July 13-19, 2008 Issue |
Posted 7/8/08 at 12:24 PM
It would seem
that James Fagan, a defense attorney and Massachusetts lawmaker, is a monster
embodying all the most horrifying qualities of a legal shark.
A couple of weeks ago, he was being
vilified in the press for what appeared to be utterly evil sentiments spoken on
the floor of the Massachusetts Legislature.
At issue was the attempt to pass a
version of “Jessica’s Law,” which would put rapists of children under 12 away
for 20 years. Who could not applaud this? Does anybody want such creatures
walking among us? Of course not!
Then, Fagan rose to attack the bill.
Shockingly, he declared that if he had a client who was being tried for
breaking Jessica’s Law he would “rip apart” any child who testified against
him. He declared that he’d grill young victims so mercilessly that, “when
they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep;
when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a
relationship with anybody.”
There was, not surprisingly, a
massive outcry in both the Massachusetts and national press against Fagan.
Understandably, victims of such
crimes were the most offended and blasted Fagan for his heartlessness. The
basic tenor of the reaction was “All people want to do is protect children from
evil, and people like Fagan only want to add to their trauma.”
Now it could be that Fagan is a
devil in human form and is, inexplicably, jeopardizing not only his political
career, but every relationship with normal people, simply for the glee of
fantasizing before a shocked nation of his ardent desire to destroy the hearts
and minds of innocent children.
However, I think, after looking at
his remarks, that the far more likely explanation for his words is this: He was
pointing to the actual effect this law will have on defense attorneys when it
is passed.
He is saying to the Massachusetts
Legislature, “If you pass this law, this is what defense attorneys will very likely
do in order to win acquittal for their clients — which is, like it or not,
their job.”
In short, I think the guy was
basically saying, “You’re dreaming that your new law will do what you want it
to do. I’m telling you your new law will do what you design it to do.”
The distinction between what our
systems of order are designed to do and
what we wish they would do is something that
plagues us every day.
We create computers that we wish
would flawlessly multi-task and save us tons of work. But they drive us crazy
with blue screens of death and “general protection faults” because they do what
we designed them to do, not what we wish they would do.
We create vast welfare and social
support networks. We wish they would help poor people get over a rough patch
and then find gainful employment. But we design them to keep poor people poor
and middle-class people taxed to support a huge parasitic network of
bureaucracy.
We create a huge entertainment
industry to amuse us. We wish it would pour out great art that would both
delight and move us. But we design it so that it pours out vast quantities of
dreck designed to manipulate people into coughing up huge amounts of money for
obscenity, inanity and inhumanity. Result: 50 million TV channels with nothing
good on any of them.
In these and many other cases, the
system is doing what we designed it to do, not what we wish it to do.
No small part of the confusion is
that we don’t much grasp the relationship between ends and means.
We think that if we are trying to
achieve a good end, whatever means we choose to get there is therefore good
too. But that’s not true.
Using a bad means to achieve a good
end will get you, not the end you want, but the end you designed your system to
reach. People who point that out — be they James Fagan pointing out the real
world results of Jessica’s Law or Jesus, pointing out that Pharisaic Judaism
was producing whited sepulchers and not holy men — tend to be unpopular. Can’t
these carping critics see that we mean well?
No, they can’t, because you can’t
ultimately mean well when you use bad means. You can, to be sure, have good
ends.
Everybody — including every
scoundrel and fool in the world — has those. But good ends are not enough.
If you rob a bank to pay for college, you had good ends, but you
didn't mean well. Good means have to be employed
to reach our ends or they will lead to bad ends.
The tree is known by its fruit, not
by its wishes.
Mark
Shea is senior content editor
for
CatholicExchange.com.
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