America Seems to be Full of Hypocrites...

July 30, 2007

No doubt, America is full of hypocrites.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick likely will never play another down in the NFL, and former NBA official Tim Donaghy is toast, too. Both will be fortunate to avoid some serious prison time—because of Americans’ hypocritical nature.

A damning 18-page indictment says Vick did some terrible things in a dog-fighting gambling ring. The basketball referee is in deep doo-doo for making calls or providing information to affect gambling point-spreads—probably for organized crime.

“The public conscience” seems to have run amok, at least regarding a presumption of innocence. Eighteen pages didn’t just solidify out of thin air. But the probability of guilt is not the same standard as guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, Vick and Donaghy may never work in sports again. I’m not saying they should, but they have been convicted of nothing! In this country both have the right to face their accusers in open court and to have all the facts heard before a jury of their peers.

It’s guaranteed under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Additional protections are promised to criminal defendants under the Fourth and Eighth Amendments. These aren’t new ideas; they go back to 1788.

The same people who are incensed about the mistreatment of innocent animals—as I am, too—probably don’t have a problem with professional boxing, wrestling or other body-pounding sports like NFL football. Would you want to wager that they even bet on these sports sometimes?

So abuse of animals is an unforgivable sin, if you are Michael Vick, but a similar institutional mistreatment of humans is worth no more than a shrug of the shoulders. Take away the cute, cuddly face of a dumb animal, and the other contests of survival that Americans gamble on are innocent enough? Right?

What do you want to bet that people who think this way—the ones whom I call hypocrites—will end up on the Vick and Donaghy juries?

Gambling, by itself, is a serious cancer on American society and always has been. It’s one of those so-called victimless crimes, except in this case the animals which were fighting. Are race horses treated any better? And who’s to blame for their mistreatment?

Who are the victims of gambling? I saw a five- or six-year-old youngster at the Catawba County Fair, about 25 years ago, begging his father for a hot hog. The father said “no” and then bought another chance to throw baseballs at a stack of milk bottles.

I don’t know if that was abuse or not, but like the Michael Vick indictment, it sure looked like it. It would be interesting, today, to know if that grown-up little boy denies food to his own children, or beats them—or is in prison at taxpayer expense.

Not only are palaces of legalized betting located in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Cherokee, but we also have a state-sanctioned lottery that glorifies wagering on a list of numbers.

Our citizens bought into this state lottery baloney, because it would provide millions of dollars for public school needs. If you believe that, you need to move to Caldwell County, where we just had a 12-cents-per-$100-valuation tax increase, largely to pay for two new school buildings!

Now, I’m seeing a news story about a seventh-grade boy who’s been charged with felony sexual abuse for slapping the rump of a female classmate on the school playground. The girl didn’t complain to anybody, but a teacher’s aide witnessed “the incident.”

The boy spent five days in the local jail, and the felony charges were dropped, but now, the youngster has been told he’ll have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Right here in Hickory, I have grown up around people who are leaders of the community today who did a lot worse on the playground back then, including me. We were just fortunate not to have teachers' aides around!

If “patience is a virtue,” why don’t more of us have it? Why are we, as a society, so quick to pull the trigger on any presumption of guilt? Why don’t we just wait for the results of a studied deliberation on the evidence?

How many people would have bet that Jerry Anderson would be free on bond today after 11 of 12 on a jury thought the Sawmills farmer not to have committed his wife’s murder? Still, he lost everything he had. That’s “the system.”

All this is proof again of what my dad would always mutter under his breath when frustrated by someone who didn’t seem to have it together: “Common sense ain’t named right. It ain’t that blankety-blank common!”