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Drunk Driving: Forgiving the Unforgivable

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Media Link - Dallas Morning News
Written by Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D.   
Friday, 01 June 2001 00:00
Eleven years ago Larry Mahoney, while driving drunk, slammed head-on into a church bus returning from an outing at Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati. Twenty-seven on the bus died in the crash and fire, 24 of them children or teenagers. Now he's leaving prison, after less than 11 years in jail. Much more disturbing, though, is the fact that some of his victims -- the ones who survived, anyway -- are willing to forgive him. "I feel a little bit sorry for him," said one survivor, incredibly. Forgiving the unforgivable is not a virtue. It's a vice. Unjustified forgiveness makes it that much easier for some future Larry Mahoney to rationalize away his choice to drink and drive. After all, he can always count on somebody, in the end, to forgive him. The more we excuse and tolerate such behavior, the more of it we can expect to see in the future. We live in the age of non-judgmentalism. Of unconditional love. Of forgiveness no matter what the circumstances. Of nauseating, endless feeling of others' pain -- whether they deserve compassion or not. No wonder bad kids shoot up their schoolmates, Presidents lie to our faces, and drunk drivers return to the streets. We enable them to do so, by shirking judgment. Laws and sensitivity seminars are not enough. We need to make moral judgments. Our lives, sometimes quite literally, depend on them.
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