No, life isn't fair

Christmas 07


What a month it has been to consider crime and punishment.

Or at least punishment. Some of the crimes, actually, feel a little "iffy."

For example, on the same day this past month the front page of the dailies had two seemingly unrelated stories about inflicting punishment.

First, a British women was charged by Sudanese officials with inciting hatred after her 7-year-old students — 90 percent of which were Muslim, mind you — named a teddy bear Muhammad. Sudan's top clerics — we'll just call them "extremists" or "kooks" due to space limitations — suggested this was part of the "broad Western plot against Islam." The kooks then petitioned the government to punish the woman to the full extent of Article 125 of the Sudan legal code and the Muslim law of judgement, which required — are you sitting down? — 40 lashes, six months in jail and a fine.

First of all, shame of them for calling her a broad. Shouldn't there be a punishment for that?

Secondly, does the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?

Just above that story on the front page was a rehearsal of the now-famous Uintah County Taser incident. Many of us have seen the video. A young man, with wife and baby in the car, is stopped in broad daylight for speeding. He is unsure of the speed limit and asks to see the speed limit sign. The officer orders him back in the car and refuses to show him the sign. Because he took too long getting back into his car — maybe you saw something different, but that's what I saw — he gets nailed in the back with a disabling electronic shock which causes him to fall to the asphalt and injure his head.

Did the punishment fit the crime? Was it fair?

Add to these the Marion Jones saga. After years of denials, she admits to cheating to obtain Olympic honors. She was publically humiliated and had her medals taken away from her. One twist to this punishment: all her teammates who might have also received medals because of her use of enhancements (relay team members who might have been clean as freshly bleached teeth) also had to return their medals.

Fair? Fair to the teammates?

Utah State University information technology supervisors were informed this month that a USU student who had one -- let me emphasize: one -- downloadable song on a shared peer-to-peer internet software system was being taken to court as an example to others not to download copyrighted songs illegally. His punishment: $3,000 for a single song.

The teddy bear incident -- and we're certainly glad that the British ambassador intervened before it escalated into the Teddy Bear War -- is almost laughable. Was it wrong for her to assume her Muslim students should have known naming the teddy might have been offensive or should she have been required to be up-to-speed on the hundreds of intricate and possible ways to offend the Islamic society? Maybe the parents involved should be punished with stripes for not having taught their children properly. If visitors to Sudan are required to have previously studied the Qur'an, imagine what this will do their booming tourist trade.

As far as I'm concerned, the Taser incident is a perfect example of forgetting common sense.

In our post-9/11 paranoia, common sense is often sacrificed, it seems. Anyone with a drop of common sense who has seen that video can see that this little family was about as threatening as Cream of Wheat. And I'm still amazed the UHP didn't fall all over themselves apologizing for the macho-inspired actions. After their investigation, officers stunningly found no fault in the other officer's use of force.

Marion Jones deserved to be punished and all athletes who have skewed the records and their accomplishments need to be punished. I feel sorry for the teammates. Was that fair? And I can't wait to see how history will handle Barry Bonds, which will eventually happen. Will he have to "give back" his records? Would that be fair, would that be punishment to fit the crime?
Downloading without paying is illegal. But....

We have all had occassions in our life where it felt like the punishment we received did not fit the crime, where the consequences felt geometrically larger than the cause of that effect. Ask me about mine — I'll be happy to share.

Children are quick to point out that "it isn't fair." And most of the time it isn't. A baby was born in circumstances he didn't deserve. He lived a life of service, but for challenging tradition and standing mute in court, he was put to death. Fair?

I suspect one of the purposes of this Bethlehem babe's life was to demonstrate in an examplary way that life is not fair and punishments don't always fit the crime, but that we can learn to breathe deep and live with that fact of life.

Another reason, I think, for this season.