Friday, October 13, 2006

Idiotic History "Lesson" in Globe

The Globe has published a letter to the editor that tries to teach Kerry Healey a history lesson. I'd ask you to go read it, but it's short, so let's post it here where we can really have a bit of fun with it.

WHEN POSING whether Massachusetts should have a governor who has defended killers, I wonder whether Kerry Healey has forgotten a major history lesson from our very own state. In 1770, provoking public condemnation and resulting in a substantial loss of business, our very own John Adams decided to defend the accused British soldiers in the Boston Massacre. By placing the interests of justice and fairness ahead of political opportunism, Adams made a difficult decision to protect the rights of the accused and the fairness of the criminal process.

As we all remember, Adams was thereafter good enough to draft our very own state Constitution in 1780, guaranteeing the protection of the liberties that we often now take for granted. It is often the people who make unpopular decisions to defend those whom society despises that are best able to serve the interests of all of us. I do not believe anyone would say that Adams did not care about our independence when he defended the British soldiers; how can we therefore question Deval Patrick's ability to serve the Commonwealth by upholding the same virtues?

AARON AGULNEK
Sharon

Yep, John Adams defense of the soldiers who, while being pelted with snow balls & some rocks, and generally under attack, discharged a volley into a bunch of rioters (AKA, the Boston Massacre) is exactly the same thing as Deval Patrick trying to get convicted murderers out of their sentences and convicted rapists out of jail. No difference between poor judgement and raping your 59 year old neighbor. Lordy, if this is state of cognitive abilities in this state it's really no wonder that Ted Kennedy keeps getting elected.
Vote for Kerry Healey

1 comment:

Nylarthotep said...

Well ronumd, apparently you have difficulty with judging a cynical statement and miss that Granted is parsing the statement is a vernacular.

But other than that, the Adams statement is so very shallow that it avoids the complete understanding of the Boston Massacre context as forming an honorable reason to defend the British troops involved. And your supposition that he was responding to an abuse of power is amazing in just how wrong you are. It had nothing to do with abuse of governmental power, and everything to do with justice. Something that said rapist had already received.

Nice try.