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The True Citizen, Wednesday, July 6, 2022 — Page 5
Shellie Smitley
DECIDING WHICH LAWS TO UPHOLD
Ronda Rich
A DRINKIN' LIFE
District Attorney Jared T.
Williams issued a press release
June 24 declaring his refusal
to prosecute anyone affiliated
with abortion, if legislation
makes it illegal in Georgia. The
same day, radio personality
Austin Rhodes called it an act
of insurrection in a Facebook
post. I tend to agree.
Whether anyone, includ
ing Williams, agrees with the
legality of abortion is beside
the point. District Attorneys,
including Williams, have the
authority to decide whether to
prosecute on a case-by-case ba
sis, however refusal to uphold
the law is a whole other story.
Williams pointed out in
his statement “I fight violent
gangs who kill children in the
street. I fight abusive parents
who put their kids in the hos
pital. I fight child molesters
who prey on our children. Until
our community is rid of violent
crime and sexual predators,
I will not expend our limited
resources to prosecute women
and their doctors for personal
healthcare decisions.”
However, many people are
prosecuted for crimes that do
not necessarily fit into the “vio
lent crime and sexual predator”
categories. Some people see
smoking marijuana as a per
sonal healthcare decision. At
the same time, some people
see the killing of fetuses as a
heinous violent crime. Driving
without a valid automobile tag
is a misdemeanor charge in
Georgia, punishable by up to
year of incarceration or pro
bation. It would be a shame
for people to find themselves
in courtroom because they
forgot to renew their plates,
while people who partake in
illegal medical procedures go
uncharged.
I believe Williams is over
stepping his boundaries. His
job is to uphold the laws put
in place by the people with the
authority to enact them. It is not
his job to decide which laws
are worthy of being followed.
Williams is an elected official
who took an oath to uphold the
law. It’s one thing to voice his
personal opinion about a law,
and it’s another thing for him
to refuse to obey them.
“Openly defying the legal
authority or established laws of
your country is the very defini
tion of insurrection,” Rhodes
said in his post.
When the rest of us openly
defy legal authority and estab
lished laws, we expect to be
prosecuted.
Once, many years ago when
I was young with a face kissed
by dewiness and innocence,
I knew a kind-hearted, gentle
giant of a man who was loved
by all.
His soft blue eyes twinkled
with joy and even when his hair
and beard had turned silver, he
was handsome. He was courte
ous, opened doors for women,
bought candy bars for children
and was always the first there
when help was needed.
Except when he was drunk.
Then he turned mean. His
light blue eyes darkened, his
jaw set hard and, if he thought
another man had dishonored
him in word or gesture, he
would start digging in the front
pocket of well-worn jeans and
drunkenly tried to pull it out,
saying - right mean-like - “Let
me get my knife out and I’ll
cut you!”
His reputation for this type of
tomfoolery was so well known
that sober men would quickly
surround him, pull his arms
behind him and try to talk him
down from murder. It’d take
five or six to hold him because
he was big, he was agile and
the drink triggered a lack of
reasoning that landed him be
hind bars a’plenty.
A young lawyer in town dis
covered quickly that he could
make a decent living by just
seeing after him and the other
members of his mountain fam
ily. Because when one fought,
they all fought.
He wasn’t an alcoholic. Or
addict. Or alcohol dependent.
Not in those days. No one knew
those words. We only knew he
was a saint when sober and a
devil when he had imbibed
too much.
He was mostly a sopping
drunk though often he turned
into a sobbing drunk. There
was a point, that lasted an hour
or so, that came between “just
got drunk” and “completely
drunk” when he cried, hugged
everyone he knew and, with
an almost garbled slur, told
everyone - even a waitress
he’d never seen before - how
much he loved ‘em.
The only thing worse than a
crying drunk is a mean drunk
so everyone knew that a few
more beers or Jack Daniels
and he’d be a raging bull. Once
he held a gun to the head of a
woman who had left him for a
sober man. Another
SEE
time he fist-fought a
man so hard that the RICH,
loser - the other guy 8
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