GIVE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE - AND WE GET NO REMORSE
A acrostic free verse written to find an answer, but there seems not to be one
I had heard on the news the repeated line by several commentators “he has the presumption of innocence under the law” and also comments about those sentenced to long prison terms for January 6th insurrection actions of “showing no remorse.” Seems that in a democracy the majority must have their stuff together to make up for the minority who are incapable of procuring it. Take this Peter Navarro guy for example, if there was ever one lost human being in plain sight it’s him. This guy will go to his grave swearing up and down he was in the right, when he absolutely acted in the most traitorous way possible to the United States. From Trump we can expect only this as psychologically he is far from the light, but for some of these follower types it is almost inexplicable how very much in the dark they are. And we can only expect them to stay in this state. So I wrote a couple of days ago to address the presumption of innocence and the all too common acts of no remorse regardless of all factors in the finding of guilt. Perhaps there might be a person or two who might surprise us in their humanity, from all which we have witnessed for years now, one can only have great doubts in seeing it happen. Here is my verse:
Here are some postings from X and Truth Social for a word search of ‘guilt’ and ‘innocence’ made with my curiosity.
The following are a series of quotes broadly encompassing the theme of my verse. These are all from Forty Thousand Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts from 1914. Several of these people are new to me. I’ve tried to get a biography of each, taken from writings in Wikipedia for your information.
“Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.”
- Burke.
Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 - 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, economist, and philosopher. Born in Dublin, Burke served as a member of Parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. Burke took a leading role in the debate regarding the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses, either by the monarch, or by specific factions within the government.
“Their own frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future, these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.”
- Robert Hall.
The Rev. Robert Hall (2 May 1764 – 21 February 1831) was an English Baptist minister. From the contents of a letter to the congregation which he left, it would appear that, while a firm believer in the proper divinity of Christ, he had at this time disowned the cardinal principles of Calvinism; and that he was so far a materialist as to "hold that man's thinking powers and faculties are the result of a certain organization of matter, and that after death he ceases to be conscious till the resurrection". It was during his Cambridge ministry, which extended over a period of fifteen years, that his oratory was most brilliant and most immediately powerful. Hall began to suffer from mental derangement in November 1804. He recovered and was able to resume his duties in April 1805, but a recurrence forced him to resign his pastoral office in March 1806.
“Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”
- Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
“They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than incurred.”
- Southey.
Robert Southey (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a radical but became steadily more conservative as he gained respect for Britain and its institutions. Other romantics such as Byron accused him of siding with the establishment for money and status. He is remembered especially for the poem "After Blenheim" and the original version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". Although originally a radical supporter of the French Revolution, Southey followed the trajectory of his fellow Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge towards conservatism. Embraced by the Tory establishment as Poet Laureate, and from 1807 in receipt of a yearly stipend from them, he vigorously supported the Liverpool government. He argued against parliamentary reform ("the railroad to ruin with the Devil for driver"), blamed the Peterloo Massacre on an allegedly revolutionary "rabble" killed and injured by government troops, and spurned Catholic emancipation.
“He that blushes not at his crime, but adds shamelessness to shame, hath nothing left to restore him to virtue.”
- Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller (baptised 19 June 1608 – 16 August 1661) was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his Worthies of England, published in 1662, after his death. He was a prolific author, and one of the first English writers able to live by his pen (and his many patrons). Under the Articles of Surrender Fuller made his composition with the government at London, his "delinquency" being that he had been present in the king's garrisons. In Andronicus, or the Unfortunate Politician (1646), partly authentic and partly fictitious, he satirised the leaders of the Revolution; and for the comfort of sufferers by the war he issued (1647) a second devotional manual, entitled Good Thoughts in Worse Times, abounding in fervent aspirations, and drawing moral lessons in beautiful language out of the events of his life or the circumstances of the time.
“I know not how to tell thee! Shame rises in my face, and interrupts the story of my tongue!”
- Otway.
Thomas Otway (3 March 1652 – 14 April 1685) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd (1682). The muse he had fallen in love with was Elizabeth Barry, who played many of the leading parts in his plays. Six letters to her survive, the last of them referring to a broken appointment in the Mall. She seems to have flirted with Otway, but had no intention of permanently offending Rochester, her lover. In 1678, driven to desperation, Otway obtained a commission through Charles, Earl of Plymouth, a natural son of Charles II, in a regiment serving in the Netherlands. The English troops were disbanded in 1679, but were left to find their way home as best they could. They were paid with depreciated paper, and Otway arrived in London late in the year, ragged and dirty, a circumstance utilized by Elkanah Settle in his Sessions of the Poets.
Upon his return, he apparently ceased to struggle against his poverty and misfortunes. At one point in attempts to make money, he tutored the son of famed Restoration actress Nell Gwyn. The generally accepted story regarding the manner of his death was first given in Theophilus Cibber's Lives of the Poets. He is said to have emerged from his retreat at the Bull on Tower Hill to beg for bread. A passer-by, learning who he was, gave him a guinea, with which Otway hastened to a baker's shop. He ate too hastily, and choked on the first mouthful. Whether this account of his death is true or not, it is certain that he died in the utmost poverty, and was buried on 16 April 1685 in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes.
“To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.”
- Longfellow.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha", and "Evangeline". He was the first American to completely translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the fireside poets from New England. Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and had success overseas. He has been criticized for imitating European styles and writing poetry that was too sentimental. He was such an admired figure in the United States during his life that his 70th birthday in 1877 took on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry.
“Late repentance is seldom true, but true repentance is never too late.”
- R. Venning.
Ralph Venning (c. 1621 – 10 March 1673 or 1674) was an English nonconformist Christian. Ejected by the Uniformity Act 1662, Venning became a colleague to Robert Bragge (1627–1704), pastor of an independent congregation at Pewterers' Hall, Lime Street, Fenchurch Street, and held this charge till his death.
It seems to me that much has been lost in this century as to how to be a decent human being. It’s all been written about over a century ago or more, but human flaws such that they are, never can we seem to change enough, that we see the same behavior over and over. These inabilities plague us continually, and with no change in sight. How exactly this is affecting our evolutionary path intrigues me, one can only see that humankind is incapable of advancing socially in order to save us from ourselves. This explains much of the questioning in my mind about our existence on this planet. I don’t understand it, but our path being taken certainly cannot be assumed as being beneficial for the survival of our species. I’ll leave it at that. Thanks for reading.
88th posting, September 10, 2023