We should always have compassion for those people that are truly sorry for what they have done. Even Karla Homolka. But we have to look not just at what they say, but what they do to know if they are truly sorry. Karla Homolka never testified against her husband Paul Bernardo out the goodness of her hearth. She did it after wrangling out a deal with the prosecution. She could have told the prosecution about those tapes made of the criminal acts. She could have plead guilty out of shame and humility. As far as I know she did none of those things.
Mr. Byron compared Karla's relationships to murderers in prison to his personal dates with women from his nearby childhood convent. He compared her relationships to puppy love. This is what he had to say in his apology:
"I can hardly imagine the grief and pain that the families have suffered," the letter reads. "I sincerely regret if any of my statements over the past few days have contributed to their pain."
Mr. Byron completely misses the point. The families did suffer. But that's not the important part. The important part is that we make sure that Karla can never do this again. That is true justice. That is exactly what the restrictions are intended to do. Mr. Byron, quite frankly, needs a little therapy of his own I think. Doing what he did was a colossal lapse in judgment that is being condemned by people of all parties all across the country.
What this story does highlight is another problem in this country: the Senate. We have to be one of the oddest democracies in the world, where we still allow an entire body of government to be unelected and unaccountable. The Prime Minister appoints Senators in this country, and despite his claims otherwise, they are partisan. And with the caliber of Senator that Mr. Byron has proved to be seeming like the norm in that chamber of government, we need Senate reform and badly.
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