Long prison term

Darcell Prince's 50-year prison sentence for murder has been upheld on appeal. Prince, along with codefendant Leo Foster, brutally robbed and murdered one Huey Rich, a Chicago man who was attempting to advance his career as a hairdresser. The crime was aggravated not only by its brutality, but by the fact that Prince had impersonated a police officer while doing it. Given the well known marshmallow jellyfish stance taken by Illinois towards invoking the death penalty on miscreants (though not all Illinois prosecutors have cottoned up to it), a 50-year sentence is about the best society can hope for. But even then, there remains the possibility that Hillary Clinton or some other politician of her ilk might pardon him and set him free.

What makes the Darcell Prince case so remarkable is that the victim, Huey Rich, is the son of Congressman Bobby L. Rush. To the Congressman, I extend my sincerest sympathies on his loss. And I would hope that any other murder under similar aggravating circumstances would draw commensurate punishment from the Illinois courts, regardless of whether the victim had any political connections. I do not believe that Congressman Rush deserves what he is going through.

I say that fully cognizant of the Congressman's role, in his younger days, as an activist of the Black Panther Party, an organization not noted for its nonviolent activities. The Congressman proudly boasts of his Black Panther achievements on his official Congressional website. And his late son Huey was named after Huey Newton, another Black Panther not noted for his nonviolent ways.

I don't particularly castigate Congressman Rush for the extremes he took in his youthful activism. I have no problem accepting that he truly believed in the righteousness of what he did, and that his intentions were basically good. Hey, back in those days there really was unfair discrimination against African-Americans.

But what would happen if political activism with equally noble motivations were undertaken on the opposite side of the political spectrum? Many Ku Klux Klanners were just as sincere and idealistic in their Klan activism as Bobby Rush was with his leftist activism. And many sincere and idealistic Jewish boys and girls, witnessing violence against the Jewish community, joined the Jewish Defense League. [For the record, I declined several invitations to join the JDL, notwithstanding the personal self-defense measures I found necessary to implement against individuals who gave me trouble.] Would one of these individuals, if elected to Congress, boast of their former JDL activism on his or her Congressional webpage the same way Bobby Rush boasts of his Black Panther activism? I smell a double standard here!