Why Bother?

I heard two stories in the last week that ended the same way. The stories themselves were very different, but both held the same sense of outrage, and so they both ended like this: "What kind of lesson are we teaching these people?"

One was a third-hand account of a student caught selling drugs out of his dorm. The school administration was rightly upset, and expelled him. But as sometimes happens, the student's father was very rich, and he gave a boatload of money to the school in exchange for having his son reinstated and the crime expunged from his record.

The person who told me that story said that it was wrong on a lot of fronts. And especially in that the student in question is likely to think he can buy his way out of trouble with money. Of course, he just *had* gotten out of trouble with money, but my friend still thought it was wrong.

Fast-forward to this past Sunday, when someone on ESPN's The Sports Reporters expressed outrage that Marion Jones requested a pardon from President Bush. The commentator protested against the idea of such a request, asking rhetorically, "Did Marion Jones forget that she promised to accept the consequences of her actions?" Another panelist chimed in: "What kind of lesson would we be sending if President Bush talked tough about steroids in baseball and then let Marion Jones off the hook?"

At first I agreed that neither the student nor Marion Jones should be "taught the wrong lesson" by being let off the hook. After all, if we live in a meritocracy, why should some people get different treatment? But when I thought things through more thoroughly, I realized I had it all backwards. If we want to teach the rich and powerful how the real world works, maybe we should let them get away with their crimes.

In the real world, pampered athletes and children of the rich *rarely* have to suffer any real consequences for bad actions. We hear stories all the time of championship athletes skipping classes in college, robbing people for fun, beating/raping/murdering people, and they usually don't have to pay the piper for their actions. For every Michael Vick, there are probably 50 guys like Leonard Little.

And why bother trying to teach a spoiled little rich kid that the law applies equally to everyone? We all know that isn't true, and no matter what, this kid will always have a built-in advantage over the destitute. Maybe the lesson he *should* be learning is that within reason he can do whatever he wants and daddy's money will get him out of it.

Why bother "teaching a lesson" to people who will never learn it? And why try to teach them about the world we wished we lived in rather than the one we actually live in? Sounds like a useless exercise to me.

In the end, perhaps the university in question made the right choice. And maybe President Bush should go ahead and pardon Marion Jones. No need to make either one of them learn a lesson. As a society, we've shielded both of them from consequences their entire lives. Why change course now?

- Scott