One of my friends is fond of saying: “Nobody is perfect. I am nobody, therefore I am perfect.” If you understand why this statement is absurd, you are on the road to understanding what philosophers and rhetoricians call a logical fallacy. Fallacious statements are those that have no foundation in reality or contradict evidence.
The U is the last place we should expect commissions of fallacy. Nevertheless, U students aren’t immune to this problem, especially Tim DeChristopher, who, after being prosecuted by federal lawyers, is now committing in his defense an informal fallacy of the oddest kind.
DeChristopher intended to do what he perceived as the common good: casting bids on Bureau of Land Management property to prevent competing oil company bidders from drilling. His intention was to prevent global warming. It was a defense that Judge Dee Benson wouldn’t buy.
I wrote previously on the precedent this would set: Acquittal on this defense would suggest that an individual’s conception of “the common good,” and not the law, can act as the final arbiter of justice.
With this lesser-of-two-evils defense rightly abolished, DeChristopher now plans to submit another retort, this one entailing a logical fallacy most of us learned to avoid in elementary school. It relies on the ancient “he-did-it-too” legal theory.
DeChristopher plans to suggest that because federal prosecutors didn’t pursue past land bidders after they also were not able to pay for their winning bid, he is innocent. Realizing this direct injury to logic, DeChristopher’s lawyers are adding the suggestion that federal prosecutors who made these mistakes cannot be trusted and must be to blame for their selective prosecution.
If DeChristopher’s council can present evidence to that effect, the public ought to be thankful for its charity work and utilize these new revelations in preventing federal government corruption. I am happy to see their diligence. In fact, if they can show a judge that this is true, federal prosecutors should be removed from their posts for incompetence.
Assistant U.S. attorney John Huber said, “There’s people who didn’t have the money, but they didn’t have the intent to disrupt (the auction).”
What this says about DeChristopher’s personal confrontation with the law is unclear. I can largely agree with the final analysis. I’m not Benson. That, again, is not the point, nor should it ever be the point when a suspected criminal admits his guilt, as DeChristopher has.
If A occurs in correlation with B, A does not necessarily cause B. In other words, if prosecutors are horrible at their job and ruinous in prosecuting the law, this fact in no way says that DeChristopher didn’t commit a crime. The one does not cause the other.
I’m not advocating the maximum sentence, nor am I suggesting that DeChristopher deserves only a wrist slap. Whatever the judge or jury decide, this much is clear: No matter how many crimes of whatever flavor are committed around him, DeChristopher committed a crime. Justice and protection against future criminals requires that no exemption be given to individuals who break clear statutes, especially when the infraction is premeditated.
