Years ago, I knew a woman (white, and in her 60′s) who had her purse snatched in Baltimore. She went to court to press charges against the young (black) man who snatched her purse. The judge let the young man go free with little more than a slap on the wrist, and it was far from his first offense. When the woman asked the judge how he could do such a thing, the judge told her, “You have to understand. This young man grew up in a disadvantaged situation. We have to be fair, and spread things around evenly in this unfair society.”
I hadn’t thought of this incident in years, but I thought of it again, just now, when reading about outrage within the Hollywood establishment over the execution of the terrorist (excuse me, gang leader) Tookie Williams. Just imagine if a white man had been guilty of Williams’ crimes. There would have been no question that he should receive the stiffest penalty available. Yet Williams is black, and because he’s black, we should “spread around” the justice. It got O.J. Simpson off back in the 1990′s, but in 2005 it seems that justice, if only for a brief moment, is once again alive and well in California.
Contrast any notion of justice with this comment out of France: “Schwarzenegger has a lot of muscles, but apparently not much heart,” said Julien Dray, spokesman for the Socialist Party in France, where the death penalty was abolished in 1981. “Heart” in this context means emotion, not reason. Emotion, not reason, is what drives terrorists and gang leaders. Emotion, not reason, is what guides people who defend gang leaders and terrorists.
It’s too bad California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who refused to cave in to political demands that Williams be let off the hook for allegedly good behavior while in prison, will never, as a foreigner, be President. I’d love to have him take on the gang leaders in the Middle East.
