Bullish on Karma

(Image from creativityboost.net)

(Note: this post is not about secular law or the criminal justice system.)

Our rational brains tell us thst there is no Divine Justice that is meted out in this life. Even most sincere Christians don't believe in justice in the here-and-now---there are too many examples of bad things happening to good people and vice versa.

Occasionally a miscreant does receive his comeuppance, but rather than attributing the balancing of scales to God or Allah, the mysterious force is now called karma. An example from earlier this month. [bold added]

Shortly after President Trump’s early-morning revelation on Twitter last week that he and his wife, Melania, had tested positive for Covid-19, one of the top trending terms on Twitter was “karma.” Critics of the administration used the word to convey what they saw as a kind of poetic justice for Mr. Trump publicly playing down the threats of the coronavirus pandemic...

The word “karma” derives from Hindu and Buddhist teachings about reincarnation, which hold that people’s actions in their current lives, good or bad, determine what their fate will be in future existences. Used more generally in English, “karma” alludes to a vaguer concept that your destiny stems from how you live your life. Put another way: You reap what you sow.

One problem with karma is that it doesn't always show up. Another is that it can be short-lived: now that President and Mrs. Trump apparently have recovered, one rarely sees the term.

Expect usage of karma to increase markedly in a couple of weeks, after the election results are in. That's what happens when the contest is no longer between the policies of D versus the policies of R but a battle between good and evil.

As the media has told us, both of the leading Presidential candidates have plenty of evil actions to answer for. There will be a lot of karma that will be going around, but even at this late date we aren't sure who the recipient(s) will be.

Trump is the Devil

New Orleans on February 25th (Business Insider photo)

Some people--and I used to encounter them in person on a regular basis (thank God for social distancing)--think President Trump is the devil, Hitler, evil incarnate, etc. Of course, they do know that they're speaking metaphorically.

But it's not the accuracy of the metaphor that's the subject of this post, but the convenience of having a devil to blame.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell refused to cancel Mardi Gras on February 25th and is now dealing with the consequences--151 deaths, 3,540 total cases, 1,127 patients hospitalized as of today.

Mayor Cantrell blames President Trump.

She told CNN that if the outbreak had been taken seriously on the federal level at the time, they would have called off the event.

"When it's not taken seriously on the federal level, it's very difficult to transcend down to the local level in making these decisions," Cantrell said, adding that the federal response "backed up by the response of our national leader."

Yes, we have seen this movie before. In fact, that's the opening plotline of Jaws, in which the Mayor of Amity Island refuses to close the beaches after a fatal shark attack. The fictional Mayor of a New England town and the real-life Mayor of New Orleans put the money of tourist season and Mardi Gras, respectively, over lives.

When the Mardi Gras decision had to be made, President Trump had already restricted flights from China on January 31st. In New Orleans' case, after the fact, how nice it is to have President Trump to blame.

The devil has his uses
Allows us to make excuses
For our own bad choices
When we listened to the voices
Of selfishness and avarice.
So the devil, he wins twice
When our sin leads to shame
"Not me," I say,"he's to blame."