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November 25, 2007
Oh please
One of my favorite classes in college was Propaganda Analysis. The name is pretty self-explanatory. We learned all about propaganda, including some interesting bits, like a Three Stooges episode. A more-subtle form of propaganda, I think, is when legislators propose a law and name it So-and-so's Law. The idea is simple: humanize the law by associating it with a victim who presumably would have not been in a victim if only for that law. The most famous of these is Megan's Law. It also started this trend, I believe.
However, I've found that lawmakers are starting to invoke the victim's name in situations that aren't as, shall we say, tragic. Consider this new law in Ohio, which would require prosecutors to notify the families of murder victims when the murderer is up for release. The man sponsoring the bill has dubbed it "Roberta's Law." When I read this, I said to myself, "Ah, Roberta must have been killed by the man who murdered her relative after he got out of prison. What a tragedy!" But in reality, here's what happened to Roberta:
Known has Roberta’s Law, the bill was partly spurred by a case in Columbus where Robert Francis learned about the release of his daughter’s murderer. He read about the release in the newspaper, said Shaun Busken, legislative aide for Stivers.
Whaaa? So now all you have to do is be upset by something to get a law named after you? If that was true, there'd be about 500 Tim's Laws by this point. I'm not trying to minimize the anger and shock that someone must feel when one reads in the newspaper that his daughter's murderer is out of jail, but I don't think it deserves its own law.
entry no. 1016
Posted by oz115 at November 25, 2007 08:44 AM