Sign on the dotted line, ink only please.  Forgiveness may be the way of largest religion in the world, Christianity, but certainly not of any state, democratic and free market or not.  Actions are immutable as such any legal structure will tell you.  Do the crime and you do the time.

Mutability and moral relativism, considering each case based on circumstances, certainly could lead to a complete breakdown of civilization.  While most assume this as the usual cause it may be that a second population, a population of strictly amoral psychopaths, has simply grown too large for moral agents to support.  But lets pair it back and consider only strictly legal cases.  Ones where an action was reprehensible but only subject to social pressure.

A few examples of this might be a 60 year old man dating an 18 year old friend of his daughters.  Or a person who intentionally drives in unusually risky way, on the worst road they can find, secretly hoping insurance will replace a car they have tired of.  How about a neighbor who lets his five dogs bark all night, every night, simply because their is no rule against it in his town.  From the strictest dictatorship, to most trusting and lax commune, there will always be those who break natural law.

Good law simply codifies already accepted practice in natural law.  Of course this means that all good law has an awkward stage.  The moment before people recognize the utility in codifying it, but when society has accepted it en masse.  I noticed this recently in the case of drivers with a cell phone glued to their ear.  Only a few years ago we were clearly in an awkward stage where natural law was in full force, but penalties where not codified.  Now they are.  Ink was put to paper, and accidents due to cell phone use while driving went down.

So why were the 60 year old, the regretful car owner, and keeper of the hounds not targeted?  You may argue that they were missed, but I don’t think so.  Legal penalties have a cost too.  Many legal consequences can follow you for your sentence, plus 7 years, and some others for life.  You are no longer part of many societies and at least in part the civilization, but instead a slave to it.  Uncodified natural law is collective statement against trust in the mechanisms of hierarchy.

Here’s where the pencil and pen come in.  The pencil, the instrument of ideas.  Change, adjust, or wipe out whole pages.  It’s totally mutable.  The icon of forgiveness.  Compare this to the pen.  Every mistake, no matter how small recorded forever.  Often there is not recourse.  Sign the right paper and become the undisputed master, sign the wrong one and you are doomed to slavery.  In the worst folklore, for eternity.

I’m sure you’ve heard never to sign anything without reading it first.  I’ve got something new to add to it.  Consider shunning those who favor the pen.  Both on a societal level and a personal one.  I’m not saying abandon law, but instead shun those who push new law that is not already common practice.  On a more personal level shun those who want you to commit in writing outside of your natural ways.  Be weary of those who would bring up your past errors long after forgiveness is or should be claimed.  Psychopaths love to force people into codified law.  Not primarily out of cruelty, but out of weakness.  They can not cope with not knowing who the master and who the slave is.  They have no handle on natural law, because natural law is formed by the collective conscience of a civilization.  Something they can only observe from the outside.