Equal Justice?

Recently Plaxico Burress, seen on the left, plead guilty to weapons charges after carrying a gun into a New York City night club and then shooting himself in the leg with it. he was sentenced to two years in prison for the crime. Donte Stallworth, seen above, drove drunk in Miami, hit a pedestrian and killed him. He plead guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.

I am no lawyer. I'm just a regular guy that for a few years has been trying to teach high school kids right from wrong and how to be accountable for their actions in the real world. I even taught a civics class and one of the wonderful things we read about in this country was equal justice. After seeing these two stories unfold I am doubting the existence of this concept.

For starters we can eliminate race and fame from the discussion. Both men are African-American and both are professional football players with lots of money. We can only look at the disparity in the sentencing. Both acts are terribly irresponsible and reckless and could have resulted in injury or death to the general public. So why the differing sentences? In this country we share many values that make us Americans so why in two different states that belong to the same union could we come these legal conclusions? If we indeed value public safety, the sentences would have been at least the same.

Can we look at the result of the actions of the individual? If we do I think we can all agree that Plaxico Burress got screwed. He was his only victim and received a much stiffer penalty. I have read some reporters that say Donte Stallworth will bear the burden of killing a man for the rest of his life and that is punishment enough. Bunch of savages in this town! Sure he will suffer after he serves an NFL suspension, plays, makes a begillion more dollars and lives comfortably for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, the family of his victim will always feel the loss.

I'm stumped on this one! Maybe we should take equal justice out of the textbooks until society figures this thing out and makes the adjustment.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4270311
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Applying-the-Donte-Stallworth-precedent-to-Plaxi?urn=nfl,173358
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/chi-21-haugh-bears-chicago-aug21,0,6489499.column?track=rss

Too Much Me and Not Enough We

The title to my blog is actually a line from one of my favorite movies, "Clerks". Another line that sticks with me and I often use is, "a bunch of savages in this town". I usually use that line in disgust of some poor behavior I have witnessed or when someone tells me a story about the poor behavior of others that I just can't believe. Recently I found myself saying this a lot in the last couple of days. My wife and I went to Chicago for a couple of days to celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary. Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing this post to bash Chicago. My point is that I had a lot of time to observe people and formulate my answer on a much asked topic in casual conversation, What is wrong with this world today?

My answer is this, there is too much me and not enough we. It seems like now days people actually think they are the only people on Earth, often not even showing due attention to others or common goals. This may simply be human nature but I fear that at some point it will consume us and only cause harm at the highest levels.

Let me give an example. We decide to go into Chili's for a drink before heading back to our hotel. There is a small wait and we slide right up to the hostess station and prepare ourselves to join the waiting list. As we wait for the hostess to turn around and notice us, two young men, I would say mid 20's, rocket to the hostess and interrupt her before she sees us. They demand to get on the waiting list. I felt compelled to tell them that we were next and slowly they decided to do the right thing and let us go ahead of them. they eventually just sat at the bar. This is what I'm talking about, a pure disregarding of other people.

On the train ride home a couple of young men sat in the seat behind us. They immediately hit their cell phones and held their conversations loud enough for the whole train car to participate in. Many were trying to sleep, including my wife, and the topic of conversation was not pleasant. One guy was arguing with and cussing out his girlfriend, or what was maybe one of many of them, and the other was talking about his near arrest for having weed in his car the night before. Yep, a bunch of savages in this town. The behavior of these classless punks to me was a message that said: My life is more important than anything, I don't care what you are doing or where you are going.

It seems to me that people have lost sight of the concept of the common good. I taught about it in my civics classes as I'm sure many teachers do. The young people coming up these days are too self centered. With all the blogging, tweeting and social networking they do its as if they are asking the world to look at them and recognize their individual importance even if they haven't earned that recognition. It's time to start thinking about us, its time to think we not me. How horrible would it be if we took this approach to the health care debate or the budget crisis. If our elected leaders thought more about us and less about getting re-elected. many decisions made at the higher political levels and the corporate world are made to benefit very small groups or even individuals. I hope our young people are not looking to these guys as the example or we are all screwed.

In closing, this is the kind of rant you get when let a very busy high school principal have a couple of days to thing about something else besides work!