By
Lora J. Mackel
As though the world could not get any crazier, this week some descendants of Henry McCarty, aka "Billy the Kid," decided to bother the governor of New Mexico with a petition to pardon their relative for brutally killing many people in the West.
Just imagine the message that would send to kids: it's okay to kill people if Old West fans think you're cool. Pardons are traditionally given to people who have served their sentences and proven that they are once again worthy of full citizenship, not cult-figure craven criminals.
Why in the world would these people even think of asking for a pardon for Billy? Well, why not, considering the celebrity that criminals have in this country. Consider the notoriety of Charles Manson or the American obsession with the mob. There is even a restaurant called Alcatraz, to pay homage to the nefarious criminal elements in our society. United Colors of Benneton recently featured death row inmates in their ads. Oliver Stone picked up on this American obsession in his controversial movie "Natural Born Killers."
A most recent example of this sick and sad cultural obsession would be the Texas seven, whose capture completely interrupted the news cycle. Americans savor their burgers, their apple pie and especially their criminals.
Maybe it comes from our obsession with underdogs. To hear America's history being told by the average citizen is to hear the story of a rogue state, on the wrong side of tyranny cloaked in corrupt authority, defying laws when overall justice was in question. Many prominent members of our society have been thrown in jail at one time or another. Consider Martin Luther King Jr. and the letters he wrote from the Birmingham, Ala. jail. The distinction, of course, is that our prominent citizens engaged in civil disobedience to change laws and their applications. "Billy the Kid," Jesse James and other revered criminals were killed for no other reason than their own pathetic self-interest.
Anyone who is actually interested in the facts, as opposed to the myths, of the lives of Billy, or James or Capone, would be best served by reading history instead of watching a movie. The facts are nothing to romanticize about. These men shot people in cold blood leaving wives without husbands and children without fathers.
Pardoning a long-dead criminal for deeds for which he was never publicly sorry would absolutely send the wrong message to kids, and to adults for that matter. We live in a society that is obsessed with celebrity, and whether that celebrity is merited is not an issue with Americans. If children think they will be achieving fame with criminal acts, they will do them to get attention. Kids like Dylan Kleibold and Eric Harris perpetrated their crimes, knowing full well that they had an audience. Criminals do not need this added incentive to commit crimes.
Besides, the victims of Billy's crimes still have family who do not want the person that killed their loved ones to be remembered positively. Furthermore, the day that "Billy the Kid" escaped from a New Mexico jail, he shot and killed three law men, Sheriff William Brady and his deputies.
Just what the police want - more glorified cop killings.
Billy the Kid was a human being, but now his image is mythological. The image of Kid is in movies, books, documentaries and virtually every cheesy staged Old West gun show. But the myth of the man does not eclipse and somehow make right what Henry McCarty did.
Long before the pardon issue came up, there was a popular country song called, "I miss 'Billy the Kid.'" But really, who likes sociopathic murderers? Our country and world are saturated with crime and violence. We do not need to fondly remember the dead criminals.
