Post Traumatic Jackass Disorder

Apparently this lawyer has a big heaping helping of it.

It's finally happened. Someone has parlayed the premise behind "reparations" into a criminal defense. It's called "post traumatic slave syndrome" and it was developed by a pants-shitting socialist professor-type at the Portland State University Graduate School of Social Work. (Stunning credentials there!)

Attorney Randall Vogt is so desperate that he's trying to use the imaginary syndrome to get his child-beating client off the hook for murdering his 2-year-old son.

An autopsy found Ryshawn Bynum died of a brain injury and had a broken neck, broken ribs and as many as 70 whip marks on his legs, buttocks, back and chest that were of various ages.

Bynum told police he hit his son with a watch strap during potty-training. He said the day before the boy died, he was playing "helicopter," swinging his son around the room, when the boy hit his head on a table.

The aforementioned professor-type describes the syndrome:

DeGruy-Leary testified this month in Washington County Circuit Court that African Americans today are affected by past centuries of U.S. slavery because the original slaves were never treated for the trauma of losing their homes; seeing relatives whipped, raped and killed; and being subjugated by whites.

Because African Americans as a class never got a chance to heal and today still face racism, oppression and societal inequality, they suffer from multigenerational trauma, says DeGruy-Leary, who is African American. Self-destructive, violent or aggressive behavior often results, she says.

Attorney Vogt describes the situation further:

Vogt says he will argue -- "in a general way" -- that masters beat slaves, so Bynum was justified in beating his son.

This is the kind of ill-logic you would expect from the left coast, but I've learned not to dismiss this kind of absurdity. It was just a few short years ago that I was laughing at the idea of "gay marriage." Now it's practically legal. (I don't include Massachusetts as part of the United States...)

It was about the same time I was laughing at the idea of slavery reparations. I thought we were already taking care of that with the re-distribution of wealth from the "winners of life's lottery" to the downtrodden. Unfortunately, it turns out that too many toothless crackers are getting a share of the income re-distribution and that doesn't sit well with the reparationists.

I would laugh at this new syndrome as well, but I have a sick feeling that this will actually turn up in more and more cases over the next decade until it's considered a legitimate medical/psychological condition. The bottom line still is - as it has been since the dawn of time - if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.

This attorney's desperation may, in fact, snowball into the further demolition of our already ludicrous criminal justice system. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Read the whole story to get the full depth of the idiocy behind the "syndrome" - and how these types of beatings are not only common but also accepted in black families, according to the author of the syndrome.

Thanks to Say Anything for posting the original story and to the wily Canuck for sending it my way.