“Pay attention, Vinyl Jr., and get your finger out of your nose! Now, a rogue is a person who mails somebody else a package bomb filled with doggy poo, like the one I’m about to send to my friend The King of Soup, okay? And in a few years, when I confess to having sent it, that will make me a hero.”
Very well. If that’s the case, I’d contend that the majority of people, having a serious crime in their past from which they had gotten cleanly away, and were not in any realistic danger of being apprehended, would not confess.
Inasmuch as using The King of Soup’s definition would seem to result in “hero” being used, I guess we agree.
There’s nothing about heroism in one area that precludes scumbagginess in other areas – although I have to say that since the purpose of bail is to ensure the accused’s presence at trial, it’s hard to imagine a more compelling argument than the one this guy can make to be released on bail – but for his confession, they never would have known it was him.
Still, perhaps faced with the reality of years in prison, his good intentions might evaporate.
Yes, but it wasn’t that one.
(bolding mine)
“Hey, let’s not put him in jail, because by God my kids need someone who can help them deal with that niggling feeling of guilt that comes from murdering a cashier.”
I think all of you suggesting that this guy is in some way worthy of applause for confessing are really missing something.
Let’s pretend he confessed 15 months after the fact, instead of 15 years? Is he laudable now? How about 15 weeks? 15 days? If you think anyone who confesses to a murder is a stand-up guy, then you ought to be cheering for half the killers in America.
Oh, and **Vinyl Turnip ** - if I had a womb, I’d have your babies right now.
This is a good example of fallacy.
The circumstances of the confession are highly relevant. If a murderer’s confession comes after the police have arrested him, and laid on the table in front of him positive DNA test results, a videotape of his commission of the crime, and sworn statements from a priest, minister, imam, and rabbi all implicating him, then I agree that his confession is not particularly admirable.
The key element in this confession was the fact that there was no realistic chance of being caught. He was not a suspect. The case was not actively being investigated. He had every reason to believe that by remaining silent, he could avoid detection, much less prosecution, forever.
That makes the act of confessing heroic. It certainly does not remove the taint of criminal liability from the original killing, of course. He was a scumbag for that act, and a hero for this. The two qualities, as KoS has already eloquently observed, are not mutually exclusive.
Well, that makes sense, if you assume that the only good reason to confess to something is to reduce your sentence.
No it does not.
You cannot even say he was good for confessing until you know his true motivations for doing so. I strongly believe he did it for himself only. That society benefits, does not make him heroic.
That is one way to look at if for sure, but lets say I kill Mrs. Bricker and all your children. Get away with it, no one suspects little old me. 15 years from now I confess. Do you – Bricker-- consider me a hero? Am I both a scumbag for killing them, but now a hero in your eyes for confessing? I mean now you can put this to rest behind you right? Do you think the Grocers family considers this guy a hero?
I don’t think hero would be the term I’d use. A hero should be making the world a better place and Inman is only trying to deal with a situation that he himself had created. But I can admire the fact that Inman is willing to live by the principles he has adopted and accept the consequences for his actions.
Homer, hearing Timmy O’ Toole fell down a well- “He’s a hero!”
Unless I have achieved some Buddhist-like calm and detachment in the intervening fifteen years, no, I doubt that ‘hero’ would be the first thing that leapt to my mind.
But this question is not particularly relevant. By the same token, you wouldn’t have me on the jury that decided ths man’s guilt, nor as a judge on the bench deciding his sentence, because as a society we don’t permit relatives of the victims to judge those accused of wrongdoing to those victims. Nor should we weigh the answer to this question by asking the relative of the victim.
An impartial, neutral party is a better arbiter of the issue. And that impartial, neutral party would say what I’ve said above: yes, he’s a hero for his confession under those circumstances, and no, that heroism does not erase hs criminal liability.
By that line of reason, we’re right back at the ‘no one is a hero’ point. All actions, reduced to their essentials, are self-serving. If I drown while saving a stranger’s life, you can argue that I did it because I couldn’t lilve with myself knowing I had refused to try, or that I did it hoping for the fame and recognition that would come with success.
So I’ll ask you what I’ve asked others: what kinds of actions ARE heroic?
Except there is no shame associated with being afraid to save someone. That is what makes some folks heroes, the ability to push themselves to act despite their fears.
There is shame (or should be) associated pro-actively murdering someone.
Well I also consider myself a impartial neutral party and I wouldn’t consider him a hero. I don’t consider his church group as being impartial at all, and thus would negate their thoughts on the matter all together.
Hero is not the word that leaps to the forefront of my mind, but I do think it is potentially admirable that he confessed. But not sure what word I would use to describe that action on his part. I do agree that this doesn’t erase his criminal liability. Doesn’t the reasons for his confession also come into play? If you confess to relieve yourself of guilt vs. confessing to ease the pain of the family of the man you killled seems like it should have some bearing before we slap the label ‘hero’ on the man.
A man who confesses his marital infidelities to his wife–she was unaware of them. Never would have found out, but his guilty conscious got to him. Is he a hero? I would say not, he did the confession to ease his guilt–his confession didn’t make things better for her at all, in fact it may have made it worse.
So do you think his intentions for his confession need to be taken into consideration?
Mary Winkler shot her husband, a Church of Christ preacher, in the back with a shotgun while he lay in their bed. She got off by making the jury believe that her husband was abusive and that she was a “good Christian woman.” She was accepted back into the church, and is currently trying to get custody of her children back.
Now, having known many Church of Christ preachers in my time, I have no doubt that the guy was a first-class, emotionally abusive asshole. But she didn’t have to shoot him. She could have just left him and took the kids—except for the fact that Church of Christ has a very strong prohibition against divorce.
I think “hero” is a bad word to use, in the sense that we’re weakening and vague-ifying our language by letting words like “literally” lose their clarity and start applying to figurative situations. We don’t have another word that can replace it. Likewise, hero denotes someone who sacrifices something for the good of another (or society, etc.). It would be odd to call someone a hero for sacrificing something to fix a problem that they intentionally caused.
I like the word “admirable” instead. His murder was heinous, his confession was admirable. They both belong to the man. I consider the man, as he stands right now, neither a hero nor a villain. He’s just another flawed human being who is trying to do something right, for whatever reasons.
“Hero” is a poor choice of words. He is a criminal who has shown signs of remorse. That is something, but it’s not heroic.
Actually, PunditLisa, I consider that pretty darn heroic.
But I do agree with Windwalker that people are always trying to pretend that anyone and everyone is a hero. SOmeone got shot down out a combat airplane and survived? Hero. Of course, he didn’t do anything which reuired extraordinary courage, but he’s a hero. Ask all the papers anhd networks.
I put him firmly on the villain side still. If he did something that somehow brought the victim back to life and gave him back the years of life that were stolen from him, and magically removed the anguish and grief he caused from the victim’s friends and family, then the murderer can lose villain status and go back to being neutral. And still not a hero, in my book. And a simple confession sure as hell doesn’t bring him anywhere close to neutrality, let alone hero status.
The problem here is, despite several posts discussing the mistake above, you continue to act as though there is a single slider, with “extreme villain” at one end and “extreme hero” at the other, and the slider can only be in one place at a time.
No one is suggesting his villainous status as a murderer is erased. His subsequent act is laudable, even heroic, but that doesn’t make him “lose villain status.”
Consider a hero – although I notice those objecting to the term have been a tad reluctant to actually identify an act that qualifies as heroic. But let’s assume that we unambiguously agree that Act Q is heroic. It doesn’t matter what it is – saving a drowning puppy from the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, perhaps. Whatever.
Now suppose that, a week later, it’s revealed that the puppy rescuer is a vile criminal of some sort - a rapist, let us say.
Does that erase his heroism for Act Q puppy rescue? No, no more so than saving the puppy erased his vile acts as a rapist. They co-exist. A man is not the sum of his parts – he IS his parts, equal and coextensive.