A group of people blow up a religious shrine, and suddenly the threat of civil war grows several fold.

Why?

Ultimately it is because there are a whole lot of people in a small area who have decided to ignore a basic, fundamental moral principle "Punish the guilty; let the innocent go free."

Because they have forgotten this principle, they attack anybody belonging to the other religious sect. They march to a mosque belonging to the other sect and proceed to destroy it, in revenge for the damage done to their mosque, without a thought given as to whether they are harming those who did them harm, or some innocent substitute for those who did harm.

Accepting and embracing the principle, "Punish the guilty; let the innocent go free," implies taking no action to harm another until one has made sure that they are guilty. This means waiting for an arrest and a trial before an impartial jury. If it can be established beyond a reasonable doubt that the people accused were actually those responsible would the state then seek punishment, then it would be permissible to punish those people, and only those people.

Punish the guilty; let the innocent go free.

As described above, this principle accompanies another principle of, "Presume innocent, unless proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

So, those who belong to one Muslim sect in Iraq who come upon somebody or some structure belonging to the other sect are advised to presume that the person or those who worship in that structure are innocent, and thus not deserving of harm. As a result, there can be no justified attack. The result is peace.

I know that it is sometimes tempting to presume guilt. People tend to be very quick to judge others, jumping to conclusions that would, if true, justify lashing out in anger at others. The problem rests with dealing in the `if true' aspect. Emotion gets in the way of judgment; we cannot deny that people do a poor job of making sense of a situation when they have a stake in the outcome.

This is why, among rational people, the first two principles already given accompany a third principle that, each person be given a hearing before an impartial judge (and jury). He must have an opportunity to tell his side of the story to those who have no stake when it comes to deciding if his story is more accurate than the story told by his accusers.

This illustrates the importance of condemning anybody who seeks to stack the courts with judges that are not impartial. It means that there is no merit in picking and approving judges based primarily on the criteria that they will side with one side or the other on disputes which may come before that judge. Such a judge cannot keep the peace.

In Iraq, a Sunni judge or a Shiite judge with strong religious ties simply cannot be trusted to resolve disputes between Sunni and Shiite factions. Judges in such a situation must be secular, capable of looking for solutions by applying principles that supersede religious differences. They have to be people who are capable of appealing to principles such as "Punish the guilty; let the innocent go free," and "Presume innocence unless guilt is proven," and "Prove guilt by presenting the case to those who have no passionate ties to one side of the dispute or the other."

All of this falls under the generic heading of "Respect for the rule of law." Without this, there can be no peace.

There are some in Iraq who see the wisdom of respect for the rule of law. Over the next few days, we will discover if there are enough people devoted to these principles to keep the peace in that country.

There are some people everywhere who do not like these rules. They consider one who holds and defends them to be 'soft on crime.' They assert thta they have an infallible sense of who is guilty and who is innocent and bristle when others put rules such as these -- designed to make sure that the guilty are punished and the innocent go free -- in the way of exacting a more immediate revenge.

Religion At Work

On a related note, I know that there are atheists out there who look on events in Iraq, shake their head, and say, "This is another fine example of religion at work."

I cannot share this view.

I suspect that if there ever were a community made up entirely of atheists, that they would have their own conflicts. I can easily imagine followers of Ayn Rand's version of capitalism insisting on the right to violent self defense against any who touch what they consider their property entering into a civil war against Marxist atheists who takes from each according to his ability and gives to each according to his need.

Atheists have no magical immunity from civil war.

Societies get their immunity from civil war by promoting respect for the rule of law and the institutions (other than guns and bombs) used to debate and decide what the laws are to be.

This means a state with laws that are worthy of respect. It means a state where the innocent can trust that they can live free, giving them an incentive to live free -- as opposed to a society where innocent people fear being taken off the street, imprisoned, tortured, or killed. The former society has laws worthy of respect; the latter does not.

A group of people who believe that God commands punishing the guilty and letting the innocent go free, creating impartial courts for the purpose of hearing disputes, bringing to those courts only those for whom there is evidence of guilt, and seeing to it that a person suffers as little harm as necessary unless guilt has been proved, should have the same ability to live in peace with his neighbors as the atheist living by these same principles.

Whether a society can live at peace is not determined by whether it is made up of religious people or of atheists. It is determined by whether the society is made up of people who accept and agree to live by the principles mentioned above.

Religious Symbols in the Public Square

I have so far used events in Iraq to illustrate the importance of three fundamental principles of justice:

(1) Punish the guilty; let the innocent go free.
(2) Presume innocence unless guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
(3) Prove guilt by presenting evidence to an impartial judge and/or jury.

A society's widespread devotion to these principles -- not just a nodding agreement but a dedication to apply and abide by these principles -- provide a significant defense against civil war and other forms of civil violence.

I also hinted at a fourth principle that I now want to make much more explicit and cover in more detail.

(4) Disqualify anybody who cannot be impartial between different legitimate groups in a dispute, and allow no displays in the courtroom or the public square that suggests that the government favors any ligitimate side in a dispute over any other.

Let us pop back into the imaginary Iraq I created in my last article. We have introduced the three principles of justice. Let us assume that under these principles, the Iraqi government has arrested some people who are thought to be responsible for some of the violence in recent days. Some of the people arrested are Sunni Muslims, while others are Shiite.

We bring a Shiite prisoner into the courtroom, along with the relatives of the Sunni victims of his alleged crimes. Imagine that the prisoner and victims alike find that they have entered a room filled with the religious trappings of the Shiite sect. The Shiites, being in the majority, have picked only Shiites to be judges. Furthermore, they have only selected Shiites who have a proven history of favoring Shiites in their decisions. In this courtroom, a Shiite prisoner now stands accused of a crime with Sunni victims.

What kind of justice can the Sunni victims expect in this type of court? What type of justice could a Sunni accused of harming Shiites expect to find in this kind of court? Is it at all reasonable for the Sunnis to expect such a court to serve as a fair and impartial arbitrator of disputes between Shiites and Sunnis?

If you cannot see the basic unfairness in this of system, perhaps a sports analogy can bring them to light.

Imagine that you are a member of a sports team. You show up the game and you discover that all of the referees and judges are wearing your opponent's colors. They make no attempt to hide the fact that they are on the opposing team and, in fact, have placed bets that the opposing team will win. They have gotten their position precisely because the leaders of the opposing team selected them. In selecting them, they made it obvious that they were looking for judges and referees who will unflinchingly favor their team in all disputes that may arise. Would you expect this to be a fair game?

This sports analogy is useful because it shows that we know what it is obvious what types of judges and referees we need if we are to have a fair game. We need judges and referees who do not have a personal stake in one side winning over the other. If a judge or referee shows up wearing symbols indicating that he belongs to one of the teams we instantly know that he is not somebody that we would want to have refereeing the game insofar as we are interested in having a fair contest.

These symbols and signs are just an outward expression of a basic and fundamental failure to comprehend fairness and justice. We could tell this judge to remove the symbols indicating his support for his team. However, we would have done nothing to promote fairness and justice. Having the judge remove the symbols displaying his prejudice does not is not the same as removing the prejudice itself.

Fairness and justice requires judges who do not merely appear impartial, but who are impartial in fact. It requires a mindset that says that the judge or jury does not care which team wins, or (by analogy) has no particular preference with whether the Shiite triumphs over the Sunni. Just as the referee's primary interest should be in promoting a fair game, the judge should be interested in promoting a fair trial concerned only with whether the accused is guilty and cares nothing about religious membership.

The fact that the judge or jury does not allow symbols that show his support for one side over the other does not prove that he is impartial. However, the presence of those symbols proves that he is not impartial. If he insists that he has a right to wear those symbols, then he insists that he does not comprehend even the most basic fundamentals of the principles of fairness and justice. By this act he proves that he is not qualitied to be a referee or judge.

In this country, there are people who claim that they have a right to select the referees in disputes between their sects and other legitimate members of the American community. Rather than selecting judges by their impartiality, they insist that judges be selected that conspicuously endorse their team. They insist that those judges be permitted to wear their team's symbols and colors while arbitrating those disputes. When others protest and insist that such people are not qualified to be judges, these people complain that the rest of society is engaging in a "war against" their team.

Their claims are as false and malicious as those of any Shiite Muslim who claims that insisting that the judges who hear disputes between Shiite and Sunni citizens not wear the symbols that suggest that they favor the Shiites over Sunnis in any dispute they may hear. Insisting that no such symbols be shown is the same as insisting that judges be fair and impartial. The public square decorated in the symbols and trappings of one of these sects can no more be trusted to be fair and impartial than the referee who wears the colors of one of the teams in a sporting event.

On March 27th and 28th, there will be a conference in Washington DC called "The War on Christians and the Values Voter," that follows this pattern. It will be a gathering of people who have abandoned the fundamental principles of fairness and justice. They are people who demand that judges and referees be selected from their team, that those judges not only be allowed to wear their team colors and symbols, but that those who do not wear their team's symbols are not qualified to be judges.

These are people who prove by their words that they do not have any comprehension of what it means to be fair and to promote justice.