Re: A Gutless Lynch Mob
Dr. Sowell is absolutely right, but a bit timid. He says:
"What is even more important than clearing the names of the three young men charged with a heinous crime is making sure that the man responsible for this travesty of justice -- District Attorney Michael Nifong -- pays the fullest price for what he did.
"The state bar association investigating Nifong needs to understand that this case is much bigger than Nifong."
The implication of this statement is that Nifong needs to "pay a debt to society". This is a full-fledged crock. Nifong must pay his debt to the **students and their families**. A minimum of a million dollars, required to repay the defense legal fees, is a mere foretaste of the punishment he should be forced to pay. How does one compensate the loss of a full year of a young man's life? How about the families' loss of their relationships, the loss of an honorable name? These are merely the beginning of the losses sustained at the hands of this "rogue prosecutor".
The punishment must include full restitution of their losses. If that requires Mr. Nifong to become their economic indentured servant for twenty years, or forty, so be it.
There is no "society", there are only individuals. If the individual is left unwhole, "society" cannot make him so. To throw Nifong in jail may "punish" him, but that does nothing to make his victims whole. In fact, it makes them **less** well off yet again, since they will have to pay the taxes that will feed him, house him, and clothe him (not to mention entertain him, medicate him, and even educate him further). How does having yet another assault on their resources, through taxation, help them recover their losses?
In a word, it doesn't.
L. S.
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Moving the Republican Party to the Right!
