Unjustly Accused Quotes

She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude.--Gratitude not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude--for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not exactly be defined.

I'm inclined to reserve all judgement, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

In January 1898 Zola took an important part in the defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew unjustly accused of selling military secrets to Germany.

In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon - for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.

It is unjust, but only Christlike, to suffer persecution for doing what is right.

Understanding America for the Non-American Black: Thoughts on the Special White Friend One great gift for the Zipped-Up Negro is The White Friend Who Gets It. Sadly, this is not as common as one would wish, but some are lucky to have that white friend who you don’t need to explain shit to. By all means, put this friend to work. Such friends not only get it, but also have great bullshit-detectors and so they totally understand that they can say stuff that you can’t. So there is, in much of America, a stealthy little notion lying in the hearts of many: that white people earned their place at jobs and schools while black people got in because they were black. But in fact, since the beginning of America, white people have been getting jobs because they were white. Many whites with the same qualifications but Negro skin would not have the jobs they have. But don’t ever say this publicly. Let your white friend say it. If you make the mistake of saying this, you will be accused of a curiosity called “playing the race card.” Nobody quite knows what this means. When my father was in school in my NAB (Non American Black) country, many American Blacks could not vote or go to good schools. The reason? Their skin color. Skin color alone was the problem. Today, many Americans say that skin color cannot be part of the solution. Otherwise it is referred to as a curiosity called “reverse racism.” Have your white friend point out how the American Black deal is kind of like you’ve been unjustly imprisoned for many years, then all of a sudden you’re set free, but you get no bus fare. And, by the way, you and the guy who imprisoned you are now automatically equal. If the “slavery was so long ago” thing comes up, have your white friend say that lots of white folks are still inheriting money that their families made a hundred years ago. So if that legacy lives, why not the legacy of slavery? And have your white friend say how funny it is, that American pollsters ask white and black people if racism is over. White people in general say it is over and black people in general say it is not. Funny indeed. More suggestions for what you should have your white friend say? Please post away. And here’s to all the white friends who get it.

You were not merely a person unjustly accused of espionage, but someone who dared to challenge certain customs. And for that you could not be forgiven. However,

I've also represented people who have committed terrible crimes but nonetheless struggle to recover and to find redemption. I have discovered, deep in the hearts of many condemned and incarcerated people, the scattered traces of hope and humanity - seeds of restoration that come to astonishing life when nurtured by very simple interventions. Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. My work with the poor and incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's never to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and - perhaps - we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently

Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude. -- Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister.

If you find in it something of which you feel that you are unjustly accused, remember that one should be thankful that there is any fault of which one can be unjustly accused.

Those who are unjustly accused, and causelessly ill-treated know what tremendous strength is necessary to keep silence to God.

She thought of the boy thrown into the cauldron of war, the girl beset by various bigotries, her life in danger, and saw how unjust it all was, her fury limitless for a few moments. And she felt a sense of shame, something akin to accusation from them towards her and her generation, for not having constructed a better world to welcome and contain their beauty, to house their spirit. —

That Socrates should ever have been so treated by the Athenians!" Slave! why say "Socrates"? Speak of the thing as it is: That ever then the poor body of Socrates should have been dragged away and haled by main force to prision! That ever hemlock should have been given to the body of Socrates; that that should have breathed its life away!—Do you marvel at this? Do you hold this unjust? Is it for this that you accuse God? Had Socrates no compensation for this? Where then for him was the ideal Good? Whom shall we hearken to, you or him? And what says he? "Anytus and Melitus may put me to death: to injure me is beyond their power." And again:— "If such be the will of God, so let it be.

Criticism of the traditional male role is often mistaken for criticism of men themselves. When this happens, men understandably become defensive, push away any discussion of gender, and are unable to hear women's appeals for change. Any gender-role discussion quickly becomes a women's problem, and the issue is repressed by men who feel unjustly accused, and by women who are afraid of men's disapproval and anger.

I had written my thesis on medieval witches accused of roasting dead infants and grinding their bones. A year later I found myself literally roasting dead infants and grinding their bones. The tragedy of the women who were accused of witchcraft was that they never actually ground the bones of babies to help them fly to a midnight devil’s Sabbath. But they were unjustly killed for it anyway, burned alive at the stake. I, on the other hand, did grind the bones of babies. Often I was thanked by their poor parents for my care and concern. Things change.

Don’t blame me for this one. I’m innocent.” I swear I felt a drop of snow as Hell suffered a sudden temperature drop at my stretching of the truth. Innocent wasn’t a word I could use often, unless unjustly accused. Again, a rare occurrence.

Fu Shen rather impatiently said, ...His Honor the Imperial Investigator, coveting my beauty, has abducted me by force and is keeping me locked up in his manor, not permitting me to leave. So for now if anyone else wants to see me, say that I'm staying at Yan Manor to convalesce. "... Lord Yan had been struck so hard by the unjust accusation falling out of the sky that he was seeing stars.

communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile

. . . Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. . . we all need mercy, we all need justice, and - perhaps - we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

While craving justice for ourselves, it is never wise to be unjust to others. To deny valor in the enemy we have conquered is to underrate our victory; and if the enemy be strong enough to hold us at bay, much more to conquer us"--she hesitated--"self-respect bids us seek some other explanation of our misfortunes than accusing him of qualities inferior to our own.

The tragedy of the women who were accused of witchcraft was that they never actually ground the bones of babies to help them fly to a midnight devil’s Sabbath. But they were unjustly killed for it anyway, burned alive at the stake. I, on the other hand, did grind the bones of babies. Often I was thanked by their poor parents for my care and concern. Things change.

inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild,

In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.

That God allows a human being to treat me unjustly is just of God. While I may complain to God about the human, horizontal injustice I have suffered, I cannot rise up and accuse God of committing a vertical injustice by allowing the human injustice to befall me. God would be perfectly just to allow me to be thrown in prison for life for a crime I didn't commit. I may be innocent before other people, but I am guilty before God.

Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman, and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.

Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I've come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it's necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and - perhaps - we all need some measure of unmerited grace.

Joseph spent most of his life not knowing why God had allowed his brothers to sell him into slavery, why he had allowed him to be brought to a foreign land, why he had allowed him to be falsely accused and thrown into prison. From behind bars, it must have all seemed so unjust. But from the summit of understanding that God later granted him, it all made perfect sense (Genesis 50:20). It was there he learned that the seemingly meandering ways of God weren't simply leading to the shaping of his character but also to the saving of his family (a lineage that led to Christ), preserving them through seven years of famine and prospering them for generations to come.

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked. It was a gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He

Though slavery officially ended after the Civil War, the Christianity that blessed white supremacy did not go away. It doubled down on the Lost Cause, endorsed racial terrorism during the Redemption era, blessed the leaders of Jim Crow, and continues to endorse racist policies as traditional values under the guise of a "religious right." As a Christian minister myself, I understand why, for my entire ministry, the number of people who choose not to affiliate with any religious tradition has doubled each decade. An increasingly diverse America is tired of the old slaveholder religion. But this is why the freedom church that David George joined in the late 1760s is so important. We who speak out in public life to insist that God cares about love, justice, and mercy and to call people of faith to stand with the poor, the uninsured, the undocumented, and the incarcerated are often accused of preaching something new. But those who claim "traditional values" to defend unjust policies do not represent the tradition of David George, George Liele, and Brother Palmer. They do not represent the Black, white, and Tuscaroran people of Free Union, North Carolina, who taught my people for generations that there is no way to worship Jesus without being concerned about justice in the world.

For a perilous moment, she hovered on the brink of losing her temper, but her ever- ready sense of the absurd came to her rescue, and instead of yielding to the impulse to come to points with him she broke into sudden laughter, and said: ‘How unhandsome of you to have given me such a set- down, when I had already begged your pardon!’ ‘How unjust of you to accuse me of giving you a set- down when all I did was to agree with you!’ he retorted.

consequence I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

...it takes great humility to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord Who set us free from all our sins. ... The truly humble person will have a genuine desire to be thought little of, and persecuted, and condemned unjustly, even in serious matters. ... It is a great help to meditate upon the great gain which in any case this is bound to bring us, and to realize how, properly speaking, we can never be blamed unjustly, since we are always full of faults, and a just man falls seven times a day, so that it would be a falsehood for us to say we have no sin. If, then, we are not to blame for the thing that we are accused of, we are never wholly without blame in the way that our good Jesus was. ... Thou knowest, my Good, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. For what is it to Thee, Lord, to give much instead of little? True, I do not deserve it, but neither have I deserved the favors which Thou hast shown me already. Can it be that I should wish a thing so evil as myself to be thought well of by anyone, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, Who art good above all other good? ... Do Thou give me light and make me truly to desire that all should hate me, since I have so often let Thee, Who hast loved me with such faithfulness. ... What does it matter to us if we are blamed by them all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord? ...meditate upon what is real and upon what is not. ... Do you suppose, ... that, if you do not make excuses for yourself, there will not be someone else who will defend you? Remember how the Lord took the Magdalen's part in the Pharisee's house and also when her sister blamed her. He will not treat you as rigorously as He treated Himself: it was not until He was on the Cross that He had even a thief to defend Him. His Majesty, then, will put it into somebody's mind to defend you; if He does not, it will be because there is no need. ...be glad when you are blamed, and in due time you will see what profit you experience in your souls. For it is in this way that you will begin to gain freedom; soon you will not care if they speak ill or well of you; it will seem like someone else's business. ... So here: it becomes such a habit with us not to reply that it seems as if they are not addressing us at all. This may seem impossible to those of us who are very sensitive and not capable of great mortification. It is indeed difficult at first, but I know that, with the Lord's help, the gradual attainment of this freedom, and of renunciation and self-detachment, is quite possible.

Constitutional government, the balance of power, legal guarantees, the whole edifice of political civilisation slowly built up over the course of the ages and always incomplete, is calmly pushed aside. They accept an absolute State, allegedly in the service of the Revolution; they are not interested in the plurality of parties and the autonomy of working-class organisations. They do not protest against lawyers bullying their clients and accused persons confessing to imaginary crimes. After all, is not revolutionary justice directed towards the ‘radical solution of the problem of coexistence’, whilst ‘liberal justice’ applies unjust laws?

The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated. An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive and abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others. The closer we get to mass incarceration and extreme levels of punishment, the more I believe it’s necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and—perhaps—we all need some measure of unmerited grace

The Maker of man became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nourished at the breast; that He, the Bread, might be hungry; that He, the Fountain, might thirst; that He, the Light, might sleep; that He, the Way, might be wearied by the journey; that He, the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses; that He, the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge; that He, Justice, might be condemned by the unjust; that He, the Teacher, might be scourged with whips; that He, the Vine, might be crowned with thorns; that He, the Foundation, might be suspended upon a cross; that Strength might be weakened; that He who makes well might be wounded; that Life might die. To endure these and similar indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures...

The book of Job, based on an ancient folktale, may have been written during the exile. One day, Yahweh made an interesting wager in the divine assembly with Satan, who was not yet a figure of towering evil but simply one of the “sons of God,” the legal “adversary” of the council.19 Satan pointed out that Job, Yahweh’s favorite human being, had never been truly tested but was good only because Yahweh had protected him and allowed him to prosper. If he lost all his possessions, he would soon curse Yahweh to his face. “Very well,” Yahweh replied, “all that he has is in your power.”20 Satan promptly destroyed Job’s oxen, sheep, camels, servants, and children, and Job was struck down by a series of foul diseases. He did indeed turn against God, and Satan won his bet. At this point, however, in a series of long poems and discourses, the author tried to square the suffering of humanity with the notion of a just, benevolent, and omnipotent god. Four of Job’s friends attempted to console him, using all the traditional arguments: Yahweh only ever punished the wicked; we could not fathom his plans; he was utterly righteous, and Job must therefore be guilty of some misdemeanor. These glib, facile platitudes simply enraged Job, who accused his comforters of behaving like God and persecuting him cruelly. As for Yahweh, it was impossible to have a sensible dialogue with a deity who was invisible, omnipotent, arbitrary, and unjust—at one and the same time prosecutor, judge, and executioner. When Yahweh finally deigned to respond to Job, he showed no compassion for the man he had treated so cruelly, but simply uttered a long speech about his own splendid accomplishments. Where had Job been while he laid the earth’s foundations, and pent up the sea behind closed doors? Could Job catch Leviathan with a fishhook, make a horse leap like a grasshopper, or guide the constellations on their course? The poetry was magnificent, but irrelevant. This long, boastful tirade did not even touch upon the real issue: Why did innocent people suffer at the hands of a supposedly loving God? And unlike Job, the reader knows that Job’s pain had nothing to do with the transcendent wisdom of Yahweh, but was simply the result of a frivolous bet. At the end of the poem, when Job—utterly defeated by Yahweh’s bombastic display of power—retracted all his complaints and repented in dust and ashes, God restored Job’s health and fortune. But he did not bring to life the children and servants who had been killed in the first chapter. There was no justice or recompense for them.

As the result of its systems and of its efforts, it would seem that socialism, notwithstanding all its self-compaceny, can scarcely help perceiving the monster of legal plunder. But what does it do? It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organization, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it alleges that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thingbeing done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State--then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion--then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, beacuse we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.

The governor started talking at once. He told the journalists that I’d been unjustly accused, that the law against blasphemy was open to criminal misuse against the most vulnerable religious minorities, that not only was it against the principles of Islam but it did nothing to serve that religion. Then he stopped speaking. I understood that it was my turn. I was terrified - I didn’t think I could do it. Women of my kind aren’t expected to speak at all, let alone in public, and certainly not in front of strangers. I didn’t know what to say and started to stammer something inaudible. The governor quickly came to my aid. He interrupted me and, with a little nod of encouragement, asked me to tell the journalists what had happened in the village.

I explained what had really happened with those women, who’d turned hysterical at the thought of drinking water served by a Christian; how, after the argument, I was chased by a mad crowd and beaten by several villagers who dragged me to the police station; how, once there, I was unjustly accused of having blasphemed and the police threw me into a cell, under pressure from the crowd and the village mullah. At that point in my story Salman Taseer thanked me warmly. I was relieved to have been able to tell the truth.

Typically only the incivility of the less powerful toward the more powerful can be widely understood as such, and thus be subject to such intense censure. Which is what made #metoo so fraught and revolutionary. It was a period during which some of the most powerful faced repercussion. The experience of having patriarchal control compromised felt, perhaps ironically, like a violation, a diminishment, a threat to professional standing—all the things that sexual harassment feels like to those who’ve experienced it. Frequently, in those months, I was asked about how to address men’s confusion and again, their discomfort: How were they supposed to flirt? What if their respectful and professional gestures of affiliation had been misunderstood? Mothers told me of sons worried about being misinterpreted, that expression of their affections might be heard as coercion, their words or intentions read incorrectly, that they would face unjust consequences that would damage their prospects. The amazing thing was the lack of acknowledgment that these anxieties are the normal state for just about everyone who is not a white man: that black mothers reasonably worry every day that a toy or a phone or a pack of Skittles might be seen as a gun, that their children’s very presence—sleeping in a dorm room, sitting at a Starbucks, barbecuing by a river, selling lemonade on the street—might be understood as a threat, and that the repercussions might extend far beyond a dismissal from a high-paying job or expulsion from a high-profile university, and instead might result in arrest, imprisonment, or execution at the hands of police or a concerned neighbor. Women enter young adulthood constantly aware that their inebriation might be taken for consent, or their consent for sluttiness, or that an understanding of them as having been either drunk or slutty might one day undercut any claim they might make about having been violently aggressed upon. Women enter the workforce understanding from the start the need to work around and accommodate the leering advances and bad jokes of their colleagues, aware that the wrong response might change the course of their professional lives. We had been told that our failures to extend sympathy to the white working class—their well-being diminished by unemployment and drug addictions—had cost us an election; now we were being told that a failure to feel for the men whose lives were being ruined by harassment charges would provoke an angry antifeminist backlash. But with these calls came no acknowledgment of sympathies that we have never before been asked to extend: to black men who have always lived with higher rates of unemployment and who have faced systemically higher prison sentences and social disapprobation for their drug use; to the women whose careers and lives had been ruined by ubiquitous and often violent harassment. Now the call was to consider the underlying pain of those facing repercussions. Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s earliest and most vociferous accusers, recalled being asked “in a soft NPR voice, ‘What if what you’re saying makes men uncomfortable?’ Good. I’ve been uncomfortable my whole life. Welcome to our world of discomfort.”34 Suddenly, men were living with the fear of consequences, and it turned out that it was not fun. And they very badly wanted it to stop. One of the lessons many men would take from #metoo was not about the threat they had posed to women, but about the threat that women pose to them.

Admittedly, careful reading of each man's final treatise, Jomini's Summary of the Art of War and Clausewitz's On War, blurs the sharp distinctions some like to draw between their respective thoughts on success in war. It reveals the ironic twist that, in their theoretical approaches to the study of conflict, Jomini is more Clausewitzian, and Clausewitz more Jominian, than many people believe. Jomini is often, and unjustly, depicted as rigid, methodical, and legalistic in his approach to military theory. Yet, in the opening passages of his magnum opus, he defends himself against such accusations. the ensemble of my principles and of the maxims which are derived from them, has been badly comprehended by several writers; that some have made the most erroneous application of them; that others have drawn from them exaggerated consequences which have never been able to enter my head; for a general officer, after having assisted in a dozen campaigns, ought to know that war is a great drama, in which a thousand physical or moral causes operate more or less powerfully, and which cannot be reduced to mathematical calculations.1

Today, The Birth of it Nation (1915) is boycotted or shown piecemeal; too many more or less well-meaning people still accuse Griffith of having made it an anti-Negro movie. At best, this is nonsense, and at worst, it is vicious nonsense. Even if it were an anti-Negro movie, a work of such quality should be shown, and shown whole. But the accusation is unjust. Griffith went to almost preposterous lengths to be fair to the Negroes as he understood them, and he understood them as a good type of Southerner does. I don’t entirely agree with him; nor can I be sure that the film wouldn’t cause trouble and misunderstanding, especially as advertised and exacerbated by contemporary abolitionists; but Griffith’s absolute desire to be fair, and understandable, is written all over the picture; so are degrees of understanding, honesty, and compassion far beyond the capacity of his accusers. So, of course, are the salient facts of the so-called Reconstruction years.

The true Sufi is such that even when he is unjustly accused, attacked, and condemned from all sides, he patiently endures, uttering not a single bad word about any of his critics. A Sufi never apportions blame. How can there be opponents or rivals or even “others” when there is no “self” in the first place? How can there be anyone to blame when there is only One?

Trying to create communication is almost always the uphill struggle of the falsely blamed.

I have lived my whole life as a Black man in the United States. I don't have to go all the way back to Tulsa and Rosewood and Emmett Till to know what it means for a white woman to accuse a Black man, and who would likely be believed. This was potentially a world of trouble heading my way. Her fingers were already dialing; in a split second of self-preservation, I considered that if I just stopped recording, maybe this would go away. Which of course was her intent. I can't say whether it was a conscious choice or the product of unconscious bias when she grabbed that bloody, blunt object, of the White Damsel in Distress Threatened by the Black Menace, to try to club me into compliance with her wish not to be recorded; I don't know her at all, can't know why it was so easily within her reach, when she was grasping for something to give her leverage in our confrontation. In the weeks that followed, several right-wing mouthpieces would seek to excuse it, justifying her injection of race into the situation as merely her giving a full and accurate physical description of me to the police. (Never mind the falseness of the accusation in the first place.) Except at that moment, she wasn't speaking to the police; she was talking to me. People who think their life is in danger don't pause to inform their supposed assailant, in a rather triumphal tone of voice, that they're about to call the cops and inform them of your race; if they're genuinely scared for their life, they punch the digits, period. Her intent, in saying it to me, was to use the long history of Fear the Black Man, and the resulting unjust police violence against us, to intimidate me into submission.

delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments) published in Milan in 1764, and had copied no less than twenty-six extracts of it into his 1776 Commonplace Book. John Adams had quoted from Beccaria in his celebrated defense of the British soldiers unjustly accused during the Boston Massacre. Benjamin Franklin admired Beccaria hugely. Indeed, one of the great reproaches of the eighteenth-century radicals and liberals against the hereditary despotisms of the day was the lavish use that monarchy made of torture and of capital punishment. Beccaria’s treatise had exposed the futility and stupidity, as well as the sadism, of these practices—condemned as “cruel and unusual” in the language of the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution.

I CANT MAKE GOD A LIAR Nobody dies sick. They died because they rejected God's provision for sickness. By His stripes we ‪#‎WERE‬ healed (its in the past) Nobody dies a ‪#‎sinner‬. They died rejecting God and His Word. they made Him a lier. John 3 :16 God so love the world.He took ALL sins away. Who can accuse my God of being wicked ? Whe can say He is unjust ? He plays the music but people wont dance. He calls and they look on because its TOO EASY AND SIMPLE. John 3:19 KJV And this is the ‪‎condemnation‬, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

At the height of the witch craze the Duke of Brunswick invited two learned and famous Jesuits—both of whom believed in witchcraft and in torture as a means of eliciting a confession—to join him in the Brunswick dungeon to witness the torture of a woman accused of witchcraft. Suspecting that people will say anything to stop the pain, the duke told the woman on the rack that he had reasons to believe that the two men accompanying him were warlocks and that he wanted to know what she thought, instructing her torturers to jack up the pain a little more. The woman promptly “confessed” that she had seen both men turn themselves into goats, wolves, and other animals, that they had sexual relations with other witches, and that they had fathered many children with heads like toads and legs like spiders. “The Duke of Brunswick led his astounded friends away,” MacKay narrates. “This was convincing proof to both of them that thousands of persons had suffered unjustly; they knew their own innocence, and shuddered to think what their fate might have been if an enemy instead of a friend had put such a confession into the mouth of a criminal.

Between This Woman Is Mine and Rise and Shine, Brennan gave a stirring performance as an outcast in Swamp Water (October 23, 1941). As Tom Keefer, unjustly accused of murder and taking refuge in a swamp, he becomes a second father to Ben Ragan (Dana Andrews), estranged from his crusty father, Thursday (Walter Huston). Ben happens on Keefer while searching the swamp for his dog, Trouble. The young man learns the ways of the swamp from Keefer, and he also realizes Keefer is innocent. Their bond is strengthened further when Ben falls in love with Keefer’s daughter, Julie (Anne Baxter).

When Yahweh Elohim had created Adam and Havah, he had enacted a covenant that essentially reflected this pattern of Preamble, Prologue, Laws, Sanctions, and Witnesses. Adam, as primogeniture of the human race, had violated that covenant and the world now experienced the negative consequences of that covenant violation. The Accuser had filed a third party class action complaint on behalf of Adam and Havah and the entire human race, claiming that Yahweh Elohim’s covenant with the human race was in fact unjust at every single one of the five points. The Accuser’s “equitable remedy” involved among other things, an award of damages and a permanent injunction and restraining order against Elohim from the Garden and the presence of mankind.

The Accuser jumped in, “But why does a loving God punish at all? Is it not his obligation to forgive all transgression large or small? What kind of a loving God punishes imperfection? What kind of a loving God casts people into Sheol? That is not love, that is cruelty.” Enoch sighed. He was already weary of hearing “what kind of a loving God” preface a horde of false accusations. But in the interest of fairness, he sought to address each one. “Firstly, I would like to establish that counsel is repeating a falsehood already laid to rest. It is not imperfection that is being punished, it is iniquity. Secondly, may I remind my accusing adversary that a just God is not obligated to forgive anyone anything. A just God punishes sin. Forgiveness without propitiation is the true cruelty. Worse, it is to denigrate the criminal’s own worth to nothing. For if the criminal is forgiven without the penalty being served, then both victim and victimizer have no value. But neither is “love” obligated to forgive, for that would make such actions duty and no longer gracious.” “Ah,” interrupted the Accuser, “But there you are on the horns of a dilemma. For Elohim to be just, he must punish, but for Elohim to be loving, he must forgive. So if he punishes, he is unloving, and if he forgives, he is unjust. So I ask the Judge with humility, submission and deference, which art thou, cruel or impotent?” Now that was a coup, thought the Accuser as he let his impeccable logic sink in to the minds and hearts of ten million “holy ones.” Holy, my rear end.

After the Accuser trumpeted his philosophical dilemma of an unloving or unjust God, Enoch was about to respond when the entrance of another counselor to his team interrupted him. He came from the right hand of the throne of the Ancient of Days and whispered to Enoch. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. But when he whispered, it was a still small voice heard only by his listener. It was the Son of Man, the “second power in heaven.” The first one he spoke to was Uriel. The Son of Man whispered something to him and Uriel immediately excused himself from the throne room. Then the Son of Man walked to Enoch and gave him counsel. Enoch could see the Accuser visibly shaken by the presence of this glorious being. It was as if he knew his case was instantly lost. Enoch had seen this “Son of Man” in his dreams when he was on earth, but after ascending into heaven, he came to know him. There he learned that this Son of Man was also a Son of Elohim, but not like all the other heavenly host. He was the Firstborn, a species-unique, uncreated Son of God. And now, he had joined the defense. Everything would change. After receiving counsel, Enoch spoke, “There is a third way, not addressed by the Accuser’s dilemma. And that is substitutionary atonement.

the Accuser’s final complaint. He took a confident breath and embarked on his concluding strategy: blame shifting. The Accuser said, “If I am to stomach this dodgy ad hoc definition of ‘death’ as eventual mortality, and the excessive punishment of death and exile for the primal pair in the Garden, that is one thing. But to then shift that blame onto the rest of the human race, that is the most unfair, unjust, unwarranted, unreasonable, unjustifiable attribution of guilt anyone has ever seen in the history of the heavens and earth.” Enoch thought the Accuser’s rhetoric reached its shrill climax of excess in this catalogue of allegations and complaints. The Accuser continued, “What kind of a just god blames innocent people for the guilt of others? What kind of a loving god punishes the entire rest of the human race for what two moronic idiots did in the Garden?” He stood there with dramatic pause. There it was again, thought Enoch. The endless refrain against a ‘loving god.’ But now the Accuser was adding a new slogan for a bit of variety with ‘what kind of a just god’ etcetera, etcetera. The Accuser concluded, “The prosecution rests its case.” He sat down by the other Watchers.

The Queen (Victoria) wrote generously to her mother, 'I quite understand your feelings on the occasion of Sir John Conroy's death. . . I will not speak of the past and the many sufferings he entailed on us by creating divisions between you and me which could never have existed otherwise, they are buried with him.. For his poor wife and children I am truly sorry." Thanking the Queen for her letter the Duchess of Kent wrote 'Yes, Sir John Conroy's death was a most painful shock. I shall not try and excuse the many errors that unfortunate man committed, but it would be very unjust if I allowed all the blame to be thrown on him. I am in justice bound to accuse myself. . . I erred in believing blindly, in acting with out refection. . . I allowed myself unintentionally to be led led to hurt you, my dearest child, for whom I would have given at every moment my life! Refection came always too late, but not the deserved punishment! My sufferings were great, very great. God be praised that those terrible times are gone by and that only death can separate me from you My beloved Victoria.

I knew we’d be accused of rewarding incompetence, of throwing public money down a rat hole. But I believed we had gotten taxpayers a reasonable deal, not just in the financial terms of the loan, but by avoiding even more severe damage to the economy. I’d soon get some early validation of that when Hank Greenberg, AIG’s hard-driving former chief executive and a major shareholder in the firm, visited me to complain that the Fed had been given too much equity in AIG, too much of the upside. I was a bit shocked by the audacity; basically, he wanted us to give back a big chunk of the company. I told him we hadn’t done the deal to make money, and we’d be happy to sell him back some of the equity if he’d be willing to take some of the risk. But what interested me was Greenberg’s confidence that we’d get a positive return from AIG, rather than the tens of billions in losses that everyone else seemed to expect. He’d be right about that, but only because of the force of the government’s actions to stabilize the company and the broader financial system over the next few years. He and other AIG shareholders would end up suing the federal government, claiming that we had been unjustly harsh to the firm we rescued.

But precisely because the duty to protest against another’s sin is so important, false and malicious accusations are particularly abhorrent. To destroy a man’s reputation wilfully and unjustly is one of the worst of sins. The ‘witch hunt’ is a great collective evil.

Why do men accuse women of being irrational simply because they don’t understand us? It’s unjust.

When we suffer from false accusations or unjust treatment, it’s tempting to think that God has abandoned us or perhaps is punishing us for some wrongdoing we’re not aware of. If our conscience is clear that our circumstances aren’t the result of sinful behavior, we can trust that God has a definite purpose in mind. Perhaps he’s helping us grow more dependent on him or preparing us for an important role, as in Joseph’s case. Even when other people believe false accusations against us, the most important thing is that God knows our innocence.

Gradually, as Nero's excesses grew more unbridled, Seneca fell increasingly out of favour. At length he was accused, justly or unjustly, of complicity in a widespread conspiracy to murder Nero and place a new emperor—some said, Seneca himself—upon the throne. In view of his former services, he was graciously permitted to commit suicide (A.D. 65). His end was edifying. At first, on being informed of the Emperor's decision, he set about making a will. When told that there was no time allowed for such a lengthy business, he turned to his sorrowing family and said: 'Never mind, I leave you what is of far more value than earthly riches, the example of a virtuous life'—or

Misunderstandings can cause arguments, fights, broken relationships, and worse. Instead of jumping to conclusions and rushing to pass judgment, we need to slow down and follow the Bible’s advice. When we confront a fellow believer about sin, Galatians 6:1 urges us to do it in a gentle way. If we’re the ones being accused, Proverbs 15:1 explains that a gentle answer can deflect the other person’s rage, while a harsh answer only stirs up anger. By taking the time to let people explain their actions and not reacting angrily to unjust accusations, our misunderstandings can have a happy ending instead of escalating to all-out war.

retreat in order to charge with greater strength, and to kill the enemy with one fatal blow! This teaches you to withdraw frequently into yourself. Recall your insignificance, your inability to accomplish anything. You will then place great confidence in the almighty power of God, so that you will be able, through His grace, to attack and conquer the passions that oppose you. Here you must implore: “My Lord, My God! Jesus! Mary! Do not abandon your soldier! Do not permit me to be conquered by this temptation!” Whenever the enemy gives you a breathing spell, call up your understanding to reinforce your will. Strengthen it with motives that will raise its courage and give it new life for the fight. For example, if you are unjustly accused or harmed in some other way, and, in desperation, are tempted to lose all patience, try to check yourself by reflecting on these points: 1. Consider whether you might not deserve the unpleasantness you are undergoing, and whether you have not brought it upon yourself. If you are in any way to blame, it is proper that you patiently endure the agony of the wound which you yourself have occasioned. 2. However, if you are not guilty on this score, glance back at some past offenses for which divine justice has not yet inflicted a punishment, and for which you have not sufficiently expiated by a voluntary penance. When you see that God, in His infinite mercy, instead of a long punishment in purgatory, or even an eternal one in hell, has decreed but an easy and momentary one in this life, accept it, not merely with resignation, but with joyous thanksgiving.

16And see to it that your conscience is entirely clear, so that every time you are slandered or falsely accused, those who attack or disparage your good behavior in Christ will be shamed [by their own words]. 17For it is better that you suffer [unjustly] for doing what is right, if that should be God’s will, than [to suffer justly] for doing wrong.

The prophet Zechariah speaks of Satan as an angel whose office it is to accuse and to demand the punishment of the wicked. In the Book of Job, where the most poetical and grandest picture of the Evil One is found, Satan appears as a malicious servant of God, who enjoys performing the functions of a tempter, torturer, and avenger. He accuses unjustly, like a State’s attorney who prosecutes from a mere habit of prosecution, and delights in convicting even the innocent, while God’s justice and goodness are not called in question. It is noteworthy that Satan, in the canonical books of the Old Testament, is an adversary of man, but not of God; he is a subject of God and God’s faithful servant.

Unsurprisingly, the earliest written accusation that Richard III stole the throne was penned by the self-styled Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII) in 1484. In a circular seeking support in England, he called for assistance in the ‘furtherance of my rightful claim, due and lineal inheritance of that crown, and for the just depriving of that homicide and unnatural tyrant which now unjustly bears dominion over you’.17 This is the first known instance of any such public assertion of Henry’s alleged ‘rightful claim’ to the crown worn by Richard III, and the first description of Richard in such malicious language.

My parents never sugarcoated what they took to be the harder truths about life. Craig, for example, got a new bike one summer and rode it East to lake Michigan, to the paved pathway along Rainbow Beach, where you could feel the breeze off the water. He’d been promptly picked up by a police officer who accused him of stealing it, unwilling to accept that a young black boy would have come across a new bike in an honest way. (The officer, an African American man himself, ultimately got a brutal tongue-lashing from my mother, who made him apologize to Craig.) What had happened, my parents told us, was unjust, but also unfortunately common. The color of our skin made us vulnerable. Is was a thing we’d always have to navigate.

Nonetheless, society continues to heap our mistakes of the past upon all Christians in all places and all times. This is akin to blaming all Germans now and forever for Hitler’s crimes against humanity. Anyone with any common sense realizes that this is simply unjust. It would also be akin to accusing Americans today of supporting slavery simply because slavery was once legal in this country.

In 399 CE he writes against Faustus the Manichaean. When discussing Romans 9, Augustine says God's determinations are secret, he still judges justly by punishing those who refuse him; and, humanity retains a free will, not a will that can only sin (Faust.21.2–3). Furthermore, he accuses the Manichaean god of baiting the damned with an impossible dilemma. He again exposes the Manichaean ploy of justifying their unjust determinism through a mere semblance or facade of personal choice in free will. Augustine vehemently argues that the Manichaeans create a shockingly cruel and criminal God who condemns persons to eternal punishment by something necessarily intrinsic to them. Here the Manichaean god is shockingly unjust: And for this reason it remains for you to say that those souls destined to be condemned with eternal bonds in the horrible sphere emerged as enemies of the holy light not by their own will but by necessity, and it remains for you to make your god the sort of a judge before whom nothing could help those whose case you defend, once you have demonstrated the necessity of their action, and the sort of king from whom you are not able to obtain forgiveness for your brothers, his [own] sons and members whose enmities against you and against him you say emerged not by will but by necessity. O monstrous cruelty! (Faust.22.22)

Seneca’s solution to life’s inevitable cruelties was to withdraw. It was an increasingly attractive reaction in the later imperial age. The wise man must shun unnecessary human contact and connections, Seneca said. He must live within, and for, himself. He must cultivate the virtue of apatheia, literally an indifference to the fate of others—apathy even, in the last moment, to his own fate (faced by unjust accusations by the emperor Nero, Seneca and his wife chose suicide).

Standpoint theory often finds itself criticized for essentialism—for thinking something like “all black people feel like this.”27 This isn’t quite wrong because it rests, in a way, on a concept we’ve encountered before: strategic essentialism, wherein members of an oppressed group can essentialize themselves (or, here, the authenticity of their lived experience in relationship to power) as a means of achieving group political action. Its advocates don’t defend it that way, however. They generally get around this accusation by arguing that the theory does not assume all members of the same group have the same nature but that they experience the same problems in an unjust society, although they can choose which discourses they wish to contribute to. Members of these groups who disagree with standpoint theory—or even deny that they are oppressed—are explained away as having internalized their oppression (false consciousness) or as pandering in order to gain favor or reward from the dominant system (“Uncle Toms” and “native informants”) by amplifying Theoretically dominant discourses.

We should ask ourselves: Do we really want to live in a culture where reactive apologies are the norm, even when clearly not required? When we think back to our heroes, do we look up to someone who engages in strong discourse and pushes back against unjust accusation? Or do we value someone who gives in to unjust accusations immediately just to get the accusers off their back?

The final allegation of the accuser states that Socrates made a mischievous use of certain passages in the most highly reputed poets, interpreting, for example, a line from Hesiod to mean that one should abstain from no unjust or shameful deed but do even such things for the sake of gain. Xenophon’s response speaks of Socrates’ standard as the beneficial or the good; it says nothing about his views on the noble and just.

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister.

Lies: "If you are a habitual liar, you'd better have a good memory." — Arab proverb Lies: "Lies I never tell, but the truth not to everyone." — Paolo Sarpi Lies: "It is scarcely necessary to say that no occasion, no provocation, no anxiety to rebut an unjust accusation, no idea however tempting — of promoting the object you have in view — can need, much less justify, a falsehood. Success obtained by one is a precarious and baseless success. Detection would not only ruin your reputation forever, but deeply wound the honor of your court." — Talleyrand, 1813

Hardly anyone has weakened democracy from within as much as the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. But it would be uninteresting, predictable, and unjust to write about his failings without even briefly illuminating the other side of the coin. The polarization of American society is certainly not only or even primarily his work. Left-wing politics has contributed its share too, by being increasingly disconnected from the priorities and needs of large parts of the population and full of self-righteousness. Also, if one disregards Trump’s narcissistic self-dramatization and an erratic political style that shows little respect for democratic institutions, one sees an administration that made three important course corrections: the economic decoupling from dictatorships, especially China; the growing pressure on Europe to fund and strengthen NATO; and a critical stance against the abusive market-dominating practices of Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and, most importantly, Chinese surveillance tools and platforms. These policies have all been continued in Joe Biden’s presidency. In style and language, their differences are vast; in substance, strikingly few. Underplaying Trump’s leadership on these fronts does no favors to a substantive critique of his democracy-damaging legacy. From the beginning of his presidential bid, Donald Trump used aggressive and incendiary language, presented simplistic worldviews, and pointedly depicted his opponents as the enemy (US, the good guys, versus THEM, the bad guys). This is the emotional fuel of polarization. His rapid rise was based in part on relativizing racism, and throughout his term, Trump downplayed any cases of police violence against blacks, including the murder of George Floyd in 2020, as isolated incidents. He called protests against racism “un-American.” Deeply associated with Donald Trump’s administration are the terms “fake news” and “alternative facts.” And it is here that lie the most dangerous, democracy-damaging legacies of his time in office. Fake news has been around as long as news has been around. For thousands of years, it spread as rumors in the marketplaces and gossip behind closed doors. Today, it spreads globally within seconds on social media. So fake news is not new. It’s just become more dangerous. And it becomes a problem for democracy when social groups, political parties, or NGOs accuse the other side of falsifying facts and label facts that do not serve their own agenda as fake. Trump not only reinforced this tendency, he elevated it in his political communications and campaigns.

Think with me about two wildly different ways of expressing displeasure with what is happening. Here are two lists of energetic ways of speaking up to wrong: List 1 List 2 rebuke attack reprove criticize admonish accuse exhort moralize confront condemn judge fairly be judgmental warn threaten talk directly talk aggressively righteous indignation self-righteous hostility Do these lists sound rather similar? How are they alike? How are they different? In fact, they are as different as heaven and hell. List 1 gives voice to goodness and love when we are concerned to address and redress a real problem. List 2 gives voice to evil and hate in the act of condemning. But, unfortunately for the clarity of our mind and emotions, both lists tend to call up the same connotations. When people say they “rebuke,” they most often attack. When they “confront,” they most often condemn. When they “judge,” they are most often judgmental. Both lists sound aggressive, as if both lists express different ways of “getting it off my chest” and “letting you have it.” It’s true that both lists have something wrong in view. And both lists can express the emotion of anger. In other words, they are both on the spectrum of displeasure toward whatever is going on. But the motivation, the intentions, and the way of coming across are opposite. When List 1 is done right, you act in the image of Jesus. You work to redeem. When you do List 2, you act out in the image of Satan. You murder verbally. List 2 words are innately destructive. These are ways to attack people, not problems. They “take out the speck in your brother’s eye” by swinging a 2 x 4 at his face. They are harmful, not helpful, in addressing problems. These are hostile, unkind acts. When you are judgmental, you will find that other people, without fail, react to you with fight, fright, or flight. The war continues. List 1 words intend to capture something utterly constructive and life-giving. These are ways of expressing firm, candid love. Indignation, for example, is a just and energetic response to something mean, evil, unjust, plain wrong. For you to do the difficult kinds of wisdom expressed on List 1, you must care enough to tackle a real problem directly. You must aim with all your heart for a constructive solution. If you are lovingly direct, you will find that other people sometimes (and amazingly) respond extremely well. (Not always; there are no guarantees in interpersonal relationships.) You are an agent of peacemaking in a world at war. I have tried to describe this most rare and wonderful form of anger. But you’ve got to see it to believe it. As you start to do it, even haltingly, you will become convinced that this is the way of life and love in a world of wrongs.