Rob Ford: Part 1
Dec. 20th, 2013 11:40 amSo ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wild_irises asked me to talk about Rob Ford.
This one took the longest because I started it several times. I have ALL the thoughts about Rob Ford, but putting them into a coherent order is a challenge. So this is just going to have to be Part 1.
First of all, if you are one of the few people on the internet who have not heard of the "affluenza" court decision, I want to point you to this article. Basic synopsis: a rich kid drives drunk and kills a bunch of people, his lawyer argues that he is psychologically impaired because his parents never held him responsible for his actions, and then the judge puts him on probation, thereby ensuring that the courts also do not hold him responsible for his actions. Because his family is rich.
There is a whole lot of affluenza going on in the Ford family.
I have somehow managed, in spite of growing up in a blue-collar working-class family and attending non-Ivy League University, to have known a number of rich kids in my life and Robby boy is a pretty typical example of what they are like as teenagers. (I have no idea what they are like as adults, I shed my acquaintances as soon as I figured out that a rich kid on party setting was a bigger heat-score than doing lines off the hood of a squad car.) No appeals to "get help" or "be responsible" or anything else are ever going to make any difference to him. He does what he wants, he always has, and he has never had to deal with any fallout from it that was more than a temporary hassle. That's why he keeps just apologizing and then going on with his behaviour completely unchanged - that is just how the universe works, how it has always worked and he can't conceive of the possibility that there is any other way for it to work. He really does genuinely believe that people are just bullying him at this point.
And the real kicker of course, is that he perfectly correct. His money does protect him from consequences. Every time yet another story about him doing illegal shit hits the newspapers there is a chorus of people asking why he isn't in jail. The answer I keep seeing - usually from somebody in law enforcement - is that admitting to prior drug use is not in itself illegal; being in possession of drugs is illegal. There must be a sample of the drug for a prosecution to take place and he has not actually been caught with any drugs on him. Well you know, if there was filmed evidence of me exchanging packages with known drug dealers, you think there would be a search warrant issued for my residence and place of employment? I'm going to go with yes. Do you think one will ever be issued on Ford's residence and place of employment? I'm going to go with no.
If nothing else, the last three years has really exploded the whole, "equal justice for rich and poor" bullshit.
wild_irises asked me to talk about Rob Ford.This one took the longest because I started it several times. I have ALL the thoughts about Rob Ford, but putting them into a coherent order is a challenge. So this is just going to have to be Part 1.
First of all, if you are one of the few people on the internet who have not heard of the "affluenza" court decision, I want to point you to this article. Basic synopsis: a rich kid drives drunk and kills a bunch of people, his lawyer argues that he is psychologically impaired because his parents never held him responsible for his actions, and then the judge puts him on probation, thereby ensuring that the courts also do not hold him responsible for his actions. Because his family is rich.
There is a whole lot of affluenza going on in the Ford family.
I have somehow managed, in spite of growing up in a blue-collar working-class family and attending non-Ivy League University, to have known a number of rich kids in my life and Robby boy is a pretty typical example of what they are like as teenagers. (I have no idea what they are like as adults, I shed my acquaintances as soon as I figured out that a rich kid on party setting was a bigger heat-score than doing lines off the hood of a squad car.) No appeals to "get help" or "be responsible" or anything else are ever going to make any difference to him. He does what he wants, he always has, and he has never had to deal with any fallout from it that was more than a temporary hassle. That's why he keeps just apologizing and then going on with his behaviour completely unchanged - that is just how the universe works, how it has always worked and he can't conceive of the possibility that there is any other way for it to work. He really does genuinely believe that people are just bullying him at this point.
And the real kicker of course, is that he perfectly correct. His money does protect him from consequences. Every time yet another story about him doing illegal shit hits the newspapers there is a chorus of people asking why he isn't in jail. The answer I keep seeing - usually from somebody in law enforcement - is that admitting to prior drug use is not in itself illegal; being in possession of drugs is illegal. There must be a sample of the drug for a prosecution to take place and he has not actually been caught with any drugs on him. Well you know, if there was filmed evidence of me exchanging packages with known drug dealers, you think there would be a search warrant issued for my residence and place of employment? I'm going to go with yes. Do you think one will ever be issued on Ford's residence and place of employment? I'm going to go with no.
If nothing else, the last three years has really exploded the whole, "equal justice for rich and poor" bullshit.