The Facts and the Rhetoric, Part 2

And here in bubble Oregon, what is going on?

Fact: Bill Sizemore, splashed on the front page of the Statesman-Journal (the Salem newspaper, for all you lovely out of state people). He took a plea deal of 'guilty' which will require 30 days of jail, paying court attorney costs, and 3 years of probation. And be a convicted felon unless he can stay good for that time.

The alternative was to not plead guilty, but to face 15 years in jail, a fine of $475K. So is it wrong to take a plea deal just to avoid a harsh sentence?

Fact: he failed to submit Form 40, for Oregon income tax, for 3 years. Fact: he paid estimated tax of $51K. Was told by accountants not to file, since if you don't get it exactly right, that is an offense too, false claims or something.

While you might hope that the Constitution guides the actions of our legal institutions, like the court system, and would be valiantly allowing people to express their first amendment rights - you know - things like free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition the government for grievances. Hey, I don't know if I ever read the Constitution before 2002, but you know what - its never too late to jump on that bandwagon!

But, hope is not always reality. Did he get his day in court? Well, he was in court all right, but I would not exactly call it His Day. Not allowed to tell a jury about his situation, or estimated tax filing. Not allowed to bring forth facts such as accountants telling him not to file. Underneath it all is a story so complex you may as well call it NP-complete. Unions filing multi-million dollar lawsuits against him. Saying they had to spend millions (which they wanted recovered!) to fight his nasty ballot measures. Ballot measures that would hurt them.

Well, should the people who actually vote decide these things? Maybe the people who vote aren't smart enough - is that it? I should pay my dues to unions and let them decide for me, what measures I should vote for and which not? Or maybe my political party can just send me a ballot and, like in the old days, just pull a lever for all votes for Their Side.

Rhetoric, enter here: Sizemore was scamming the system to line his pockets, and never had an interest in making these ballot measures successful. This is the kind of stuff you read in every single newspaper, its like they all copy the same text (don't they know that plagerism is not good form?). This is not even rhetoric, it doesn't even have any basis in fact.

At least with the FAA (see previous post - The Facts and the Rhetoric) you have 'positions' that might make sense, at least on a philosophical level. Hostage takers and jobs lost and all that. Here, I suppose you have something along those lines. The mortal enemy of public employee unions, so absolutely evil that he cannot be allowed to roam freely. We are all in danger while he is a free man. So! Must find some trumped up charge and convict him, knock out his kneecaps, and render him unable to perpetrate his nasty ballot measures on free people.

Remember the movie Fantasia where Mickey Mouse cuts the dancing broom, thinking he killed it? Only to have each half continue to dance around. Tries to kill some of the offshoots, only to have them create new sub-brooms that continue to dance around. Do you really think Bill Sizemore is down for the count?