You Shall Not Be Partial

“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” — Leviticus 19:15

Suppose that tomorrow, a video emerged which appeared to show a policeman handling a black man with excessive force. In fact, a lot of people are, rightly or wrongly convinced that this video is a cut and dry example of unlawful use of force.

Now suppose that a few hours later, the police department declares that what a lot of people thought they saw on a video was wrong and the officer’s use of force was justified.

Would you right now be arguing on Facebook that people who doubt this explaination should stop being conspiratorial and trust the account provided by the police department or would you insist on an investigation?

Apply what you would do in the first case to many people’s concern over voter fraud. We might argue that in both cases, incompetency is a more probable explanation than conspiracy. Yet in either case, the possibility of real malice, combined with the possibility of organizational arse-covering is real.

Therefore we should always run these sorts of things through a thorough legal process that is 100% transparent and appeal-exhausted.

Consistency is godly.

A just balance and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are his work.” — Proverbs 16:11

Inconsistency is wicked.

Unequal weights are an abomination to the Lord, and false scales are not good.” — Proverbs 20:23

Weigh everything with the same honest scale.