What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
by Jim Fussell
August 9, 2020
Over the years I have been in repeated contact with Ohio Legislators, including Senators, Speakers, Congressmen and Congresswomen, State Representatives, etc, Regarding Ohio laws and the parole process.
Some like Representative Bill Seitz and Senator Thomas have been receptive, others have turned a deaf ear. One person I was in contact with was Speaker Larry Householder, just within the past few months.
Speaker Householder now faces federal charges and even though there is a myth that you are presumed innocent until proven guilty, we all know that is a load of crap.
Speaker Householder will be convicted, some of the other four will turn and testify in order to get lighter sentence. Additionally Householder may face State charges, that is where it will become ironic.
Here you had a person in power that had the ability to embrace bills, legislation, to revamp the Ohio Parole Board but he did nothing because he looked upon prisoners as disposable entities. Much like Dewine refers to prisoners as “those people”.
Now that Householder may face State charges and providing he does not get flat time, he too could easily become a victim of the Ohio Parole Board practices and considering the newest laws on the books regarding people of authority, abusing power, they get special treatment and not in a good way
This is not to throw shade on the parole board, after all, they follow what laws are afforded to them and when the legislators ignore problems and people are treated differently. One can not blame entirely, the parole system. That system is set up by the legislators and only they can make changes, THEN the parole process will become fairer.
When you have multiple sentence structures such as old law, new law, new new law, you end up with a class of people that are serving time in a different fashion. Then when you mix them all under one roof, you have serious issues.
Maybe Householders situation will cause other public officials to maybe stop and think. Maybe one day they will be in his shoes. Just like Governor Dewine, he had a obvious indifference to prisoners that were tested positive for the virus. He preferred to ignore, side step questions from reporters about prisoners. Now that he had a scare when his first test came back positive and he had roughly 24 hours to face those fears before finding out from two other tests that he was instead, negative for the virus. Maybe he will become slightly more compassionate. It is doubtful.
Those in power need to understand that although they may think they are immune from what everyone else goes thru, sometimes reality sinks in and carma and whatever else and they find themselves in different shoes.
At some point Householder and his buddies may find themselves regretting that they ignored the parole board issues. They were so busy passing the buck and doing what they do, unimportant things that they could have fixed and now urgent things that they will wish they had fixed.
Society seems as a whole to lose sight of the fact that the world and life as they know it today, can change in a heartbeat. Today they can live in a nice house, drive nice vehicles, have a nice bank account, a safe environment, tomorrow it could all be different, far different. The homeless person you glance at today and ignore, that could be you next week, next month, next year. How would you want people to treat you, the same as you treated others today or will tomorrow really open your eyes?
I come in peace..
Sincerely,
Jim Fussell
A154-973 MCI
P.O. Box 57
Marion Ohio
43301