Is Justice Blind Or Just Crazy? Nov. 5, 2023 Dr. Roger Ray
I think that the lowest, the most juvenile and most boring form of political debate is the tired old game of “whataboutism.” I am sure that both parties are guilty of having done it, but during these Trump years, Republicans have reduced it to sounding like the late PeeWee Herman retorting to every insult, “I know that you are buy what am I?”
When most of us thought that the discovery of the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged about sexual assault, Republicans immediately went back to the 1990’s and said, “Well, what about Monica Lewinsky?” And in response to virtually every mention of Trump’s close ties to dictators, using government contracts to exploit his office for emoluments, and giving away state secrets to Russian officials, the refrain was always, “What about Hillary’s emails?”
I always wanted to shout out something equally irrelevant like, “St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish!” or “Baby oil doesn’t even come from babies!” Of course, whataboutism isn’t actually political debate at all. It is avoidance of political debate. It is used only to change the subject, to get the news cycle to turn to something else that is less embarrassing. It is not new, it is just used more often. Every president that has any awareness of the importance of TV news has done it.
Many of us are old enough to remember that 40 years ago this month, that 220 marines were killed by terrorist bombs in Beirut, where we had deployed soldiers to de-escalate an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This horrible loss of life was so humiliating to President Ronald Reagan that, the next day, he ordered a “wag the dog,” military invasion of the tiny island nation of Grenada. There was so little planning for that invasion that helicopters accidently dropped some soldiers into the sea where they drown and some even initially invaded the wrong island. One commander was preparing to fire artillery on the Venezuelan Embassy, thinking that it was a Cuban military fort because the commander didn’t recognize the flag it was flying.
Reagan didn’t allow any press coverage of the invasion and only invited reporters in when they had straightened everything out and taken control of the island, rescuing the 600 American medical students on the island who told their parents that they were never in any danger. Politics can be a messy business.
But in the past couple of years, since Trump was impeached twice and has been indicted in four entirely different events from stealing state nuclear secrets to paying hush money to a porn star, and so the right wing has incessantly talked about the Biden “crime family,” focusing primarily on Hunter Biden’s laptop that may reveal criminal influence peddling, which they hope to also be able to tar President Biden with the same brush, though that still seems to be out of their reach.
But they did finally get criminal charges against Hunter Biden, but it must be a very uncomfortable victory for Republicans who have, for a generation, insisted that absolutely anyone can buy absolutely any kind of gun, Hunter has been found guilty of lying on his background check before buying a handgun. Specifically, in filling out a form, one question asked if he was currently using illegal drugs and he lied and said that he wasn’t.
America’s gun laws are notoriously lax, but we at least make a show of asking relevant questions before selling anyone a gun. However, I will tell you, as someone who has done a lot of counseling work with addicts, expecting an addict to tell the truth on a form that asks them if they are an addict is about the silliest thing I have ever heard of. Addicts are notorious liars, especially about their addiction. If the government were actually worried about selling guns to addicts, there would be a urine or blood test but they don’t do that because our gun laws are set up to allow, if not encourage, everyone to buy lots and lots of guns.
It would be like asking Charles Manson in a gun shop, “Now Mr. Manson, you don’t plan to hurt anyone with this weapon, do you?” Manson is not going to say, “Well, darn, you caught me!”
I’m not saying that it isn’t a crime. Drug users, alcoholics, people guilty of domestic violence, felons, children, and people whose judgment is impaired by medications, or mental illness, shouldn’t be able to buy a gun. But we’re really going to depend on self-reporting for that? What man guilty of domestic abuse is going to admit that at the counter of a gun shop? Which one of the millions of Americans taking prescription Adderall will admit that they daily take a dose of the prescription form of Methamphetamine every day?
If you add up all of the adults who have used meth, fentanyl, heroin, OxyContin, cocaine, or who abuse alcohol, in a country where there are more guns than there are people, then how many people are guilty of the same crime that Hunter Biden has been charged with?
But more importantly, prosecutors have persuaded legislatures to write drug laws so that the prison sentences for drug possession or sale is dramatically increased if that drug user also owns a gun. And 80-year-old farmer from Bolivar got arrested for growing marijuana a couple of years ago and when he was arrested, they found a rusted old shot gun in his trunk, and how many 80-year-old farmers do you know in Bolivar, Missouri who don’t have a gun in their trunk, and they sent that sick old man to jail for 10 years. I wrote to the judge and begged him for leniency. Isn’t being a farmer in Bolivar punishment enough? And the judge told me that he just hated to do it but there are mandatory sentences for having a gun while selling pot… which is not true but since when to we expect honesty out of the justice system?
But here is the real kicker, how many other people have been charged with this crime who did not also commit some other crime, with or without their newly purchased revolver? I can’t find any. I have heard seasoned prosecutors admitting that they don’t know of any. This is a law intended to add time to the sentence of someone who uses guns in organized crime, not some spoiled rich kid of a famous politician who hangs out in dangerous places where he can buy drugs and a few minutes of heavy breathing with prostitutes.
In spite of how much the first family may love Hunter, there is no circumstance in which he is going to be nominated for any humanitarian award as a local saint. He has had some sad issues and he has also been a very bad boy.
But if it is fair to send Hunter Biden to jail for lying on a form about his drug use in order to buy a gun, are we going to also go after everyone else who has done the same thing? How many people would you think, just statistically, might be guilty of that same crime right here in Springfield, MO who are just one quick investigation away from being charged with the same crime. Heck, I don’t run around with a rough crowd, but I know some local drug users who have bought guns and if they are listening right now, they are already in a panicked cold sweat in fear that I am going to mention their names before I turn off this microphone….
Which I’m not going to do, but it is something they should think about before crowing about this arrest in the Biden crime family. Because if we arrested everyone who has committed the same crime, we would have to start building new prisons right away…. We would need room for ten to twenty thousand new inmates right here in little Springfield, MO. . . I don’t know that I’m right about that, I’m just running the numbers on illegal drug use and the numbers of guns in the community. So, I invite you to prove me wrong. Pack a lunch, maybe dinner too.
There are bigger questions surrounding Hunter Biden. Was he making a living off of his last name as a lobbyist, as so many of the children of famous politicians do, or was he selling access and influence illegally? And is there any way that Joe Biden might have been involved. Those are legitimate concerns that deserve to be investigated, not as much as finding out how Jarrod Kushner got $2 billion out of the Saudi royal family, or how Ivanka got all of those patents granted to her in China, but still, relevant. And I am not going to play dirty ball and ask the justice department to find out how many members of the Trump family are using illicit drugs while owning guns . . . because, if I’m guessing, 50% wouldn’t quite cover the clan. But I don’t know, and more importantly, I don’t want to know unless they use that gun in the commission of a crime.
Here is what I do know, if you were not a narcissistic liar before you became a drug addict, the addiction with turn you into a narcissistic liar. If the government really wants to keep addicts from buying guns, then asking them for a confession on a form at the point of purchase is the dumbest possible thing that they could do. I had to give a urine sample to be approved as a Hospice Chaplain. It wouldn’t be too much to ask someone who pass a pee test before being allowed to buy an assault rifle . . . unless, of course, your re-election to office depends on the sales of assault rifles, and that, I submit, is the real issue here.
The Trump cabal has been crying crocodile tears over how Democrats have weaponized the Justice system and that there are Republicans who are being prosecuted for crimes that Democrats would never be charged with. That, men and women, is a lie. That two and a half years have passed since the January 6th insurrection, instigated by Donald Trump, and he still isn’t in prison, is proof that there is a two or three or four tiered justice system and wealthy conservatives get out of prosecution so reliably that the Donald gets his feelings hurt if anyone actually does stand up for our constitution and the rule of law and actually tries to hold him accountable for his many crimes.
We all know that justice should be blind, that the laws of our nation to apply equally to the rich and the poor, conservatives and liberals, black or white, but we also know that we are very very far away from accomplishing that lofty goal.
If Hunter Biden has committed serious crimes against this nation, he should be investigated, tried, and if found guilty, be given an appropriate sentence. But he should not be sent to prison as a concession to conservatives calling for a symbolic sacrifice of a Biden. And just as much energy needs to go into looking into the similar and much more egregious offenses of Eric, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jarrod, as well as Don and his flying monkeys.
Equal justice under the law… that’s what I’m looking for and right now it would be impossible for our government to even act like that is what they are looking for. Kudos to Joe Biden for not using his considerable power to protect his troubled son, in the way that Trump pre-emptively handed out pardons to so many of his coconspirators.
I realize that this pulpit doesn’t make me the judge of the world, but I know that I am not going to be inviting Hunter to my Thanksgiving table this year, but I assure you, there is a whole laundry of list of people ahead of him on that naughty list and they shouldn’t be celebrating Hunter’s woes. If Hunter’s offenses are now the new water mark for who needs to go to jail, then I think we need to make certain that everyone below that water mark gets their own cell too.
