The Evil That Men Do...

Pay attention kids, because this is a very important thing happening right now. I know that learning lessons can be quite boring but you really don’t want to miss this one. The lesson is this: It’s okay to molest little children if you are one of the greatest musicians of all time. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Michael Jackson faced a little adversity based on his “alleged” kiddie diddling while he was alive, but that’s all in the past now that he’s dead.

Across the world, friends, Roman’s and countrymen alike are wondering why the evil that men do doesn’t live on after them and Catholic priests are crying out to God asking Him why they couldn’t have invented the moonwalk. Michael Jackson is dead and everywhere you look, everything you read, everything you see on television shows St. Michael of Moonwalk in the light of angels. The settlements made with children who attended Jackson’s “sleepovers,” are forgotten.

In dying, Jackson succeeded in once again becoming universally loved. His sins are forgiven. His transgressions have been cast aside. It is the evil that will remain interred with his bones. I don’t begrudge the man respect for his musical talents. I don’t begrudge him his place with the icons of music history. Like anyone else, when Billy Jean comes on my radio, I feel like dancing.

But we didn’t lose the music, we lost the man who made it. He hasn’t had a hit in years. New Michael Jackson hits weren’t forthcoming. His death didn’t mean an end to his music—his pedophilia took care of that. His music will always live on and we won’t have to miss it one bit.

The man is gone though. Usually when pedophiles die, people say good riddance. They proffer that he should have done the world a favor and died sooner. When priests do the same things Jackson did to young boys they are ostracized, they receive death threats. When civilians do those things they register as sex offenders and get bricks thrown through their windows and threats warning them to leave the neighborhood. No one but their family members mourn them when they die. Society chuckles and hopes they burn in hell.

There’s no explanation for the phenomenon going on now. A few weeks ago you couldn’t utter Michael Jackson’s name without some righteous indignation boiling up in you. Now we celebrate his life and work and accomplishments and we forget his sins. Every channel has a tribute program in the works or already playing.

So learn the lesson and learn it well: The lines have now been clearly drawn. Celebrities are all saints once they die. All sins are forgiven. We only remember the good, we discard the bad and we celebrate their life as if it were some guide to how we all should live.

Somewhere, in his prison cell, O.J. Simpson is fashioning a rope out of his bed sheets. Fame and heroism along with a clean slate are only a sharp crack of the neck away.

Free OJ

It never fails to surprise and amuse me at how un-American we American’s can be and how quick we are to ignore the rights that our forefathers fought and died so we could have them.

Case in point: O.J. Simpson is on trial, once again. This time it’s for robbery and kidnapping instead of double homicide, but he’s on trial again none the less. He’s accused of breaking into the hotel room of a man who had a bunch of O.J.’s personal memorabilia, holding him at gunpoint and stealing it from him. O.J. claims that he was merely stealing back family heirlooms that were stolen from him.

Every discussion I’ve had about the trial has involved at least one person who has put forth the following opinion: Well I hope they convict him, even if he’s innocent, because he should be in jail for murder anyway.

Wow.

The sad part is that these people who express these opinions and the water cooler tag-a-longs who nod their heads in agreement are essentially wishing that old OJ be denied some of the most important rights we as Americans have. We are innocent until proven guilty. We have the right to a speedy trial before a jury of our peers.

It appalls me that there is no outcry over this rush to judgment. Why is it that our country has a segment filled with righteous indignation any time any time there is a perceived injustice involving a person’s right to carry a gun, but no outcry over like the Gestapo-like treatment many feel OJ should have to endure?

I honestly think that we’ve been so spoiled here in the land of the free and home of the brave that we take for granted what it means to be free, and the bravery of those who fought to make and keep us that way.

What makes our country great isn’t the right to own a gun, it’s that we cannot be falsely imprisoned, that we have a chance to defend ourselves against accusations made against us. The original OJ Trial, when he was accused of the murder of his wife and her alleged boyfriend was decided upon by a jury of twelve. They, unlike those of us who only got the highlights on CNN, listened to all of the testimony, all of the evidence and they decided that he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Does that mean that OJ didn’t do it? No, of course not. What it does mean though, is that as a citizen of the this nation, that he was deemed innocent. They didn’t rule that he was likable. They didn’t rule that he was a good man. They didn’t rule that he wasn’t capable of murder. They didn’t even rule that he was innocent beyond all doubt or question. He was proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.

The public, largely influenced by the media-created clusterfuck coverage, had their own verdict though. OJ, in the hearts and minds of the American people is, was and always will be guilty as sin. Just like the Salem witches.

Which brings us back to this current trial, the facts of which most of have not bothered to learn, and the overriding opinion that once again, OJ is guilty—and even if he isn’t, that this jury should punish him for crimes that he was “guilty” of in the past. The same people who display the yellow, Support Our Troops ribbons and will tell anyone who will listen how they honor the ideals and principles the men and women of our military fight for, so casually and hypocritically want this man to be convicted whether he is guilty of this most recent crime or not.

We are spoiled by umbrella of freedom under which we live. It protects us from the rain and reign of tyranny and oppression. Because we have never experienced those things, we take our rights for granted, and we so absentmindedly and willingly are willing to fling them aside whenever and wherever it feels appropriate.

We poke holes in our umbrella of freedom and they may be small holes, but we keep poking away. We think that a drop here and a drop there don’t matter. Soon enough though, those little holes will widen, they’ll join together and become larger holes. It’s raining out there America. Why are we so eager to get wet?