You know
what really pisses me off? It’s when somebody
talks about sending a message. We can’t 
apologize to a man, wrongly imprisoned by the state,
because that would send the wrong message to other
criminals. We can’t overlook a 6 year old boy
who kisses a classmate because that would send the
wrong message to sexual batterers everywhere.
Every
time that I hear some lawyer for some crybaby
organization complaining about the long term
ramifications or the short term effects of the
message that we are sending, it makes my skin crawl.
I could care less what message an illogical person
may derive from a politically incorrect and therefore
an unpopular decision. What I do care about is the
ability of our justice system, and by proxy, our
culture and society, to remain flexible and look into
the facts and the evidence of each specific case, and
let it stand on it’s own merit. This without
trying to legislate morality with each call. I
don’t believe that we should find Jim Brown not
guilty of domestic abuse, and then sentence him to
domestic abuse therapy, in order to send the right
message to other abusers. We should not be trying to
crush Microsoft in order to send a message that being
rich and successful will not be tolerated. In fact we
should not be sending messages at all. If we do
what’s right, then intelligent people will take
the right message from it. Fools will always get
mixed messages from everything. Coming to the wrong
conclusion (drawing the wrong message) when examining
a situation is the exact definition of what it means
to be stupid.
And Don't send me any more "wake up calls",
either. |
