Years ago, several players from the Duke LaCross team were accused of sexual crimes against a stripper. They lost their scholarships, their opportunity to play, and their good names. Eventually, the stripper recanted, and the District Attorney was vilified for poor handling of the instance. The players however have vanished into anonymity.
Many of my peers like to excuse and celebrate their aberrant and abhorrent behavior. This they do on the auspices that "it's only a crime if you get caught". There is faulty logic in their reasoning. What is it if you are caught for a crime you did not do? If Catching Makes a Crime, then it is the act of catching that makes something a crime rather than the act of the person caught. What this means is that I can simply cast aspersions, and if the police buy it, then you are a miscreant.
I have been a victim of this. I have had people accuse me of things my friends know I would never do. I still remember the NHP trooper who tried to say I was driving 80mph in a 55mph zone. I have friends who would swear on a stack of bibles that I have never driven that fast; they hate following me because I obey the speed limit. Sometimes, like this example, there were no ramifications for the person who levied unfounded accusations, but once an attorney told me that the following: "If you decide to sue them, I can use the money, but it will be better for you personally if you let it go", and he was right. Eventually, however, I will have to sue in order to protect my good name or else people will assume I did not fight back because I am guilty.
The same people who want to find a mote in my eye expect me to overlook the beam in their own. They will tell me to forgive and forget, not because they believe that, but because they know I do. They hold me to a standard they are neither willing nor able to live themselves, and as such they have NO RIGHT to require that of me. I am fairsure that, when I was rejected by the NHP for a job, the interviewing officer looked at me and thought, "If I hire this guy and he pulls me over, notwithstanding I am a member of the Brotherhood of Blue, he will issue me a ticket and go to court to make sure it sticks". I believe that the people enforcing the law should maintain the highest standard and obey it.
If the act of catching or worse the claim itself is sufficient, then there is no such thing as an innocent criminal, and we do not need Amnesty International or DNA testing for verification because men are guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent. Guilty until proven innocent removes morality and choice and makes men subject first to circumstance and then to bigotry of people who do not know or like them who cast aspersions against them without regard for whom they hurt. Unfortunately, the presumption is that you are guilty if you are arrested.
Attitudes about accusations reveal hypocrisy. For five days the media has claimed that Romney is a felon and run on that story when they ignore actual felony charges and allegations against people they like. Members of Obama's administration don't pay taxes, hire illegal aliens, deal drugs, admit they did drugs in their own autobiographies, ad infinitum, and yet they still point out the mote in another. The guilty always look for the wrong in others and pounce on the wrongdoers' to keep themselves out of the spotlight.
Despite their allegedly high minded motivations, these people frequently only believe in what they profess when they have something to gain. You don’t really mean it unless you advocate it on behalf of people you do not know and especially on behalf of those you do not like. However, refusing to answer questions is assumed to be hiding something if you’re a GOP candidate, and if, like George Zimmerman, they cannot make it stick, they do not retract it or apologize. They simply stop reporting on the story at all. That's what happened to the LaCross players.
When I jog in the morning, there are several corners I do not like. When I pass certain houses, I excite the dogs who bark viciously at me for the duration of time I spend in their territory. However, I know that once I reach high ground they will stop giving chase because they are somewhere outside their comfort zone and have given up the high ground. Don’t worry about yapping dogs. Dogs only bark at people they do not know and do not like
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