Petty Grifters Gone Big-Time
20th December 2010
Apparently, White tried to help the Garcias — and they robbed him, killed him and dismembered his corpse.
From In Cold Blood to Helter Skelter, from the two punks who killed Matthew Shepard to the weirdo who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, the tale of the petty criminal who eventually makes the major leagues of serious, shocking crime is a very old one.
Another reminder that those who break the law, no matter how ‘trivial’ the offense may be, are people who have demonstrated that they do not possess the psychological curbs against law-breaking that are society’s first line of defense against descent into chaos. The only thing that allows society to function normally is our confidence that the vast majority of people we encounter every day have these curbs. Otherwise you wind up with Beirut or Zimbabwe. That’s why these people need to be removed from any opportunity to interfere with the lives of others; the only argument is about which is the most effective way to do so; and the proper criterion is the welfare of the law-abiders, not the purported ‘rights’ of the law-breakers.