Greater and lesser evils

Adjusting to life after death row:

In the 14 years of his stay, he saw 12 of his fellow inmates - friends - be executed.

"On death row we're supposed to be the worst of the worst, yet within 24 hours of [an] execution, we fast that whole day. Everybody on death row, they will pray for the victim's family, we will pray for our family. Asking that God ease everyone of their burdens and pain."

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I have a Swedish-Finnish friend (there's a Swedish-speaking minority in Finland) who I was arguing with one day (we argued a lot, he was easy to disagree with, in a good way) and who turned out not to know that Sweden was running eugenics programs - forced sterilisations - into the 1970s. He just didn't believe it when I told him. It never occurred to me to wonder if my own country was also running pointlessly evil and inhumane programs in recent memory, which I as a good patriotic citizen ought to know about. Well...

Ordeal of Australia's child migrants:

The story of the British child migrants sent to Australia has been described as a history of lies, deceit, cruelty and official disinterest and neglect.

Before being shipped out to Britain's distant dominion, many of the children were told their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them in Australia.

Most were deported without the consent of their parents, and commonly, mothers and fathers were led to believe that their children had been adopted somewhere in Britain.

On arrival in Australia, the policy was to separate brothers and sisters.

And many of the young children ended up in what felt like labour camps, where they were physically, psychologically and often sexually abused.

Appalling and bizarre. What reason would a nation have for exporting children? Did some government officials wake up one day and say "today, let's be bastards!"? But apparently there was a logic to it:

The Australian government viewed them as ideal young immigrants - a popular slogan at the time was "the child, the best immigrant".

The British government saw them as a burden on the state, and was happy to see them go.

Reflects better on the Australians than on the British. Not quite Mother Teresa saying "there are no unwanted children in the world - send them to me!" or the Statue of Liberty proclaiming a desire for the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but at least whereas Britain just wanted to get rid of the little vermin, the Ozzies valued them kids a little - if not enough, apparently, to check to see if they were being treated well:

...In testimony before a British parliamentary committee in the late 1990s, one boy spoke of the criminal abuse he was subjected at the hands of Catholic priests at Tardun in Western Australia.

A number of Christian brothers competed between themselves to see who could rape him 100 times first, the boy said.

The Christian Brothers have an entire wikipedia article devoted to sex abuse scandals by that order. (I checked on realising I had only ever heard of them in connection with child rape or harsh treatment.)

(While browsing I also saw the article on Magdalen Asylums, another depressing chapter in the history of the Irish Church: what started off as a rehabilitation movement for prostitutes ended up as, virtually, a jail for lifelong imprisonment of single mothers, a situation which was totally ignored by the entire country for half a century.

(This is the kind of thing that hangs at the back of my mind when people argue about the relation of church to state - quoth Lincoln, if you want to see what a man's made of, give him power - he might well have added, and then give him respect and reverence and a high position in society, so that no man is keen to speak against him, and others will hush up his misdeeds for him. The Church is built on the sacrifice of her Bridegroom, the ultimate subversion of all power, the ultimate outsider getting worked over by The Man - "that God could have His back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents for ever" - and when the Church becomes The Man and starts using the tools of The Man, war, violence, incarceration, power over fellow mortals, &c, things have the potential not just to go horribly wrong but to be given a new dimension, as blasphemy, when they do - it's a deeper crime when the corrupt churchman abuses those he's entrusted with pastoral care concerning.

(Similarly, no-one remembers the Inquisition badly because they were the worst monsters in history, and by the standards of the time there's things to be said in their favour. They are remembered badly because they tortured and executed while wearing the Cross, in what should have been the full light of moral day, in the name of a tortured and executed God. The common torturer can say "well, it needs doing, and besides, can't all be perfect, can't all be like the monks and priests and wotnot who live a higher life, you in your small corner and me in mine, ey, what?"; but what happens when the monks and priests are ordering the torturer around?)

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My own woes are less. Too much work; have to work Sunday, which I hate - I know "the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath", but I do not have to like it, particularly. [EDIT: actually I just skived the whole day, as it was my duty to God and humanity to do. I stayed up so late saturday night working I was in no condition to do anything on sunday.]