Humanitarian Found Guilty in Littering Charge

Dan Millis: Guilty, but no Punishment

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

On Monday U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco finally delivered his verdict in regards to my July 25 littering trial.  The ruling was delivered as a memo to my lawyer, and said only that I had been found guilty of the Class B misdemeanor offense of littering on a National Wildlife Refuge, and that sentencing was suspended.  A suspended sentence means no sentence whatsoever - no fine, no jail, I don't even have to pay the original $175 ticket.  Apparently, the U.S. government believes that humanitarian aid is a crime for which no punishment is warranted. I couldn't disagree more.  And I'm not alone.  Yard signs and stickers all around Tucson and beyond assert that "Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime."  Rather, it is an act of compassion and basic decency, like jumping in a pool after a drowning baby.  It's a no-brainer.  And to say that it shouldn't be punished?  Duh!  Humanitarian aid should be valued, congratulated, practiced, preached, and, most importantly, funded.  Even this 'guilty' verdict has a conscience, and can't quite bring itself to levee a penalty.

This sort of perversion of reason is getting way too common.  The most disturbing example for me has been the so-called "torture debate."  That the word "debate" could even be applied to the immorality of torture is appalling.  It's like debating, "Is evil bad?"  Our willingness to accept topics like torture and humanitarian aid as "controversial" shows steadfast apathy and a commitment to ankle-grabbing. 

We have to fight this apathy.  Apathetic non-decision making gridlocked immigration reform in Washington.  Our apathy and indecision rubber-stamp deportation raids of Phoenix area latino neighborhoods by Sheriff Joe "Ar-payaso" and his deputized Klansmen.  And, yes, it is our apathy, yours and mine, that forces people to immigrate, at great costs, towards socio-economic utopias, like the one that feeds us, teaches us, gives us meaning, and puts us to sleep, with very, very little effort.

"The only thing holding up a wall are the people who don't push it down." -Klee Benally, Blackfire

Click here to learn more about Dan's case and about the work of No More Deaths along the U.S. Mexico Border.