It came out yesterday that Bernard Madoff, financial wiz and money-thiever extraordinaire, plans to plead guilty to litany of charges, all related to stealing more money than I can imagine, which could carry a sentence of up to 150 years, a life sentence for anyone but Methuselah.
Many people think that Madoff is getting what he deserves, and that may be true, he did steal an awful lot of money. Yet, life sentences are normally reserved for murderers, rapists, terrorists, and the occasional drug dealer (because drugs are bad), so how does Madoff fit in here?
Well in the Old West, horse-thieving was a crime punishable by death (usual by hanging, but sometimes, for irony’s sake, by being dragged behind a wild horse). I think we can all agree that $50 billion is probably more than the worth of a horse (but oddly enough the exact price of a unicorn), so maybe Madoff should be hanged, or alternatively dragged behind a horse through Central Park like a macabre carriage ride. This would probably be an overreaction, or at the very least illegal, as the death penalty is no longer enforced in the State of New York, but that of course brings me to my next point.
Bernie, if you’ve already got yourself a life sentence, go out and live it up. Steal a car, rob a store, burn down a school, do whatever makes you happy. Apparently, what you’ve done already is far worse than all those things combined, since I think you can only get like 20 years or so for them, so have a ball.
Seriously, go steal a little kid’s ball, you already stole his college tuition, so what’s the big deal?