For the moment the proposals have subsided that President Ford might pardon not just Richard Nixon, but all those linked to the Watergate crimes. But the outraged response to the initial report offers the opportunity to ask ourselves about the profound problem of apportioning expiation, and indeed all the social costs incurred throughout a high-technology society.
Those who study the physical as well as the moral universe insist that every action causes a reaction, that the ripples and reverberations caused by molecular collisions, industrial wastes, or political trends may not be immediately evident but are nonetheless pervasive. The cosmos seems to require a balancing of all accounts. There is no such thing as a “free lunch,” ecologists as well as prophets warn us. Whether we like it or not, there is always the price to be paid for each overextension, good or bad, beyond Nature’s balances.
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