Note Well:
This blog is intended for rational audiences. Its contents are the personal opinions of its author. If you quote from this blog, which you
may do with attribution, please assume personal accountability for any consequences of mischaracterizing these expressed intentions.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Strike while the irony's hot!

On Saturday April 28 a vocal minority marched past the house at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. in Durham, where the Duke Lacrosse Team was falsely accused of rape. The marchers in support of some "National Day of Truth-telling" chose to decry sexual violence rather than false accusations of sexual violence! The irony is striking.

Vocal minorities are not known for subtlety. Rather, their tactics tend to the raucous and the blatant. Hence, my intuition leads me to conclude the irony of this particular exercise in freely spoken moral outrage was unintended. I hasten to emphasize my own opposition to any form of sexual violence and my fervent support of free speech. My objection to this public demonstration, however, is based on an aversion to confused thinking. The victims in this scandal of emotional violence and potential sexual violence in prison were the falsely accused and demonstrably unethically prosecuted Duke Lacrosse players, not the false accuser of rape.

No special interest group holds a monopoly on confused thinking. Most seem to subscribe to the misapprehension that a representative form of government is beholden in any legal procedural sense to the wishes of a raucous demonstration of any dimension, state of conviction, or position in the governing hierarchy. Ours is that government of the people, by the people, for the people, but it is constrained by the legal and procedural framework of the Constitution, most especially the sublime checks and balances of our three Branches of Government. An example of (possibly politically motivated) confused thinking is the outraged posturing in the Legislative Branch whenever the President exercises his prerogatives as Chief Executive not in accordance with the collective wisdom of the Members of Congress.

Post #2 Strike while the irony's hot!

No comments:

Post a Comment