Copeland's Corner: March 8, 2023
Here's what can happen when you don’t teach a kid about accountability.
I’ve only deliberately stolen something once.
I’ve been a comic book fanatic all my life. When I was a kid, I lived for Saturday afternoons when I could walk the half mile from our apartment complex to the local 7/11 and, for the princely sum of just twenty cents, I could make a visit to a whole new world. I could lurk across the rooftops of Gotham City with The Batman, soar over the skies of Metropolis with Superman or race along the streets of Central City with the Flash. I’d do an extra chore every week to earn the twenty cents for my Saturday bout of escapism.
One Saturday when I was 9, I found myself spinning the comic book rack at 7/11 in search of that week’s selection when I became entranced by two books: a Superman comic and a Batman. The stories in both looked amazing, but I could only afford one. I don’t know where the idea came from, but I figured a way to get them both. I slipped the Batman book inside the cover of the Superman book and then went to the counter to pay. When the clerk asked what my purchase was, I held up the visible Superman book without letting him touch it, lest he discover I really had two books. He rang up my purchase, I handed him my two dimes and walked out of the store.
I walked the half mile back home, tightly clutching my comics and amazed that I’d gotten away with it.
About an hour later as I lay on my stomach in the living room reading the Superman comic while the Batman book sat beside me, my mom walked through the room. She saw the books and wanted to know how I was able to afford two comics when she knew I only had enough money for one. I hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before I finally broke down and admitted what I’d done.
In those days, corporal punishment was the norm in our house and, when we misbehaved, Mom or Grandma would take a switch to us. For the uninitiated, a switch is a wispy branch of a tree with which your behind is painfully welted. The welts would fade. The lesson you learned wouldn’t and you’d never commit the transgression again. The worst part was that they would send us out to break the switch off the tree ourselves and bring it back for them to whip our tails. That’s like having a condemned man bring his own chemicals to the lethal injection.
After confessing my crime, I fully expected to be sent on the long walk to the tree in front of the apartments to find the instrument of my punishment, but I wasn’t. What happened was worse.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Brian,” my mother said, sadly shaking her head.
I felt a thousand daggers pierce my heart. My eyes stung with tears. She’d never, ever said that to me before. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted her to whip my behind.
“How do I make it better?” I asked, the tears now streaming down my face.
She said that I had to go back to the store and tell the clerk what I’d done.
I picked up the two comics and made the longest half mile walk of my life back to the 7/11. I showed the books to the clerk and tearfully told him what I’d done. I expected him to call the police and send me to jail. I was 9, what did I know?
The clerk half smiled and told me that stealing was wrong and that if I ever did it again, I wouldn’t be allowed in the store anymore. He then smiled and told me how brave I was to come back and tell the truth. He then told me that I could keep the Batman book I’d stolen. I still have it today.
I learned a very important lesson that day. I learned that with actions there are consequences. I was lucky that in this instance, the consequences weren’t severe, but they were consequences nonetheless.
I tell this story for a reason. In the state of Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is close to deciding whether or not to charge Donald Trump and his aides with various crimes associated with their attempt to illegally overturn the 2020 Presidential election. Most legal scholars say that it’s a slam dunk. The evidence of guilt is overwhelming. It’s an almost certainty that the grand jury that’s heard testimony from a hoard of witnesses has recommended indictment. Prison may be the consequence of the actions of Trump and the others involved in this attempt to undermine American democracy. This is why the fact that it might not happen is so abhorrent to me and it should be to you too.
The Republican controlled Georgia state legislature has passed a bill that allows for the removal of a district attorney who “overreaches.” Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of the State of Georgia has strongly advocated for the bill and has made it clear that he will sign it into law. What this means in practicality is that Republicans in Georgia will have the ability to fire any prosecutor who is looking into something or someone that they don’t like. Want to make any guesses as to who the first casualty of that law will be?
I learned at the tender age of 9 that actions have consequences. Based on the mountain of books I’ve read about Donald Trump, he has literally never been held accountable for anything he’s ever done. When he was a child, he threw rocks at a toddler across the street for fun. When the toddler’s mother complained to Mrs. Trump, she did nothing to correct her son. There are stories of military school infractions in which Trump was involved and others paid the price.
As an adult, Trump directed his then personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to pay hush money to Stormy Daniels, a porn actress he had an affair with. Cohen went to prison. Trump has yet to face consequences. For four years the American people watched him commit crime after crime without accountability. Now, the Georgia state legislature is actually changing the law to keep him from being held accountable for what is the clearest case of the commission of a crime among all of the myriad of criminal probes into his actions that are currently being conducted.
Donald Trump is what you get when you don’t teach a kid about accountability. If a kid thinks he can do whatever he wants without consequences, he becomes an adult who thinks that he can do whatever he wants without consequences. That kid might even grow up to become the President of the United States.