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Edited on Sat Jun-09-07 07:42 AM by ElboRuum
You know, I've seen a pile of threads around here discouraging further talk about Paris Hilton.
'You're only dignifying this by talking about it.' 'There are more important things to discuss here.' 'This is just another media circus to keep us from real news.'
Or some such other thing paraphrased for your enjoyment.
First off, let me address the point that the Paris crap takes your eye off of more important matters:
My brain can hold an impressive amount of information and process it with relative ease. Paris Hilton's current state of affairs is an enjoyable subroutine in a program otherwise occupied by more worldly concerns. If you find yourself distracted by this Paris thingy, well that's something you'll have to work out on your own, but please, as you do so, speak for yourself.
Second, let me address the issue of importance.
DU often discusses the issue of the inequity of justice in this country, that there is a protected class and then there are the rest of us schlubs who actually have to follow the rules, and that this inequity follows socioeconomic lines. For the edification of those who have initiated and participated in these discussions, your points are well taken, and no one would question that if you want to really question what is wrong with this country, you must spend a great deal of time questioning how people of privilege and of public life never seem to suffer for missteps most of us would have to suffer for without question or reprieve.
Whether or not you realize it, Paris is one of many public faces of this inequity. The reason why I'm enjoying it so much is because the judge is taking the time to point out an object lesson to Paris and exposing an example to the rest of us:
Just because you are rich and famous will not excuse you from societal obligations.
I, for one, am happy to see this because I am so tired of seeing the justice system wilt in the face of power begotten by wealth. That we have an example that not everyone who sees that our laws are enforced and its violators punished is cowed by the cult of wealth, power, and personality makes me feel like everything is not broken. It does my heart good to say that those who scoff at the law because they believe they are shielded from "commoner" law by a wall of green paper bearing the faces of former Presidents are not above the law should we be forthright enough to apply it.
So I attach a little more importance to this than that of just some Schadenfreude for the travails of a snotty, spoiled little party brat.
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