Willy Horten Hysteria

Willy Horten was a convicted murderer, who robbed and raped a woman while on a "weekend furlough program" in 1986. In 1998, the elder President Bush used the crime to attack his opponent, Michael Dukakis, who supported the furlough program. Clearly, in the case of a convicted murderer, this was bad judgement and quite possibly cost Dukakis the presidency. It's one thing to use furloughs as a rehabilitation tool for non-violent prisoners, but with killers.. not so much.

I would imagine that Dukakis had no idea that was taking place.. still.. the implication was that Dukakis valued murderers more than law abiding citizens. It's also interesting to note that Horten did not go by the name "Willy", but Bush's staffers used that name in order to highlight the racial stereotype. It's smart politics to realize that white Americans are generally racist..

Now.. the Republicans are going all Horten on each other...

Mitt Romney appointed a judge who granted bail to a convicted killer, who then went on to murder two people last week.

A major rival, Rudy Giuliani, is using the Tavares case to argue that Romney not only showed poor judgment himself in nominating Tuttman but is soft on crime.

In the land of the loon, Romney is responsible for the deaths of two people because of a choice made by the killer, and a choice made by the judge he appointed.

And today..

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Mike Huckabee's presidential rivals are pointing to chinks in his record as Arkansas' governor — from ethics complaints to tax increases to illegal immigration and his support for releasing a rapist who was later convicted of killing a Missouri woman.

Apparently Huckabee is responsible for the actions of the rapist/murderer.

The reality is, the world is a dangerous place. However, neither Dukakis, nor Romeny, nor Huckabee killed anybody. It's silly to think they have some responsibility in those crimes, and it's also silly to think that murders will stop if we just get "tough on crime".

It's this sort of political gamesmanship that perverts the justice system. Politicians pander to fear, and they do it by one-upping the next guy on how tough they are on crime, as if we should summarily execute some 10 year old kid because he stole a candy bar. After all, that kid might later kill somebody and if we had just stopped him after the theft, that person would still be alive.

Americans crave the illusion that the daddy figure will "keep them safe". They will do anything to "keep their families safe".. That's why we have TSA screeners at aiports. They aren't actually keeping anybody safe because it's been proven over and over that the screeners miss obvious things (like test bombs). What is important to Americans is that before you get on that plane, your daddy figure assures you that everything will be fine because he's "protecting you".

So.. when it comes to criminal justice.. Americans will go to any level to punish people as severly as possible. I think most people also get a perverse sense of satisfaction, or schadenfreude, from it. If somebody thinks their life sucks, they feel a little bit better when they see somebody else's life sucks worse.

So.. lets start executing 10 year old shoplifters, and deluding ourselves that everything will be fine because daddy will stop the bad man.