Draconian Justice
I just read that Enron’s ex-CEO, Jeff Skilling, was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
I’m no fan of corporate corruption, and justice did need to be served, but come on… 24 years? This sentence is essentially a death sentence. He’s already in his 50s. This ends his life. He will lose his wife, his children, his sanity. Even 10 years would have been too harsh.
What’s ironic is that this does nothing to solve the real problem, which is that greed and the accumulation of wealth hold more value in this country than human life. Essentially, Skilling was given this sentence because he was responsible for wiping out people’s wealth. A horrible crime, yes, but not one worthy of this degree of punishment.
October 26th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Ray,
That\’s a very good point. I never thought about it from that angle. It\’s much like trying to stop abortion or keep homosexuals from marrying by making laws opposing such actions. These are merely symptoms, not the actual disease of our society (and species).
October 26th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
What’s actually really interesting about this is that it’s not only a question of symptoms of our society (I probably have a differing opinion on our species) but literally the way that we define crime.
We equate life and the worthiness of life with the state of having x amount of wealth. After the Enron thing happened, everyone was talking about how people’s lives were ruined by the affair. There is no question that it seriously sucks to lose a lot of money, but we too easily accept that someone’s life is ruined if they are poor. Their life isn’t ruined… they just have no money.
I know that can sound flip coming from a privileged white boy like me. However, it’s a revelation that I had when we actually had close to nothing earlier this year, after we returned from our trip. It takes tremendous strength of spirit and faith in the worthiness of life itself to maintain a positive attitude when you have nothing of tangible value, but Jesus seemed to revel in it. My point is that, yes, in this country, all things being equal, it’s better to have money, and lots of it. But if you don’t have lots of money, it’s not game over and in any case it’s not worth taking away a man’s freedom and family.
October 30th, 2006 at 9:01 am
I hear you and agree. But I\’m curious, what\’s your opinion of our species that differs from mine?
October 30th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
That would take some time, my friend.