If it is true that actions speak louder than words, then American society has got to be one of the most hypocritical societies on the face of the earth, singularly lacking in a sense of perspective. On the one hand, we go on and on about protecting our children. On the other, we seem to lack the moral resolve to do just that. Insofar as it is indisputably true that children are the future, it seems to me unquestionably clear that we must make a concerted effort to protect them. This brings me once again to the enormously popular website, MySpace.Com
As you may know MySpace.Com is extremely concerned with copyright infringement. So persons who post videos with copyrighted music playing in the background must remove the music if they want their videos to remain available.
The very, very important point here is that MySpace.Com is itself taking whatever steps necessary to insure that there is copyright infringement.
Yet, the very same sight that will pursue copyright infringement to the hilt, nonetheless allows convicted criminals on death row to have a regular MySpace-page. The criminals do not have direct access to the internet. Rather, they have friends and families that create the site for them.
I understand the concern of free speech. There is also, however, the issue of the normative force of punishment. This should not be obliterated.
It is not in any way a good thing that so powerful a medium as the internet should blur the distinction between law-abiding citizens and the guilty. Something has gone wrong when a person who is in prison for being a serial rapist or murderer, say, can appear like a “normal guy” on MySpace.Com because his family “loves” him.
There is a difference, surely, between writing about John Doe, the convicted murderer, and presenting a MySpace page that stands as the persona of John Doe, the convicted murderer, except that nobody knows that he a convicted murderer. A family, or a friend, or anyone else should be free to write whatever they please (matters of defamation and the like aside) about those in prison for having committed heinous crimes.
Just so, no one in prison for having committed a heinous crime should be allowed to have a MySpace-page. Nor should anyone be able to maintain such a page in the name of the criminal where it appears to anyone browsing MySpace that the person’s page is just another webpage among a multitude of others. This is because the effect of doing so is that a morally significant distinction is annihilated—a distinction that is crucial to the very fabric of our society.
The distinction between the innocent and the guilty is a ground-level distinction that is a cornerstone to right and wrong. This is a distinction that must be validated rather than obliterated.
Most significantly, we cannot raise our children properly without this distinction. Thus, it is one that society needs to validate at all levels. And this society can do only if the criminal is not allowed some privileges that the law-abiding citizen is allowed, where this pertains to more than the liberty to move about freely.
Now, to be sure, criminals are human, too. This is a truth that we must never forget. But from this immutable truth, what surely does not follow that we should ignore the distinction between guilty and innocent. Nor, a fortiori, does it follow that criminals should have exactly the same privileges with respect to free speech as innocent citizens have.
I do not hold that we should be committed to the exact intentions of the framers of The Constitution. Yet, it seems clear to me that we should not be ludicrous in our application of a principle. The idea behind free speech is that citizens in good standing should never have to fear for their well-being in expressing their opinions. The thought was never that there is a realm in which criminals should have exactly the same privileges as law-abiding citizens; otherwise, the humanity of criminals is being diminished. In particular, the thought was never that freedom of speech constituted that realm.
Who is in prison for a heinous crime and who is not is public information. There is no reason on the face of this earth why cyberspace should not be required to reflect this reality.
And all that this requires is that no one who is in prison for a heinous crime can be portrayed on the internet without that fact being an integral part of the portrayal. Families do not get to represent, on-line, their loved-ones in prison as saints. Religious folks do not get to intone that everyone needs to be forgiven; hence, religious folks do not get to portray rapists and murderers, on-line, as innocent folks just like everyone else.
Danielle Allen is reported to have said “The way I look at it, if we can’t forgive, then we can’t be forgiven”. And the she adds, referring to 4 death row inmates, “These are my personal friends”.
Needless to say, the use of religion to justify being oblivious to the moral pain of others is absolutely abominable. Ms. Allen has no right to speak for others or to carry-on as if she is the arbiter of how much damage families have suffered as a result of the heinous crimes committed against this or that family member.
In any case, not even the religious have the right to blur the distinction between the innocent and the guilty. If Allen wants to claim 4 death row inmates as personal friends, then that is all well and good. She has no right, however, to obfuscate matters for others.
The fundamental point here is that MySpace.Com could easily enough implement a few rules governing who can have a webpage on the site and the conditions under which they can do so. Here is one, call it a Declaration of Sentencing rule: “No one on death row can have a webpage unless that the fact that she or he is on death row and the reasons for the verdict are prominently displayed at all times on the webpage”. This information is public; it is purely factual. No commentary would be necessary. Indeed, it would even be inappropriate.
With this Declaration of Sentencing in place, people can go on to say whatever they please regarding their loved ones on MySpace. But at least there would not be any form of misrepresentation. Besides, a most important opportunity for moral learning would occasionally present itself.
But this makes too much sense—too much moral sense, that is. So MySpace.Com will continue to be relentless in its pursuit of those who engage in copyright infringement by posting a video with music in that background which they do not have permission to play in a public venue.
In the meantime, those who have been convicted of having committed heinous crimes can be portrayed on MySpace.Com as saints by their friends or religious zealots.
Sounds like a society desperately in need of help in terms of what is priorities should be.
