And Justice For All

Yesterday, a radio presenter played a 911 tape, to the amusement of his listeners. The now famous Texas granny had been captured live, shooting a burglar. Not once, but twice, she let him have it while cursing him out for having the nerve to break into her house. Standing on the sidelines, we cheer for her, for defending her home and her family. The fact that the criminal could be heard crying "owww" only added to the sense of fair play and justice.

By contrast, a similar case has recently concluded in Ireland, but the victim is the one who is going to jail. A bachelor farmer, living under siege, shot and killed the man who had broken into his house, but defending one's life in the Emerald Isle is apparently the wrong thing to do. Several times, the farmer had come home and discovered that his home or barn had been broken into and items stolen. It is not hard to imagine the fear of an isolated individual who has only his own two hands to rely on, too far from neighbors or the local police to call out for help. The burglar was a known thief with definite mental health problems that included hearing voices which told him to attack his wife. Hardly the picture of the innocent bystander, but the court was treated to his wife's victim impact statement and so the picture was edited for content.

Now the farmer is looking at six years in the slammer. Christy Moore once sang for the freedom of the Wicklow Boy, and he sang for the freedom of the political prisoners in the Maze and Long Kesh. These days, he's too busy tearing down George Bush and American foreign policy to notice the injustice in his own back yard. When one lives in a country that champions the wimp, that lauds those who lay down and take the abuse, standing up and fighting back would seem to be immoral. I'll take American justice any day, thanks just the same.