Earlier I wrote that justice is punitive. That it must be so to be at all just. Without number are the voices raised throughout time in opposition to this principle, and the ink they have spilled in that opposition might drown the fabled seven seas of Earth. I understand their objections. Those who set their pen against the sword and the gallows and the firing squad did so from an excess of mercy, and mercy is virtuous, if a weaker, higher thing in itself. But justice is a virtue also, and if a man is to rule, it must be with the rod in one hand and the white glove on the other.
