Fruit in Normal entries

Fruit of the poisoned tree. That’s one of the cooler phrases us regular folks don’t get to bandy around much. It’d be a cool name for a band or nickname for the ex-in-laws.

Shit. This keyboard is getting toasty, crunchy, off its game.

So, yeah, fruit of the poisoned tree. Every now and again you’ll hear the phrase in some courtroom drama, usually they explain it, though it’s pretty straight forward. If, for instance, and usually this is the instance, a search and seizure is deemed illegal or inadmissible, all the stuff found by it is inadmissible too. Almost seems like bull shit, doesn’t it?  Like if the cops bust in a guys house because he looks froggy and find a bunch of guns and drugs and cash, we, the people, don’t think the guy is innocent. I guess some of us might not be too upset about guns and drugs and cash (though you are trying real hard not to look froggy now, ain'tcha?). But let’s say it’s child porn, or fabric from the clothes of a murder victim. Still fruit from a poisoned tree.

And the phrase is used as often as not in white collar crimes, evidence no one understands from a source no one can identify about numbers no one gets. We have an interesting relationship with the justice system, you and I. Sort of like we do with national politics; we kick and scream and rend our clothing when shit isn’t going our way, and sit back and call it justice when the same thing happens to the “other guy”.

You and I are part of the problem. I mean the court of public opinion doesn’t have a blind fold and scales, it has a torch and a pitchfork. When we work up media propaganda against another culture the three core systems we “expose” are Justice, marriage/kinship, and a sort of intangible notion of freedom, using whatever standard we see fit. By we I mean people, good guys, bad guys, us, them, dictators, chiefdoms, democracies, those guys.

In that respect, all the fruit comes from a poisoned tree, or, any culture is a pretty façade for our innate savagery. I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing this entry exactly, I mean what provoked it, other than dusk is a’comin’ and I sort of promised myself to try writing more often whether it’s crap or not … um, whether it’s relevant or not.

I did see a couple of things on Facebook that were disturbing, but Christ I take all that with a grain of salt. One was about a pedophile and a light sentence, the other a “pitbull attack”. What struck me was, and this is giving a gross benefit of the doubt, the naivete it takes to be outraged. Again, grain of salt, so it didn’t take a whole lot of restraint to point out how much baby raping and dog on dog crime occurs daily, locally, globally. In fact, if it wasn’t for all the empty hate language I find it sweet that people are shocked. And if the hate language isn’t empty, I’m grateful that most people don’t have a clue the frequency and depravity and … shit. Pitchfork and torches.
I could make a great case for shared culpability, or even the relative innocence of the perps, but I think it would be mistaken as some kind of soft on crime liberal horseshit. Hell no. Once you’ve raped a baby you’re done as far as I’m concerned, I might be the most liberal person ever to advocate the death penalty, but baby raping isn’t a capital crime. Dog on dog crime is ninety nine percent of the time handler error. I’m not even talking about illegal dog fights. What my point would be if I did argue the culpability of owners, parents, the culture as it pertains to baby raping and dog on dog crime, is that if you’re going to try and solve social or abhorrent problems with pitchforks and torches you better bring a lot of back up pitchforks and torches. It’s like weeding your garden by chopping off the heads of dandelions; a lot of effort and sweat just to make the problem worse. If you want to get rid of weeds you have to get all the roots everywhere, and, honestly, one dandelion is kind of pretty in sunny and lonesome way. One dandelion never solves anything. And ranting about one dandelion, crying out a call to arms over one dandelion, well, you see how that shit could have provoked, in a sideways kind of way, a poorly typed entry on Fruit of the poisoned tree.

It’s almost forty degrees out, the snow is shrinking, and, according to the background music, the lunatics are on the grass, remembering games and Daisey chains and laughs, got to keep the loonies on the path. Done and done.