Tuesday, August 16, 2005

REACT: Respect for the judiciary?

Liberals have a new campaign. Respect for the judiciary, which means never criticizing liberal activist judges. The latest effort to engender respect really institutionalizes the notion of judges as demigods, which most think themselves to be, anyway.

Well, in the spirit that judges are better human beings than you and me, I was interested to see that a nutty guy got "life plus 40 years." for starting a fire in a courthouse. No one was hurt. On the same day I read about a woman who killed her long time friend over a business argument. The perpetrator brutally stabbed slashed the victim to death. The killer is now facing a maximum of 60 years in jail -- mostly likely to be shortened by parole at some time.

Both persons need to be punished, but how can you explain the uneven hand of justice? Maybe if the fire bomber had killed someone, he would have faced a lighter sentence. You have to think about such things when you are out committing heinous crimes.

Punishment meted out by the criminal justice system is supposed to reflect the seriousness of the crime. It appears that damaging a courthouse -- even scaring the hell out of the judge -- is a much more serious crime than mercilessly slashing you friend to death.

And they wonder why the rank in file American is getting fed up with the judiciary.

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