Letters
to the editor
Three-strikes law defended
This
is in response to the editorial speaking
out against the three-strikes law which
was printed last Monday. I think it is cruel
and unusual punishment for Andrade and Ewing
to serve 25 years-to-life for theft. Actually,
I would still think this if it was their
first or even second offense. However, the
three- strikes law gives criminals two second
chances to clean up their act. Not just
for any crimes, but for felonies.
To make the argument that the law breeds
violent criminals is irresponsible as you
cannot say what would happen when someone
who just spent 25 years in prison was released.
You made up a hypothetical scenario without
basing your reasoning on anything substantive.
Here is another scenario that could be considered:
a young man gets 25 years for his third
strike and in that time he learns the error
of his ways. When he is released, he becomes
a counselor for youths and tries to steer
them away from the life he led. What is
the factual difference between my scenario
and yours? Nothing. Which one is more likely
to happen? Either one could happen to any
one of those prisoners. Can we really say
for sure how these people will turn out?
No.
Finally, both men knew they had two strikes
and they knew what would happen if they
committed yet another felony. They chose
their course of action regardless of that
consequence and I think the On-line Forty-Niner
staff forgot that when they wrote their
editorial. They gave too much exception
to criminals in jail for life for non-violent
crimes and there was too much concern over
whether the law will rehabilitate those
criminals.
By the time they reach their third strike,
I don’t think rehabilitation should be the
issue. They have had two previous chances
to rehabilitate. They should be sent away
for life as they have shown they have nothing
productive to offer society. If I was in
Andrade’s or Ewing’s shoes I would have
been straight as an arrow for the rest of
my life after my second strike. They still
didn’t get it. Now I don’t care. I say lock
‘em up.
—
Jason Garthoffner
Swastika
compared to noose
I
am writing this letter in response to the
story about the swastika that was drawn
on a wall in the Parkside Commons dorms.
How, in our great country of equality, can
we still look at the same thing in two different
ways? The incident with the noose was not
even a month ago and we are calling this
incident with the swastika an isolated incident.
I know many people will argue that one is
an act of vandalism and the other, art.
However, we need not focus on the legal
aspect but the attitudes that keep spawning
these types of acts. During the time of
the civil rights movement, it was not taboo
for white people to openly hate and express
prejudice towards minorities in this country.
One of the many things Martin Luther King,
Jr., Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers achieved
was making these hateful acts illegal.
Just because certain acts are deemed offensive
enough to be legally wrong, they do not
address the underlying attitudes that still
exist. People still harbor racist attitudes,
only now they are taught not to say it outside
of their own racial group.
I would be willing to wager that if you
would have asked the perpetrator of this
act, whoever it was, how they felt about
racial equality in this country a week before
two African-American people broke up their
party, they would say the things that most
white people say. “I’m all for equal rights,
I don’t even see color.” “I don’t have a
racist bone in my body.”
As a white person, I know that I have been
guilty of many of these cop-out answers
until someone explained to me that saying
things like that serves to invalidate and
marginalize the experiences of minorities
in this country.
Yes the swastika is more overt and the epithet
served to punctuate the feelings; but these
are not isolated incidences. It speaks to
the social inequality that minorities have
been trying to bring to the attention of
white people for a long time. Why is one
a hate crime and the other art?
—
Tim Hyzdu
Cal State Long Beach senior
|
