JPF Home Page Forums OJ Gets 33 Years - This is Just WRONG in so many ways

Of course it's a tragedy. But what about the folks he robbed at gunpoint. Have you ever been robbed at gunpoint? I have. Have you ever been held somewhere at gunpoint? I have.

As a teenager, I was robbed in front of my high school while waiting for a bus. The guy got 43 cents. He had a gun in his pocket which he showed me. After I gave him the 43 cents he hit me. If he didn't have a gun he wouldn't have hit me, I was a lot bigger. He was a sissy, no personal responsibility. Lots of folks like that in Chicago. Lots of folks like that these days.

As an adult, I got a job here in Nashville selling coupon books door to door. We'd get addresses of folks who said over the phone that they were interested, so we went there to "close" them. At one location, a guy had bought a book months before only to find out that most of the coupons were already expired, so when I went in his house to sell him the book, he brought out a shotgun. Pretty soon he figured out there was nothing I could do about it and let me go. He was a fool. He could have spent real jail time for a $20 coupon book. The other guy could have spent real jail time for 43 cents.

O.J. isn't an American Tragedy, he's a human tragedy. He's a power trip with no personal responsibility. It doesn't matter if he's the best running back, or just a punk who's making a pitiful plea for leniency. He was in a dark place for a long time, all from the choices he made. Now he needs to "man up" and face the consequences of those choices.

That's, perhaps, the biggest problem with contemporary society. The marriage of control issues with no personal responsibility. Sometimes it uses being poor as an excuse, sometimes religious indignation and false righteousness, sometimes political indignation and false righteousness, sometimes entitlement and elitism. They say, "I deserve it so let the other guy pay for it, but not poor me." Yuck.

I'm not crying.