The Discerning Texan

Are constant medical attention and round-the-clock police protection enough to preserve this delicate flower? Or will the thought of being away from the media for 20+ days cause her to wilt? All men have their breaking point, my friends. An anxious world waits and wonders.

Pardon me for injecting a little conservative thought into all of this, but I have very little sympathy for Ms. Hilton. She has had all of the advantages possible in society, and has shown herself contemptuous to any sense of responsibility. The screaming and crying jag in court only came after she had thrown away her chances to get lenient treatment by lying and evading responsibility for her actions.

Let's not forget why Paris Hilton went to jail. Last January, Hilton got convicted of driving drunk. That killed 18,000 people last year; it's no joke. Hilton didn't have to serve a day in jail for it, either. She got 36 months probation and had her license suspended (in November 2006). She was also ordered into an alcohol education program.

Within a month, she had been arrested twice for driving without a license, and still had not entered the program as ordered. The city prosecuted her for violating her probation and the court order, and convicted her last month. Her defense? She blamed everyone but herself, and even at this last court proceeding, wanted to appear only by telephone. The judge had to order her brought to court.

Paris Hilton is no child. She's twenty-six years old. She has all the money she needs to hire the best lawyers to represent her. For that matter, she had all the money she needed to hire a driver after her license got suspended. Not too many of us have those kinds of resources, but she does, and she decided to flout the law and her probation anyway.

Did her parents bring her up poorly? It seems that way. Does it matter now? No. She's far past the age for taking responsibility for her own actions. Instead, she has acted with contempt for the laws, for the safety of others on the road, and for the court in which she was called to answer for her actions. Paris Hilton deserves no sympathy for her sentence, nor for the crying jag and histrionics she displayed when she finally figured out that she had pushed her self-centeredness just a little too far.

Labels: American Culture, Judicial