and a terribly flawed human being who aspired to live a better moral standard
and not let his "id" get so much the better of him.
But I also see someone who hasn't hurt another with malice, unless deserved. I see someone who has actually helped a few people in his day and most of them, without any
publicity. I see someone who stood up to bullies, be it in the courtroom, the gym, the street or anywhere else where the weak and disadvantaged were preyed upon by
"the more fortunate" and "the pretty people."
I don't believe in God so I need only answer to myself, those whom I love and those whom I respect.
My job is just that. A job that this government has condoned and permitted and has actually been shown to help more persons than it hurts. The guy tearing down trees in order
for us to have more Starbucks or The Pope going to Africa and telling them not to practice birth control seem to me to do much more damage than me perhaps getting more lenient
deals for those who transgress the law.
I can live with myself and the internal struggles I face each and every day have nothing to do with some client who may or may not become a recidivist after I am done with my job.
I don't control the free will of others. Let the State do their job correctly and we will have much less to worry about.
Harley
