Martha Stewart, who built a multimillion-dollar empire around her own cooking, decorating and entertaining visions, was sentenced today to five months in prison for lying to investigators about a stock sale that brought her relatively little financial gain but has cost her heavily in terms of her reputation. (Lawyers for Stewart Have Vowed to Appeal Her Conviction by Constance L. Hays, The New York Times, 07/16/04.)
Read Andrew Bernstein's article, Martha Stewart: The Injustice of Insider Trading Laws. Here is an excerpt:
Martha Stewart was investigated for the "crime" of insider trading and later convicted of obstructing justice for lying to authorities during the investigation. But the questions no one is asking are: Should Martha even have been the subject of a criminal investigation in the first place? Should anyone be investigated for insider trading? Is insider trading objectively a crime? (MensNewsDaily.com, 07/12/04.)
Related: My post, MARTHA TALKS: "NOT GUILTY".
Dr. Michael J. Hurd has the following comment:
Martha had no defenders except the millions who loved how she made their lives a little brighter. These people have no voice; they could file no class action suit on her behalf. The cultural elites who despise everything that's good about this country do have lots of power, and that's why they beat Martha.
UPDATE 07/21/04:
I thought that the "Jante Law" was a phenomenon predominantly ingrained in SWEDEN - THE SOCIALIST "PARADISE". But after reading Stephen Evans' article, Martha Stewart: What should she do next?, written in a form of a fictitious "memo" to Martha Stewart, I am starting to think that this unspoken moral code has taken over the rest of the world. Rachel Marsden is commenting on the situation in an outspoken way, in her article, How Lady Justice Failed Martha Stewart. Here is an excerpt:
After Martha was pursued relentlessly by the prosecution and charged with lying to the feds and bureaucrats, she was convicted by a jury which I believe lowered the hammer out of envy for her success and for her perceived bitchiness--which has been played up to the hilt in the press.
Do you really think that same jury that convicted Martha Stewart on those questionable charges would have convicted an average Joe or Jane who was just like them? Not a chance. One juror by the name of Chappell Hartridge called his verdict a “victory for the little guys.” Clearly he saw himself as the “little guy” and Martha as the big tycoon who needed to be brought down to size—facts of the case be damned. (OpinionEditorials.com, 07/21/04.)
If you want to learn more about the "tall poppy syndrome," go to Cox & Forkum's post, 'Tall Poppies'.
For more cartoons like this, check out John Cox & Allen Forkum's book, Black & White World.
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