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Craziness in Kansas!

The big news on the campus of the University of Kansas (where I teach my college course) in the past week or so has been fighting — I don’t mean arguing; I mean actual violence — between members of the University’s football and basketball teams.  If I were the University’s new chancellor, I’d kick every player who’s been directly involved off the teams and out of school, and I wouldn’t give a damn what it did to the teams’ performance, or what it did to athletic revenue, or what the alumni thought about it, or anything other than sending the message that the University is a LEARNING institution where there’s zero tolerance for violence.  Taking a stand like that would probably do more for the prestige of the University than a few points one way or the other on the football field or basketball court, but I don’t expect it to happen because of the overemphasis on sports in our culture that I’ve written about repeatedly this year.

OK, if you don’t think the violence amongst the athletes is that big of a deal, see what you think about this one:  Back in January, four University of Kansas students were robbed at gunpoint while waiting in the drive-through line at a fast-food place here in Lawrence, Kansas.  Both the robber and the getaway driver were apprehended.  Props to the cops for that!  But guess what’s happened now?  A judge has sentenced both perpetrators to…three years’ PROBATION!  That’s right, PROBATION!  One more time — PROBATION — for armed robbery!  How insulting, both to the four victims and to the cops who worked hard to catch these two creeps!

Do you see what I mean about how reluctant this society has become to make decisive judgments about behavior and how tolerant it’s become of horrendous behavior?  And this isn’t L.A. or New York — this is KANSAS, the heartland!  WHAT THE HELL, ladies and gentlemen?  How many times have you committed armed robbery in your life?  None?  That’s what I thought.  And it hasn’t been hard, has it?  No, it hasn’t.  It’s been easy.  Every one of us should be expected to go through our entire lives without ever robbing anyone else at gunpoint, period, and if one of us does, we should lose the privilege of living amongst our law-abiding fellow citizens for a significant portion of our lives.  How long?  I’d say these two convicts here in Kansas should’ve gone away for at least five years, and the only reason I could be OK with sentences that short is because no one got hurt!

Why am I so fired up about this craziness in Kansas?  Because I fully expect to be covering it on television when, sooner rather than later, these same two creeps who robbed the students in the drive-through rape or murder somebody!  With slaps on the wrist like PROBATION sentences, who in his/her right mind would expect these two pieces of crap to take society seriously when it says that they need to obey the law from now on?  I predict right now that their criminal behavior will only escalate and that they will victimize someone else, more severely next time, within the three-year probation period.

Just as kicking violent student athletes off their teams and out of school might make people take the University seriously when it says “no violence on campus,” lengthy, hard prison terms for the convicted robbers might’ve made people, especially the two robbers, think twice about breaking the law in the future, but even if not, at least for the next few years, we could rest assured that these two weren’t going to walk up to our cars or to our loved ones’ cars in a drive-through lane, or come up behind us or behind our loved ones at an ATM, or worse.  But no, thanks to their judge, that’s what we get to worry about, starting now.

Sadly, this tolerance of violence is going on all over the country, and it’s contributing to an escalation in violence nationwide (I have an upcoming column about how “cultural chaos” is compounding crime in this country, so be on the lookout for that).  It’s clear that we can’t rely on individual judges to drop the hammer of justice on those who refuse to live peacefully among us, so I encourage each and every one of you to contact your legislators and demand that they take matters out of judges’ hands and impose stiff mandatory minimum sentences for all crimes involving violence.

Have a good and safe weekend!
Dr. Brian Russell

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