Prof wrote:I am curious whether anyone can adequately explain what compels Rino and Jason and others like them insist upon spitting in the eye of the judge who will make the sentencing decision and can add or subtract months or years from the time of incarceration.
My comments:
I have a friend who escaped one of those cultish religions that sends a lot of missionaries to knock on doors. He told me they taught him to interpret every rejection as further proof that he has The Truth, and that most people are unable to accept The Truth, and that the forces of evil are aligned against you to stop The Truth.
So you've got a self-perpetuating mechanism. Train people to be rude*, then teach them that normal reactions to their rudeness are affirmations that they're not being rude enough.
I think this self-perpetuating jerkassery is what emboldens people like Jason Gerhard and Reno Gonzalez to spit in the face of those who could grant them mercy. Most of us would do a cost-benefit analysis and realize that the difference between 4 and 20 years in prison is a lot greater than the value of dubious legal filings and a last-stand bold statement that nobody will remember five minutes later.
Not these guys. By the time they've been arrested, tried, and convicted for whatever stupidity they've done on behalf of whatever stupid cause they've chosen, they're in too deep. By this point they see themselves as martyrs, and they see the government's actions -- which are really just normal responses to their own actions -- as attempts to suppress whatever Truth they've discovered. And should they ponder rationality for a moment, there always people like Joe Haas and Ed Brown nearby, with their gift for encouraging other people to destroy their own lives in support of their idiotic causes.
That's what I think, anyway.
* - I find the very concept of door-to-door religious solicitation incredibly rude. You're not selling me $4 worth of band candy or magazines here, you're trying to tell me how to live my life and where my soul is going to go after I die. Don't you think your dearest friends and family would be a more appropriate audience for your religious awakening than random people in the random zone you've been randomly assigned to? And if your loved ones aren't moved by your choice, why should I be?