'Tis a ponderous chain

Scrooge

(1951)

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased

This is Dickens straight, and the film paraphrases a bit, but just a bit. Excellent advice, that, but it seems that we are, as a nation, seemingly as a majority opinion, taking an "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" stance. Certainly, one of our traditionally major parties, the party that gave us Lincoln and abolition and the Fifteenth Amendment, has embraced those rhetorical questions as a virtual platform.

I don't believe there is a god, but if there is, how will she or he judge us? And if there's not, how can we judge ourselves?