A good example of somebody who approaches the level of worst enemy would be something akin to Robert Schiro, who already has his license suspended, hit a cyclist with his BMW, leaving her crippled for life, then drove off and tried to hide the evidence. And then, while he was waiting for sentencing, got caught again for reckless driving. He also, by the way, complained that he doesn’t live near any grocery stores as an attempt to justify why he should be allowed to continue to drive after all these driving incidents.
This is a vile person. One might blame his alchoholism or whatever, but I think it’s very much that he’s a person who considers himself more important than the little people.
I ride the same roads that he and his victim ride, so this case holds a certain attachment for me. I certainly am not comfortable sharing a road with Schiro.
It’s not always the case that we get to see justice. Even though he hit a well-off white woman who was wearing a helmet, fundamentally cyclists get the short end of the stick and there’s plenty of cases where reckless drivers have gotten off with little or no penalty for hitting a cyclist and then trying to hide the evidence. So I’m happy that he’s going to jail and will be forbidden to drive for the rest of his life. His lawyer was arguing for probation because he’s old and sick and suffering from the effects of alcoholism.
This may be an unfair bias, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s been driving again if he doesn’t die in prison as his lawyer claims will probably happen.
Naturally, the commentary and casual jokes about how he’s going to be some big guy’s girlfriend have started among the cycling community.
And I don’t think it’s funny, appropriate, or just.
Having been educated by the Catholics in an age when Catholicism meant an interest in social justice instead of an age where Catholicism meant that commentators would write articles about how if you didn’t fall into line an oppose all forms of birth control except natural family planning and campaign against gay rights, that you might as well leave the church because social justice doesn’t matter and the commentators have sour grapes by the ton about it.
Oops, did I get snarky there? Anyway. Let me continue.
I learned that both the new testament of the Bible and a decent amount of actual science show that the notion that the justice system net out punishments to ensure a law-abiding society is faulty. So I’ve come to see one’s interactions with the justice system as a matter of rehabilitation and harm-prevention. And I understand that our present system of prisons, increasingly for-profit-prisons, etc. is not at all interested in rehabilitation or justice or even preventing people who should not get behind the wheel of a car from getting behind the wheel of a car and it endlessly frustrates me that people allow themselves to be repeatedly swindled by people who make a big deal about being ‘tough on crime’ instead of asking questions about the underlying issues or even little things like the frequency of particular crimes in reality as opposed to news and movies and the rate of recidivism for given categories of criminals.
But rape is one of the more horrible violations out there. Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. And so I’ve been reading some of the emails and blog posts and how they cavalierly talk about it. And it bothers me, because getting raped really is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.