Drawing distinctions
a column by Chris Jungle

People spent a lot of time explaining the actions of others this week, and the worst part is they weren't even columnists. Harold Nicholson was sentenced to over twenty-three years in jail for giving secrets to the Russians for profit. The U.S. Attorney in the case, Helen Fahey, stated "He was a spy and a traitor. There's nothing worse you can say about an individual." Maybe she hasn't heard about the guy who killed 168 people and injured over 500 because he was mad the government killed some other people a year before that. Defense Secretary William Cohen said, concerning Gen. Joseph Ralston's affair in the mid-1980s, "We must draw distinctions where there are some human errors that occur, and weigh them against the individual's performance." Now I know he was talking about the extramarital affair for a friend who is being considered for a spot on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that sentence could be just as easily be used to defend folks who use illicit narcotics.

The strange thing is that I agree with the Defense Secretary and not the lawyer. That's right, I'm choosing the military thought over the law. People love to talk in extremist terms when they are attacking with their point of view, and they talk about generalities when they are defending their point of view. When I'm feeling kind, I defend to the point where there is no wrong at all with an act, and when I'm in a mood, I'll rip something apart to make it seem as though there is nothing worse in the world than the act just committed. What we all need to do (myself included) is take a step back and see how things affect everyone in the long run. After that it seems fairly simple what a person's punishment should be.

If you kill over a hundred people to protest a military action of the past, you should die. There are much better (and more effective) ways to protest. If you give top secret information away to a foreign government, you should have to sit in a cell in the country you betrayed for a long time. Heck, I'd even go so far as to look the other way when the guards spit on you. If you have an affair you should not be allowed to have a serious relationship with anyone for five years. All of your sexual encounters during that time should consist of prostitutes and one night stands from meeting someone in a sleazy bar. That way society can still frown upon you.

Of course, this is just the base formula. A person can lessen their sentence by saying all of the good things they've done in their lives. Sure, Timothy McVeigh killed a lot of people, but damn, he did save a kitten when he was a child. When they sentence him to die, he should get an extra fifteen seconds of life because of his good deed. I, myself, have taken a few items currently on the Controlled Substance List, but in my defense, I always get to work on time and have an exemplary driving record. I should be sentenced to listen a tape of my ramblings for forty-eight hours straight and sent to bed without supper.

We've had the ten commandments around for centuries, and yet, people still seem to have a problem deciding what is right or wrong. Just in case people are unfamiliar with the basic idea of the Big Ten, killing is bad, and so is lying, cheating, stealing, disrespecting, and so on. We all know what's good and what's bad. Our main problem is confessing our human errors as what they are: errors. Timothy McVeigh's defense should have been eight words, "I was mad and did something really stupid." Harold Nicholson did confess correctly, "I was greedy, and I did something really stupid."

We all have our own little confessions in us. Their are countless guys out there who should just say "I was horny, and I did something really stupid." Some people can't control their desires, and they should say "I wanted that guy's watch and I'm poor, so I did something really stupid."

Admitting our errors won't defend our actions, but there's no way we're going to become a more intelligent group of people if we can't even admit a lot of the things we do are really stupid.

Chris Jungle believes his first conscious stupid act was to stick the vacuum cleaner nozzle in his mouth and turn on the power. He occasionally does it to this day.

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