The last-minute attempts by lawyers to delay the execution of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh highlights one of the less attractive aspects of America society: its love affair with legalism, no matter how tortuous the argument. The claim that, because the FBI had withheld evidence at McVeigh’s trial of others involved in the atrocity, the execution should be delayed demonstrates legal pedantry of the worst sort. There is no justification for delaying the execution. McVeigh was found guilty of a horrendous crime. The fact that others might have been involved does not make him any less guilty. The federal judge who refused on Wednesday to grant a stay of execution was right to do so. McVeigh must be punished for his crime.
People will probably be more astounded, however, by the court case in Los Angeles involving tobacco giant Philip Morris, although not so much the case as the result. The order to pay more than $3 billion to a smoker suffering from cancer is bound to be overthrown on appeal. There can be little doubt that the jury set out in as melodramatic manner as possible to punish the company. This is neither fair nor is its a jury’s role. Smoking is not a crime as yet in the US. If Americans want to outlaw it, they have Congress to change the law. It seems thoroughly out of keeping with America’s normally jealously guarded democratic principles that it should be left to an unrepresentative jury to make the rulings on smoking. The case highlights another unappealing aspect of modern American life: the need to find scapegoats to blame for one’s own misfortunes, even one’s own mistakes. In this case, it is impossible to believe the 56 year-old smoker’s claims that he became aware of the dangers of smoking only in the mid-1990s. Americans have known about it for at least 30 years. Unfortunately modern, secularized American society is fixated with the dream of staying young, beautiful and alive forever, and in the greatest comfort. It has almost come to be seen as a right, so much so that if for any reason the dream is dashed — as it must always be, for to be human is to be mortal — someone has to be to blamed; someone has to pay. It is going to get progressively worse. The next big case on the legal horizon involving people who need to pin the blame for their pains somewhere — anywhere — will be that brought by the parents of the children murdered during shootings at Columbine High School near Denver, Colorado, in April 1999.
A $5 billion lawsuit has been filed against several makers of violent computer games, including Sega and Sony, alleging that they inspired the massacre. This fixation is a particularly American one: there was not the remotest stirring of a lawsuit in Scotland following the Dunblane school massacre. Yet, the bombing of the Oklahoma federal building that killed 168 people makes for an exception, however. It touches a raw nerve with Americans. Blame the FBI perhaps; but those behind McVeigh? That is a different matter. It means thinking of an American as a terrorist. Politicians and the media in the US have no qualms talking about “Middle East terrorists” or “Palestinian terrorists” or, worse, “Islamic terrorists” even when it is a case of attacks on legitimate military targets. The words trip off their tongues without any thought as to just how insulting and hurtful such expressions can be. We are all perhaps a little too careless in such cases, using “Irish terrorist” when we mean IRA terrorist, “Basque terrorist” when we mean ETA terrorist. Americans would have been understandably shocked if the international media had constantly referred to “American terrorists” in their coverage of the Oklahoma atrocity. Could they therefore please stop demonizing Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims by calling them terrorists. Such discrimination is nothing short of racism If not, perhaps one of those lawsuits to stop this defamation. The US media and politicians might at last take notice.
