Dear Jim,
It’s been a great week. My trip to the peninsula for our nephew’s graduation was a good one. He looked great. About twenty-five people went to the party. Over the weekend I had great cheese pizza our brother-in-law made. Then I had meat two days in a row. I should eat more meat.
At the party I sat at a table with the fellers while the woman sat at their table. It amazed me how accepting the men were of our police state. They were talking about what a tough job cops have. Then they talked about the good cops they know or have met.
I said ”Cops love to intimidate people.” They agreed. Then I said, ”There’s a book- Arrest Proof Yourself. A retired cop wrote it. Cops have twenty minutes to spend with you. If they haven’t arrested you in twenty minutes, they have to let you go.”
Nobody said anything.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the country. Last night I read an article in the New Yorker about victim impact statements.
They are statements the friends and family of a murdered or raped person make in court, claiming how great their loved one was. The intention of the statements are to help get the accused convicted and then sentenced with either the death penalty or a more than life sentence. The article scared the shit out of me.
Mom and dad would not have made a victim impact statement against your killer. I wouldn’t have either. I didn’t consider myself a victim of your murder and I don’t think mom and dad did. They asked God to have mercy on the bastard.
It’s bad enough that our country is unforgiving. It’s even worse that so many people consider themselves victims: unwed mothers, illegal aliens, the homeless, gays, jail birds, families of murdered people. What these family members and friends are saying is that the beauty of the murdered guy or raped woman should count as evidence against the accused.
I wrote a letter to the New Yorker. I asked if people who made victim impact statements would apologize if twenty years later the guy in prison was found not guilty. Probably not.
People look at me like I’m a criminal all the time. It is terrifying to think that I could be arrested for a murder I didn’t commit, then have to listen to all these people tell me how great their loved one was and then have to see all the baby pictures, graduation pictures, and wedding pictures.
We’re a vengeful society. I’m more concerned that the accused get a fair trial. Others aren’t. They don’t understand that in our police state you or your family member might be arrested for something you didn’t do.
One of the points the article made was that making these statements is a great catharsis for the family and friends of the murdered guy. That may be. But do you want to cheapen our criminal justice system by saying your pain should count as evidence? Now I understand what scholars mean when they say America has lost its’ ability to reason.
So, Jim, things have been sinking in. We aren’t much of a country. We are a nation of little men – all the rectal intercourse, all the gang guys, all the jail birds, all the homeless.
We are a nation of even smaller woman – the lust for a right to an abortion, the demand that the government pay for the baby of unwed mothers, the right to claim that any encounter with a man that the woman doesn’t like is a rape.
Really we are nothin’.
People complain about the president, but he is a typical selfish boomer. Just like the hippies, he is doing what he damn well pleases even though it will damage the country in the long run.
On the trip to the party The City looked good. I sat on the Embarcadero and watched a freight liner sail in. There wasn’t one person on deck.
Remember the Hills Brothers Coffee building? There’s no smell of coffee anymore. The building is a place for high tech businesses.
It’s the only building south of Market that I like. The building north of Market that I like is the one way up on I think Sacramento Street. The one with the radio tower at least half as tall as the building. You probably walked by it a lot.
That’s it for now.
It’s a beautiful morning.
Love,
Dave
Copyright © 2021 by David Vaszko
The Writings of David Vaszko 