Make Probation Great Again

In a small courtroom in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1841, a boot maker and penal reformer by the name of John Augustus made a heart-felt appeal to a judge during the sentencing of a local man convicted of public drunkenness and chicanery (foolishness which causes the public to feel threatened). His appeal was to release this man into Augustus's personal custody, so that he could keep a close eye on the fellow. Should the convicted man engage in such behavior again, Augustus said, then the boot maker would personally return him to authorities, to pay the penalty for the original offense, in addition to any NEW punishments for violating the court's trust that he would now behave himself.

This became known in Western jurisprudence as "probation".

The term has seen use in other areas of everyday life since then, notably in the workplace. A lot of employers bring on new hires, and they are informed that their first 90 days on the job are a 'probationary period', wherein their performance of tasks will be tightly monitored, their graces or excuses for missed days will be heavily scrutinized and possibly met with rescinding the employment offered, benefits will not be available, etcetera.

I would recommend, given online and real world discourse over the last few days, since a suspicious set of circumstances allowed a 20-year-old malcontent with no prior known experience in protection sabotage, counter-security, curiously absent social media activity and NO verifiable online research history into such things, to nearly assassinate Donald Trump and murder Corey Comperatore, that the notion of probation be applied broadly and heavily to a wide swathe of people, both everyday citizens and people of notoriety.

Jack Black and Kyle Gaas, for instance, of the comedic rock group Tenacious D. You all know by now what happened, with Gaas wishing that any other would-be assassin, quote, "Don't miss Trump next time". Black laughed awkwardly and got the show finished for the evening, but the damage was already underway.

He could have salvaged the public backlash, if he'd been paying attention. But for 15-20 years now, it has been perfectly acceptable to poke fun at the socio-political right, even to the point of labelling them broadly all as racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, pick your 'phobe or ist' from the list, call them Nazis, and even insist they all deserve to be punched in the face or otherwise assaulted.
Given that lengthy span of "go ahead, nobody will hold you to account", it's actually not shocking that neither he nor Gaas thought to hop on social media and IMMEDIATELY apologize or try to backtrack on it. At the very least, one of them could have offered condolences to the Comperatore family.

Neither of them did.

Now, given the timelines and how busy these guys are, maybe they didn't have a chance to learn the victim's name. I'm willing to believe that. Jack Black seemed to be trying to save some face when he announced the cancellation of their remaining tour dates and creative endeavors going forward, and that certainly seemed to strike a serious tone of attrition....

For about three hours, when SCNR News reported, after smelling bullshit and doing some digging, that the insurance underwriters for the band's remaining tour venues withdrew their coverage, thus making the shows impossible. The backlash was THAT BAD from both the public and the underwriters, some of whom quite possibly found the joke and subsequent inauthentic 'apology' to be in poor kind.

Now, there are those who would point out that talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and countless other left-leaning media outlets have been ramping up calls for cancellation for about 2 decades, and leading the charge in ramping up the rhetoric politically against ANYONE not marching in absolute lockstep with liberal perspectives. They are quite right. Conversely, I'm old enough to remember the "Moral Majority" of Bush Sr., the "if you're not with us then you're with the terrorists" of Bush Jr, and it isn't lost on me that right-wing whackos have tried to dub Obama a non-U.S.-born citizen and to label homosexuals 'deviants' at every turn.

Not all of them are, but every crowd has a few sickos....

Online "influencer" (God I hate that term) Destiny is finding out the hard way that people who claim to be on the side of "the tolerant ones" and "the enlightened ones", yet literally make light of conservatives being murdered and the Orange Man being targeted by a sniper, saying he's, quote, "perfectly willing to accept political violence at this point", are not immune to paying the consequences for shitty, inhumane behavior and utterances. For decades now, the right has been debanked, defunded, chased out of gainful employment, blacklisted in some professional fields (especially the arts of acting, music, writing for screen or print, etc) for their perspectives and disagreements with 'the righteous left'. Now, Destiny, Tenacious D, and I suspect a few more folks in the coming days and weeks on the socio-political left are going to get a heaping helping of that same said treatment.

Can't say I feel bad for any of them. My initial thought is, "Fuck them, they wanted this to be the way things go, let them fucking choke on it."

But I've thought a little more on it, and considered how many times I've fucked up in life. Somehow, God granted me a second chance in several facets of my life. I was granted a kind of probation.

So let's consider doing that with these folks. Well, some of them; Destiny is wholly irredeemable at this point, I wouldn't piss on him if someone set him on fire within range of being helped. But for most folks, especially everyday, average people, I believe a kind of social probation should be offered up. Push back on their insanely inhuman comments and remarks about "Wish he hadn't missed" by pointing out that someone DID DIE, someone likely far more deserving of life than many of the folks cheering on the dipshit shooter. Tell them that they are scumbags for such utterances, and demand a rescinding of the remark, or at least an apology for voicing it out loud without thought. Accept the apology, but make sure they know that they are being observed, that the grace of forgiveness only extends as far as the next time they get stupid.

And for those who grumble that such a stance doesn't sound very forgiving, remind them that unconditional forgiveness is divine, and you're just human. If they want to PROVE they regret what they did or said, then they can damn well keep a lid on that shit until you're ready to move past it.

And for those of you who will read this and want to remark, "Who do you think YOU are to make such a suggestion?"

Answer: I'm me, this is my Substack space, it's an opinion piece, and you can go get fucked.