Justice Of America Essay, Research Paper

Justice of America

The Greek philosopher Plato thought that there were four virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. The most important of these is wisdom, which is knowledge of that which is truly good. People who have wisdom and, as a result, know what is truly good will tend to do what is right. These people will act in their own true interest and be in harmony with themselves. This harmony is the basis of all justice. People who have justice, in Plato’s view, will tend to have other virtues as well. (World Book Encyclopedia; Ethics, Justice.) We as a country all believe in justice and that it works to preserve our country’s heritage. So it is worth fighting for when people threaten our freedom.

Justice is a hard term to define. Each society and country has different views and moral standards, so it is hard to completely define it in one definition. The United States looks at justice as a moral standard that applies to all human conduct. The Taleban does not see it this way. The Taleban and other groups like them have very different views of justice. To the Taleban members human conduct is directed by religion and culture, whereas we are directed by civility and reasoning. They thought that they were serving “justice” to the United States when they flew airplanes into both of the World Trade Center Buildings and killed thousands of innocent people on September 11, 2001. “The United states is wrong for their actions.” That was their religious reasoning for doing “justice” to the United States. But that is not what was done to our country. In the United States we call it terrorism. But could this terrorism have been avoided? It possibly could have if both sides were willing to listen and try to understand where each other are coming from. To further answer that question we have to look at both sides of the coin. Their way of life is so different from our every day lives in the United States that there is no way our definitions of justice are going to agree. They have different standards, beliefs, and priorities. Part of their culture says that women are not even allowed to be part of their society, whereas we allow women to be elected officials in our nations Senate and Congress. As you can plainly see, our views are completely different. But no matter how different we are from each other, nothing they say or do can justify what they did to our country.

President Bush has his own views on the matter, much different from that of the Taleban. On the day these attacks were made he has said that we will deliver justice in its fullest to the attackers and the country that harbors them. The president is solely focusing his administration on declaring war on terrorists across the world. He has said that this will be a hard war and it will take time, much different from any other war that we have ever fought. But justice will be done. On October 12 we began to retaliate against the terrorists. We bombed several targets that included: military headquarters, terrorist training camps, and airports in Kabul. Our Constitution says in article III, section III, “treason against the United States, shall consist of levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” This is the way we should treat the terrorists. We should be merciless on the Taleban as they were on us when they slaughtered thousands of innocent people in New York. We should all stand behind our president and his agenda in this time of war.

Since we have started these attacks of our own on the Taleban, they are accusing us of terrorism. They say that we have no right to react against the Taleban if we do not support our actions with evidence, evidence that shows that the Taleban was involved in the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings. We say that you provide some evidence that even hints that the Taleban had no part in these attacks. It is funny; they attack us, we call it terrorism, and they call it justice. We attack them back, we call it justice, and they call it terrorism. Here is another difference in our views. But as we continue to carry out justice in our view we will sleep well at night knowing that justice will be done, maybe not right away, but eventually for the great loss our country has suffered.

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