Why Restorative Justice Fails At Meting Justice
Restorative Justice, the Salem Witch Trials, and My Throat Issue
I woke up shortly after going to bed, having difficulty swallowing, which isn’t too unusual for me these days. About a year ago I started to have troubles with my throat, after trying to treat my hypothyroidism. I was told by an ENT the throat issue is silent reflux, but I have been thinking it’s allergies. I used a nasal rinse with salt water, took a mucus thinner, drank water, and I had to stay up a little while blowing my nose to clear things up before trying to sleep again. (While researching for this article I may have found out the actual problem, read on for more on that). Because I was going to be up anyway I read Substack.
I saw a note about the Salem Witch Trials. I lost the note due to Substack’s app crashing. But the links were in my browser app history.
So, as I waited to be able to fall back asleep, I listened to it. To be fair, I didn’t finish it, but that doesn’t matter to the point I want to write about here today.
(Social) Restorative Justice
During the tour, Dan Lipcan, the Ann C. Pingree Director of PEM’s Phillips Library, started talking about the background of the 2023 Salem Witch Trial exhibition called “Restoring Justice.” You can read more on that with the transcript and article called Restoring Justice after the Salem Witch Trials: PEMcast Episode 32. So of course it brought to mind the idea of “Restorative Justice” that the woke keep pushing.
So that we’re on the same page, according to Wikipedia (and I’m sure the woke) the definition of Restorative Justice is “an approach to justice that aims to get offenders to take responsibility for their actions, to understand the harm they have caused, to give them an opportunity to redeem themselves and to discourage them from causing further harm. For victims, its goal is to give them an active role in the process and to reduce feelings of anxiety and powerlessness. Restorative justice is founded on an alternative theory to the traditional methods of justice, which often focus on retribution.”
As I lay in bed last night, I thought, “It doesn’t sound bad.” But is it sound? Does it have no logical flaws? It seems to me that the whole idea of restorative justice requires people to try to get offenders to take responsibility and that is something that no one on earth (but the offenders) can do.
If someone has been caught up in hysteria and chosen to do things that harm others, they have a lot of motivated reasoning to never accept responsibility for what they did. You could, perhaps, get them to say the words and perform apologies, but you can’t stop them from ever doing it again because they likely will not be truly sorry because they will not believe they did anything wrong.
It is when people have boundaries enforced (through attracting retribution) that people feel enough personal harm that they will decide it’s easier to stop lying to themselves and actually be sorry. It’s when they come face-to-face with reality through consequences that they have to give up their illusions that they were the correct ones.
There may be people who, when confronted, feel enough shame that they would truly apologize and never do it again. But those are the sorts who already felt shame and that shame just became public. Those are not the sorts of people who felt they were correct. We have lots of people who feel it is morally correct to physically attack people based on their beliefs. We have seen plenty of people who believe they are morally correct to mandate a mask or vaccine on unwilling peers. How are you going to get them to truly take responsibility when they don’t believe they were wrong in the first place?
You aren’t. Only they can change their minds. With hard-headed people, it takes them feeling retribution (whether physical, mental, or emotional), before they will decide to change. You only change when the desire to change outweighs the desire to stay the same.
Check out my recent article on Hazelbrook’s lack of a zero-tolerance policy for physical assault on The Drama of It All. When a child is kicked out of school because they engage in violence at school, they feel a sort of emotional retribution. There is a longing to be where others are, like their friends, and, knowing that that is the consequence, the desire to not hit others and stay with their friends would be greater than the desire to engage in violence.
The boundary keeps them in the school without violence. But, the lack of a boundary lets them continue abusing others. They continue to feel as if they are in the moral right because there are no consequences (of any real consequence).
Talking with people in therapy or counseling helps people who want help, but it doesn’t help people who don’t. What those who push “restorative justice” believe (as a faulty premise) is that all people can be helped by just talking things through.
Justice (And Where It Comes From)
Does justice come from men or God or something else? What is justice anyway? Some of the common points in the definitions have to do with impartiality and fairness. I think we’re all going to have slight disagreements on what justice is, but my belief lies in the law of attraction. Up until now, this article could have gone on my Drama of It All substack, but the main reason I wanted to write about this was how it relates to the law of attraction.
We, as humans, have a difficult time judging impartially. It’s only gotten worse. Right now, sometimes I feel as if our court system is often unfair. But then I remember we attract the consequences of our thoughts. If you believe you will be treated unfairly you will ultimately be treated unfairly like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are all attracting based on what our higher selves desire also.
Generational Trauma
I started out talking about my throat issues and there was a reason for that. I had a friend who mentioned that “women like us” (more open to spirituality and holistic healing) were often accused of being witches and hung by the necks, so we now in the present-day women like us have throat issues. Of course, the combination of listening to Witch Trial history and my throat issues brought this memory back up last night.
I remember thinking about that statement and I do tend to believe it could be true in some ways. But what do you do with that information? Would you blame your problems on those who are afraid enough of natural medicines and spirituality that they would kill for it?
Note: I see the vaccine and mask pushers as the same sort of people as the “witch” killers. Masks make it more difficult to speak and breathe (directly related to the throat chakra). They didn’t care if their solutions would harm anyone physically (masks make falls more likely, and y’all know about vaccine damages). It was people’s belief in their natural immune systems that made them feel as if they had better choices than masking and getting vaccinated. It’s no surprise people made use of the term “witch hunt” and comparisons of COVID reactions to the Salem witch hunts.
When I remembered what my friend said, I thought that you could potentially see the witch killers as “persecutors” and yourself with a throat problem as a “victim.” But, you all know that’s not how I would see it. It made me think about how I attracted this situation in the first place.
Besides past lives (which could be disbelieved by some) we all have generational trauma through our families. If a grandparent didn’t deal with their trauma they passed it on to your parent who could have passed it on to you through their parenting style or lack thereof. There is also likely a combination of gene issues that get passed on from traumatized parents to their children.
But, I do believe as higher selves (spirits/souls) we are attracted to being born to particular parents. That attraction will be based on all of the desires we have up to that point. If you have a desire to learn how to love more, you might be born into a family that is unloving. The negative experiences will continue to attract (vibrationally) more love to you. But it is our “job” to let go of resistance and allow what has been vibrationally attracted to us.
The throat chakra is associated with speech. If it’s working correctly you are able to talk freely. It’s no wonder I write so many substacks and have so many social media accounts, eh? I have a strong desire to speak freely. But I still struggle with feeling as if I have to hold things in. I also had a thought to write a letter to someone that I would never send, and I see now how those are all connected. That’s going on my to-do list.
Is It Just?
If people hold all this generational trauma and can’t get justice through the court system, where is the justice? I believe the law of attraction is a law of nature, which means it is ultimately fair and impartial. We all, equally, have the ability to change what we think about or how we react to negative thoughts that come up in our minds. I believe we all chose to come for specific purposes and we can go with the flow of life and stop pushing against it. We can change the way we think about things. We all equally have the power to choose to relax and stop struggling so much.
I am having issues with anxiety because of past trauma, so I could argue that I have less ability to relax. But I won’t. I make choices every day (like what to eat or to go and exercise more) that could be better. We all have far more choices and freedom to find peace than we know of or make use of. And, I have seen some people on YouTube who claim to have gotten rid of anxiety by accepting it. I’m sure it’s possible.
While looking Shaan Kassam up for the link above, I found a video that may be the cause of my throat issue. It has a name: Globus Hystericus. The “globus” refers to the feeling of something in your throat. The “Hystericus” the histrionic anxiety that may be causing the feeling of something in the throat. It was likely the meditation and acupuncture mat that let me ultimately relax my muscles and sleep. I can see this being my issue. Writing my thoughts out here may have led me on a path to finally healing my throat…
Relaxing, and trusting that everything we desire is coming to us because of the law of attraction is all that is required for us to find solutions and peace. Since we’re all being treated fairly based on the law of attraction (attracting what we focus on), it is correct, impartial, and JUST (as in justice).
According to the law of attraction belief, we’re already living in a world that is impartial and JUST. When people try to go through “restorative justice” they are trying to be partial (rather than impartial) to their idea of what justice is, because they clearly don’t believe this world has justice already.
