Hey America! Have I got a news flash for you: in this country, we don’t convict people of any crime, no matter how heinous, unless they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s kinda like one of the guiding principles of our legal system. And by ‘kinda like’ I mean it really, really is and we were all taught this in our middle school civics’ class—is your memory / school attendance that poor?
How brave you Twittiots are! What courage you demonstrate in your Tweets and Facebook status updates compared to those cowardly jurors who bore the burden of judging this woman, of listening to every argument and every piece of evidence made available to them and still were not willing to convict a woman of murder when the evidence didn’t prove her conclusively guilty. You bore none of the burden, yet express all of the outrage!
This is a prime example of our idiotic obsession with things that don’t really matter; it takes a whole lot of privilege to be this frivolous. After all, if we pretend to care about something that we have absolutely zero control over, then we don’t feel so bad for ignoring the myriad injustices that we do have control over—that we could change, if we weren’t such suckers for the circus. If you need a few solid examples, I’d say 99% of the stuff on this blog would suffice.
Thank you to those who appreciate the true meaning of justice. That it is “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” You keep us safe from the mob.
Here are a few stories that are vastly more important than the Casey Anthony trial:
- Trust Law compares women’s rights in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduce legislation that would grant women in the military the same reproductive rights as civilians.
- Senator Gillibrand (I sense a pattern…) forms the “Off the Sidelines” campaign to increase the participation of women in politics.
- Katha Pollitt talks SlutWalks for The Nation.