By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Often we hear people say “It’s good news they killed this terrorist, but I wish he had faced justice in a courtroom.”

We heard this about Bin Laden a lot but you also hear it about some ISIS commander who was killed, or about some Jihadist in Syria who was accused of sending his children to be suicide bombers.

It’s the armchair intellectuals way of eschewing responsibility which is symbolic of society’s overall desire to escape responsibility. We want others to do “justice” for us. We fear the real face of justice, which involves killing those who are murderers. We live in a world in which a mass murderer, like Anders Breivik, receives a “life sentence,” which is actually twenty years in prison. These were the same “life sentences” handed out to Nazi war criminals. Often after decades, or even most of their life, living freely, they would be brought to trial and then after they were sentenced they would receive freedom for being “elderly” because it was ‘cruel’ to keep them in prison. They need “compassion.”

The western justice system has no concept of justice. Even if a person murders people and takes away their life, the western concept is that the murderer needs compassion and that justice should not seek revenge or be “vindictive,” but aim to rehabilitate. Any sense of revenge is seen as wrong.

So when people say they wish someone “faced justice,” what they actually mean is they wish someone faced injustice. Because 20 years in prison for Bin Laden or any murderer is not “justice.” It is not justice for victims.

The reality of the western mindset when it comes to justice is that the individual has been educated to believe that he or she cannot determine what is justice, only a “court” can. So if someone is caught in the act murdering people, the concept is “let’s call the police and hope he faces justice.”

The judicial system in the west is primarily aimed at according rights to criminals, not securing justice. In cases not involving violence, of course criminals deserve rights. But the justice system as it is also extends not only rights, but compassion, for those who take away the lives of others.

The west fears the death penalty or any sense of harm done to a murderer. The most ideal situation in a western mindset is a murderer living in a “prison” cell where he obtains a college degree, has a nice bed and TV and access to books, and ample space. All of the things he took from others.

This is why you cannot rely on those who say “I wish he faced justice.” If Nuremburg trials took place today most Nazis would not even be hung, they would be released in a few years. Bin Laden would be released, Eichmann.

This is why you cannot accept those who worship “court rooms” as a place to find justice. Often they do not provide justice. The reason people want to outsource non-justice to a court is because they themselves fear passing judgement. “It’s for someone else to decide.” Because we have taught people they can never judge, can never determine right and wrong, good and evil. That is at the heart of the fear of “revenge” in the West. The west is so deracinated from natural human emotion, most people cannot even accept that revenge is a totally logical response. Those same people also will not act to prevent a crime being committed, if they see a person being assaulted, they will not step in to stop the assault, they will “rely on law enforcement” and “the courts.” Because at the heart of their western belief system is the concept that “I” cannot enter into judgement, “I” can never determine something. At the heart of it is a dehumanizing view in which watching a person being beaten does not cause one to well up with anger and seek to prevent it, but makes one say “let’s let law enforcement decide, and a court system.” In that sense the west encourages us all to become collaborators in the harm done to victims through inaction. Don’t take action, let someone else decide. It’s not for “me” to judge.

Individual responsibility and action are discounted. It is why the western person, put in the presence of Hitler or Bin Laden, will not act. It is why, for instance, they will not act to stop the genocide of Yazidis, it is why they will not act when 5,000 ISIS members use EU airports to go to the Middle East for genocide tourism, because never acting, never doing anything, is the way they have been taught, never being angry, always having “compassion.”

We live in a world in the west in which abjuring responsibility has become a dogma, a religious tenet of secularism, a dictum, and the highest moral value. Worshiping the state rather than the “I” and the “me” is considered the maximum value.