So often those who would defend someone, and often even the person themselves, will frame what they did in terms of "making a mistake." While deliberately criminal behavior can be considered to be within the very large and flexible category of mistakes, it seems disengenuous to excuse such a behavior as simply a mistake.
Eva Young wrote:
They seem to forget that Bruins banking career was cut short by a criminal conviction for embezzling or fraud.
WM: This is a truly unfortunate, oft repeated line. Ralph Bruins did time (2 years) over twenty years ago for his part in a banking scandal. He's kept his nose clean for a over two decades. Yet there are those who want to remind us that this man made a mistake once. Since, under our system of justice, he's long since paid for his mistake, why is it necessary to bring it up repeatedly to wider and wider audiences? Let the man enjoy his reformed status in peace. It's little enough to ask.
Embezzlement and fraud are not victimless crimes. The perpetrator specifically knows they are hurting someone financially and who that someone is. They make a conscious choice to break the law, intentionally inflict financial pain and commit a bad deed. Is that a mistake?
Compare it to a parking ticket, a speeding ticket, statutory rape and unintentional manslaughter while driving drunk. Where does it fit in the range of those "mistakes?"
Has Ralph Bruins really kept his nose clean, or has he just not been arrested? That is, has he gone out of hiw way to make amends and exhibited true regret -- something it appears that Brian Herron has done? Or just avoided run-ins with the law? Is he today in a position of fiduciary responsibility for other people's money? Maybe they have a right know about his past before they give their hard-earned dollars to an organization where Mr. Bruins is charged with its safe keeping.
I'm making no claim or intention one way or the other, having never heard of the guy until Eva posted. But I'm pretty sick and tired of politicians, power brokers, corporate bigwigs and celebreties "excusing" their behavior as simple mistakes and insisting that the public just immediately forget and forgive. They should have thought about those kinds of repercussions before they acted.
I'm not asking for perfection, here. I've made my share of "mistakes" and I regret them every single day.
Or do you believe Eva is simply trying to smear Urban Venturs and Ralph Bruins good names?
Chris Johnson Fulton
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