The Splinter in One’s Own Eye

Forced to lis­ten to my buddy, Greg, ram­ble on about the events of the day, was I effec­tively kept from gain­ing any fur­ther insight into the con­flict that con­tin­ued to rage on, within me, between my right side and what was left of me after the for­mer had taken every­thing it pos­si­bly could from the latter.

Back onboard the ship, I bade Greg good night, before dis­ap­pear­ing up top­side to find a solu­tion to this thorny con­flict. Hav­ing grown fear­ful of the designs of the left, I watched the right arm itself with the might needed to enforce its brand of law ‘n’ order. In sym­pa­thiz­ing with the left, I began to rebel against some of the rules and reg­u­la­tions the right insti­tutes to keep rebels, like me, in place. As I pas­sively resisted its pet­ti­est laws, like the com­mon crim­i­nal, was I pun­ished. But the right was wrong, pro­claimed the Judge Who Rules Over All, for it was using those laws as a pre­tense to jus­tify the evil­do­ings of its own dark side. And because the left too tended to break those laws which heaven had for­bid­den mor­tal man to ever break, I was advised not to over­sym­pa­thize with the left either. While the right pro­tected the laws of man as they have evolved thus far, the left encour­aged fur­ther evo­lu­tion of the law, so that man-​​made laws might, one day, reflect those of heaven. Where the law pro­tected the actions of men which failed to mir­ror those of heaven, the left was com­mis­sioned to break the law, until either the law or the actions of men con­formed with the dic­tates of heaven. Whereas the crim­i­nal ele­ment of the left broke the law instinc­tively, the con­science of the left dis­obeyed only those laws which pro­tected an offense of heav­enly law. By civilly dis­obey­ing such laws, could the left bring to light the unap­par­ent offense of the right, which had pre­vi­ously been blind to the beam in its own eye because of its pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with the speck in the eye of the left.