The Pardon, One More Time

I should stop thinking about this. I really should. Because the consequences will be wider and harsher than anyone has yet had the courage to mention.

A pardon says, sotto voce, “Yes, you’re guilty and I know it, but I’m going to let you off.” The acceptance of a pardon says, in equally hushed tones, “Yes, I’m guilty, but I’ll happily escape the consequences of my actions.” And we all know that Hunter will accept the pardon his “loving father” has granted him, so that settles that.

But what does that say to parents throughout the land? Don’t we already have severe problems with unruly young men, especially in our larger cities where so many of them have never known their fathers?

A man who begets a child and walks away from him has already conveyed a very poor “lesson” to that child, though he might not recognize it consciously. A youth who commits a crime and gets away with it, regardless of the reason, is acting on that lesson. It doesn’t require a great deal of reinforcement to become the kid’s central character premise: It’s not whether it’s right or wrong; it’s whether I can get away with it.

We already have severe problems because parents are too ready to shield their kids from the consequences of their actions. Yea verily, even from deeds such as gang warfare and drive-by shootings. Add the increasing reluctance of “law enforcement” to take action against young black lawbreakers, and even a moron can see what’s coming.

Now our “president,” in the waning days of his term in office, has decided to pardon a convicted felon who happens to be his son. Just the kind of reinforcement for the “I can get away with it” moral premise the nation needs, eh, Gentle Reader?

The late Gonzalo Lira wrote a powerful article, The Coming Middle-Class Anarchy, about the “moral hazard” entailed in allowing ordinary Americans to escape responsibility for obligations such as their mortgages. What do you suppose he would have to say about the Biden pardon? I doubt it would be confined to a reflection on “fatherly love.”

2 comments

    • Butch DuCote on December 4, 2024 at 9:01 AM

    I take comfort in the fact
    that Hunter is who he is and that zebras do not change their stripes. We will hear from him again. When we do he won’t have a powerful father who can make things go away.

    • annon on December 4, 2024 at 1:30 PM

    So, I’m going to throw my thought on this. We’ve heard for 3+ years that Joe’s fine, he’s healthy as a horse, he works rings around me, he’s mentality fit and how dare you say otherwise. The news organizations and video’s and the lack of his interactions with the public along with someone there to immediately pull him away that we the majority of people could see a man who was certainly not what we were being told. We cannot blame him on one hand for pardoning his son as anyone who has spend one iota of time with a person fading from Alzheimer’s can be blamed for wandering off after a pretty bird. I’ve been certain since his first year that he was not in control of the country. At All. It’s obvious that someones behind the scenes, probably picked by the O person with his agenda. Joe was never, ever, at any time bright enough to hold any high office. He’s been propped up with cocktails of drugs to get him on his feet and follow a teleprompter but at no time was he in control. So probably the wife and son had it written and got him to sign, to him just another piece of paper.

    I’m speaking with experience with the disease as I had the POA for an aunt, mother, stepfather and now a man I befriended that was new to area and knew zero people. Now he’s in his last stages and I have responsibility that I don’t really want.

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