The headline on the front page of the St. Petersburg Tribune on May 21, 2015 read “Gyrocopter pilot indicted – Ruskin postman returns to U.S. Capitol to face prosecution.” Douglas Hughes, a Ruskin mail carrier, last month decided to land his gyrocopter on the Capitol Lawn in order to deliver 535 letters calling for campaign finance reform. He did not get to deliver his letters. The newspaper article goes to report that he has been indicted by a grand jury on:
· Two felony counts of operating an aircraft without a proper licenses or permits.
· Three misdemeanor counts for violating national defense air space.
· A misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle falsely labeled as postal carrier.
The article also reports that he “could face up to 9 ½ years in prison.”
Oh my! The “facts” of the case seem to be:
· Mr. Hughes has no criminal record or any history of being associated with any revolutionary or terrorist organizations.
· There were no explosives being carried on the plane.
· There is no record of mental illness.
· His attempt to focus attention on campaign finance reform ended up focusing attention on a gap in the security of the Capitol. In this respect he did everyone in this country a favor.
· One can agree or disagree about his method of attempting to draw attention to an issue about which many of us have concerns.
I am not suggesting that any of us should be operating any sort of aircraft without the appropriate license and permits although I can find no evidence that his skills at operating this vehicle are being called into question.
In short, I would not personally want to suggest that others try a similar method of bringing attention to any issue which we think Congress should be addressing as our very well paid public servants. On the other hand, I fail to see what real harm was done. Perhaps it would be good to fine someone a modest amount when he or she disobeys licensing and permits rules. That is what we do when someone drives a car without a current license. Instead we are going to spend a significant amount of money on building a case and prosecuting this man. (I could not locate any data on how much this might cost). Then, if convicted we (you and I) could end up spending as much as $290,885.57 on incarcerating this person (based on the federal register 2014 estimated cost of $30619.85 of housing a federal prisoner).
Why in the world would we do this? Possibly the same reason why law enforcement has spent billions of dollars incarcerating individuals on marijuana related charges. (The total currently spent on housing inmates for drug-related crimes and as an alternative to residential treatment of mental illness is an enormous amount.). If we counted the amount we spent at the Federal, state, county, and local incarceration costs paid for by we taxpayers it is a huge amount. There is also the emotional and financial toll on the individual and the family of the individual. We do this, I suspect, because we have somehow created a culture in which (1) it feels as if we do not have time for each other, (2) we are used to creating the illusion of a culture into which we can separate the good people from the bad people, (3) we feel a need to protect ourselves from a certain level of intimacy with ourselves and each other, and (4) it is a self perpetuating system in which millions of jobs and local economies are dependent on the current system
Sadly, we are a society which has come to increasingly rely on laws to punish behavior which could be handled with a metaphorical “slap on the wrist.” Yes, it is good that this gap in security in our National Capitol has been identified. No, it is not good for licensed or unlicensed pilots to be making decisions to violate the air space of the home of our Federal government. No, in my humble opinion it is not good that the original concern, campaign finance reform, has been largely ignored. Mr. Hughes’ very dramatic attempt to draw national attention to this important issues, has not worked well. If I, as a professional mental health counselor were asked to diagnose this issue, my diagnosis might be: Dumb Ass Attack.
When I was getting referrals to evaluate individuals because their employer has some concern, a professional employee assistance program would schedule an evaluation and deliver the results to the employers. There were times when my assessment was that the individual had serious anger issues, a mental illness, or an addiction issue. Often, however, I might get someone whose college or high school friend had come to visit and they had decided to drink more than was healthy or they had decided to smoke a joint for old time sake. I would diagnose them as having a “dumb ass attack.” Without exception they knew that they could be drug tested and approximately how much time has to pass before they could be sure of getting a negative test. They “should” have been more careful in light of company policies. On the other hand, were they “sick, addicted, or a danger to themselves or anyone else?” The answer in these cases was no. They did do something “dumb” but they did not need treatment or other intervention. Invariably, however, the company handing the concern wanted a formal diagnosis and a formal treatment plan. If I refused to submit such a diagnosis and treatment plan, they got very angry. It was clearly in their best interests to show the contract they had with the company was paying dividends. They were helping to insure that dangerous employees were identified and deal with. Hello! Really!
I could give many other examples of common sense taking a vacation. Take, for example, the case of the three-year old who was charged in Piedmont, Oklahoma with urinating in public. This little incident cost the mom $2500.00. Consider the case of the man in October of 2014 who got arrested for urinating in his back yard. Oh my!. Do we really need to be concerned about these incidents. I suppose that one could surmise that a three-year old was peeing although one certainly could not see the genitals of this three-year old without a magnifying glass. Even if the adult male was urinating in his back yard in broad daylight, how visible was his penis? We are talking here of an average of five to six inches of skin which one has to look hard to see. Then there was the case of the mother whose toddler got out of the house and was on the sidewalk of a busy street. The mother was a single woman who was tired and/or trying to get some chores done. Did the neighbors say, “Oh, she probably needs a break. We should offer to help.” No, she was arrested and charged with child neglect.
There are numerous cases of zero tolerance schools suspending a child for very normal behavior. It may be behavior that the teachers or administrators want to address but sending a kid home and making a big deal out the behavior is neither appropriate or kind.
There have also been numerous cases of a parent getting questioned about a nude photo of a very small child. We parents have been taking cute photos of our infants bathing for a very long time.
My point is that we humans can attempt to codify all behavior. We can do so through diagnostic manuals approved by medical associations, school systems, community, county, state, and federal laws. If not careful, nearly every behavior will now be labeled and we directly and indirectly will spend an inordinate amount of money enforcing the laws and punishing our neighbors.
How about a little common sense? I really do not care if a three-year old urinates in the front yard or even if an adult does so. I might say to my neighbor that perhaps it would be better to only expose one’s genital inside the house or in one’s back yard.
Actually, there are many behavior which, while I might not personally engage in, do not really affect my well-being or the well-being of my family. It is fine, in my humble opinion, to decide some behavior is not consistent with my comfort or beliefs, but do I really need to impose those standards on others and make a law which allows us to prosecute those whose behavior does not fit neatly into what I have prescribed as okay for me?
I am more upset with the behavior of the Capitol Police and the U. S. Attorney’s office than I am that of Mr. Hughes. I might recommend to Mr. Hughes that he go to his room and write an essay stating why his choice was not an acceptable one for the community at large. At the same time, I would have to thank him for helping to identify a gap in the system for securing the space around our Nation’s Capitol.
I do not want to arrest little children, single parents who are working very hard to be a good parent, prostitutes (let’s make it legal for goodness sake and insure that they are healthy), people who expose themselves (a simple response such as “Is that as big as it gets?” frequently stops the behavior), having porn (even child porn which can be put there by someone else) on one’s computer. I do not want to give a label to every “dumb ass attack” or every behavior which I do not like. As much as I would like to be non-judgmental I find that I can still be very judgmental. On the other hand, do I want anyone using my tax money to jail someone who does not cover what appears to be a very unattractive beer belly? Do I want to arrest everyone who seems to have no “taste?”.
What I am suggesting is that we need to quit using the legal system to avoid dealing with each other as neighbors. I think the most frequent “dumb ass attacks” are with those who use the legal system in the way I have been describing. I am merely suggesting that we dig deep into the recesses of our minds and retrieve a little common sense!
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